He unbuckled my seat belt and pulled me to him, crushing me in his arms until my screams fell away and the only sound was the ticking of the engine and the hiss of the deflating airbag. Everything else was silent and dark, muffled by the swirling white storm.
"Oh my god," I moaned, leaning back. There was a hot, burning feeling on my cheek and I touched int gingerly.
"The airbag," Jonah explained. I could barely see him. He was just a voice coming from a darker shade of the blackness. "Abraded your cheek. It got me too."
"Jonah?" My screams had subsided and now the shaking was setting in. "Jonah are we in the water? Oh fuck, did we land in the creek?"
"No, no, hush baby. We're off the road on the other side. You went to the left when we hit that skid, not the right."
"How do you know?"
I reached out blindly to touch his face and felt his cheek lift in a smile. "I know my own town," he said.
I pressed my lips together. "Are we stuck?"
He unbuckled his seatbelt and tried his door. "Well, something's blocking that," he said after a moment. He seemed totally calm, unruffled even, all of the traces of drunkenness that had clung to him gone now and I realized that this was the first time I was seeing Jonah King in his natural element. He had a problem that needed to be solved and he was going to find a solution.
A little tug at my heart made me remember what he had shouted at me just before the crash.
"Try your side," he encouraged me.
I nodded and tried my door handle. My door swung open about a half a foot and then stopped, I swung it back and forth and managed to clear another four or five inches before the dirt of whatever ditch we were in compacted to the point of blocking me entirely. "I can get it to there."
"Good," I could feel, rather than see him nodding. "Then we won't die of carbon monoxide poisoning."
"Oh god," I squeaked.
His hand quickly found mine. "We'll call for help," he said, fumbling in his coat pocket. He pulled out his phone and turned it on. It immediately turned back off again. "Well fuck," he said matter-of-factly. "Do you have yours?"
I reached behind me and fumbled for my purse. "I don't feel it, did it fall behind you?"
He twisted and felt around. "I'm not feeling it."
"It must have tipped over." I grunted and felt blindly. "Goddamn, where's the?" I stabbed blindly at the buttons on the dash, but no light flooded the interior. "We must have smashed whatever controlled that. Fuck."
"I found your lipstick?'
"Oh good, we can call for help using that."
"Ruby."
"Sorry, I don't mean to be mean, it's just..."
"You're scared."
"How come you're not?"
"Because this storm is gonna blow past as fast as it came up," he said briskly. "Because people will be looking for us, waiting for us to show up at the Crown. Because someone is bound to drive by any moment now and see the car off the road and call the police. We just gotta sit tight."
"It's so fucking cold though."
"Come closer. I'm warm."
I slid over, draping myself across the center console. "Yes, you actually really are."
"I have a confession to make."
"What?"
"I engineered this crash to I wouldn't have to play and could spend the night snuggling with you instead."
"You could have just asked," I whisper screamed, but let my head fall back against his shoulder anyway. Now that the accident was over, the adrenaline dump had left me feeling shaky and sleepy. I closed my eyes, burrowing my face up into the place at Jonah's neck where he smelled most like himself. "I wouldn't have minded spending the night snuggling you."
He was quiet for a moment. In the absolute silence and blackness, we could have been the only two people in the universe, floating in space. I closed my eyes and opened them and couldn't tell the difference. The absolute darkness was surreal. "You heard me?" he murmured.
I blinked against his skin. Of course I knew what he was referring to, he didn't have to say it, except... "Say it again," I whispered. My nose was getting colder by degrees and I nuzzled him with it. "Again."
I heard his chuckle, felt his belly rise and fall with it, but I couldn't see him at all. I could picture his face though, the way his dark eyes would go darker when he said, "I love you, Ruby. I just sort of realized it as I got in the car."
"Sort of realized it?"
"It hit me like, of course. Of course I love her. That's the only reason the way I feel makes sense."
"How do you feel?" I breathed.
"Like my life is just starting," he said into the darkness. "Like coming back to Crown Creek was the first day of it, seeing you there in the parking lot all pissed off and ready to skin me alive. That was the first day of my life and each day since I've realized more and more than the only life I want is one where you are the most important thing in it."
I wasn't even breathing any more. The dead silence and suffocating black of the car interior made it seem like this all might be a dream. "Jonah, my life is here. I have a job and a house and, and a fucking cat and..."
"And friends and family, yeah me too."
I grabbed his shirt and clenched a fistful of the fabric. "Don't you fuck with me, Jonah King."
He chuckled. "I'm still figuring out a lot of things, but I'm not figuring out how I feel about you any more. That's for fucking sure. How I feel is love." He gripped my hand and lifted my fingers to his lips. "I love you," he said as he kissed them. "And you don't have to say it back because I know I'm blindsiding you and we were just in a fucking car accident so my timing is shitty as anything but I wanted to tell you right now because nothing else seemed as important. "
"Not even getting help?"
"I told you, this was all an elaborate ploy to spend the night with the girl I love."
"Oh my god, Jonah. I love you too."
I couldn't see him but I could feel his body heat with pleasure, his cheeks getting warmer against mine. "You serious? You love me?"
"I love you."
He breathed out.
"I really wish I could see your face right now."
"I don't need to see you," he said. "I've memorized you."
"Have you really?"
"You have a little freckle in the corner of your eye. There are three little eyelashes on your right eye that point straight out instead of curling up like the rest of them do. Your eyebrows grow up first and then down. Should I go on?"
"Okay okay I believe you," I said, laughing. "I know you by heart too. There is a little swirl of stubble on your cheek that looks like a spiral..."
"Oh I am aware. It's a real bitch to shave, let me tell you."
"Your eyes have more yellow in them close to your pupil, like your iris is an eclipse of the sun."
"You should be the songwriter not me. I'm totally stealing that, baby. I'll give you credit though."
I sighed into his arms. My legs were getting cold and I tugged at my dress. We both sighed again. "How long do you think until someone sees us?" I asked Jonah.