Sneak peek of Chapters 1 & 2 – If the World Was Ending by Victoria Denault
Chapter One
Should I slap you?
Earthquake.
What? No. Really? Oh. Shit.
EARTHQUAKE!
It wasn’t Hunter’s first. In the four years he’d been living in Los Angeles, he’d been in three that he felt, and four that happened overnight that he slept through. But this was different from the second it started. Usually, there was a moment of pause, where his brain snagged and he couldn’t figure out why he heard rattling or felt a little unsteady. But this… this one tilted the generic tiled floor beneath him instantly and violently. This was… big.
He was in the chip aisle of Trader Joe’s, because his easily distracted and overwhelmed brain had gotten sidetracked while trying to figure out what to make for dinner. Usually, his girlfriend Leandra sent a list, because she had very particular things she would and wouldn’t eat. But he was trying to surprise her tonight because they’d been in a bit of a rut, to put it mildly. And now, he wasn’t going to get out of the rut. He’d be lucky if he got out of the chip aisle.
Every shelf, every bottle and jar in the store, started to move. A jar of salsa just up the aisle tumbled to the floor and cracked open. A rack an aisle over actually tipped, and Hunter’s heart lurched. He scurried back into a wall. Was that the smart move? Was he safe? People started to let out squeaks and squeals in fear because it wasn’t stopping, it was getting worse. There was another sound of breaking glass, something bigger than a jar of salsa. He saw a short hallway next to him, with a bathroom sign above it, and he bolted for that as another set of shelves swayed violently in front of him, and he heard a person scream. It seemed like a good idea to be in a smaller space, with no shelves to crush him.
He was sure he was the least quake-savvy person in Los Angeles, but he remembered something about hiding in a shower or bathtub. Of course, there were no showers or bathtubs in a public restroom, which dawned on him as soon as he pushed the door open. And besides, maybe that was a fire safety tip? Oh fuck, was he going to die in a grocery store shitter?
“Get down! Fuck!” Someone yelled, and then Hunter felt a hand on his wrist, and he was yanked to the floor with a force that felt like it might dislocate his shoulder.
Suddenly, his face was buried in long blonde hair. It smelled like apple, he noted, before his back hit the cold, probably disgustingly dirty tile floor.
“Jesus Christ!” Hunter barked as the doors to the toilet stalls swung wildly.
“It’s okay. We’re okay.” The voice said, but Hunter couldn’t see anything but blond hair from the top of the guy’s head on his chest.
And then…. Everything went still. Everything.
“Man, that was a biggin’’” The voice was low and male, and Hunter felt it in his chest because the guy was lying on top of him.
“What the actual fuck.” Hunter repeated without anger, just pure confusion.
The body rolled off of him and lay beside him on the tile floor. He shifted his head to the right, and Hunter locked eyes with the stranger for the first time. He had long, wavy blond hair, high wolfish cheekbones, and wide-set, round gray-blue eyes. And a dimple in his left cheek, Hunter noted, as the guy flashed a sheepish smile. “Sorry for the tackle. You okay?”
Hunter blinked his own dark brown eyes. “Yeah. I guess.”
“First time?” The blond looked like he belonged on a surf board, not in a grocery store bathroom, wearing one of their God-awful Hawaiian print staff shirts.
“At… Trader Joe’s?”
He blinked at Hunter, then grinned as if Hunter were absolutely delightful. “In an earthquake.”
“No. I mean… yeah, in public. I’ve been at home for the others.” Hunter took a breath that felt stunted and sat up. “And that was definitely the biggest one I’ve been in.”
The guy pulled his phone out of his shirt pocket and started tapping on the screen. Hunter decided to get all the way to his feet. He looked around the small, two-stall bathroom. It was empty except for them. He looked down at the guy still sitting on the floor. “Why did you jump on top of me?”
“Safety,” The guy replied. “Wanted to protect you in case something fell.”
“But you don’t even know me?” Hunter said, and that got the guy to look up from his phone. His thick, straight, pale brows pinched.
“Yeah. So? I don’t have to know you to want to keep you from getting crushed by a shitty fluorescent light.” He pointed up, and Hunter followed his finger and saw that the long rectangular light fixture was still swaying, although softly now.
The guy showed Hunter his phone screen. “No signal, so yeah, it was big. Takes a lot for the cell service to implode.”
The guy raised his hand, not holding the phone, and locked eyes with Hunter. It took a second for Hunter to realize he was asking for help to stand up. Normally, Hunter wouldn’t touch a stranger, let alone lock hands with him, but this guy did try to save his life or whatever, so… Hunter reached down, clasped hands with the guy, and yanked him to his feet.
“Thanks.” The guy didn’t let go of Hunter’s, instead adjusting his grip until they were shaking hands. “Colby. Hey.”
“Hey. I’m…” Hunter swallowed. This guy was super good-looking. It was an intrusive thought that struck his consciousness with the force of a baseball bat, making Hunter forget his own name. “I’m…”
“In shock?” Colby finished for him. His blue-gray eyes got serious as they flew around Hunter’s body, searching for something. “Shit. If you’re in actual shock, you’d be cold. Do you feel cold? Do you want water? A blanket? Should I slap you?”
“Please don’t,” Hunter replied, panicked. “I’m fine. And also, Hunter. I’m Hunter. Hey.”
“Hey, Hunter.” Colby stared at him, and Hunter had no idea what he was thinking, but he wished he did for some reason. “I work here.”
“I can tell.”
Colby nodded. “I mean not full-time. Or forever. I hope. I’m a musician.”
“I’m an actor,” Hunter said and paused. “Who waits tables.”
And then they both smiled. Because of course they were. That’s what everyone in Hollywood was—someone trying to do something other than what they were actually doing. Hunter laughed, it was nervous energy expelling itself from his six-foot frame. Colby grinned again, but his eyes seemed concerned still. “Are you okay? Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. How are you?”
“You know…. The same as before the earthquake, so…” Colby shrugged. Then, after a moment of locking eyes again, he jerked his thumb to the door. “I guess I should go see how I can help. Store must be a mess.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
And then Colby the musician left.
Hunter stared at himself in the bathroom mirror for a second, then turned and left the restroom. He made his way out of the messy store. He looked for Colby but didn’t see him. He walked directly home, which thankfully wasn’t far —two blocks east on Sunset, two blocks down Hayworth, just past Fountain. He was freaking out internally about encountering downed power lines or impending aftershocks, but all was fine. Los Angeles seems to be carrying on like it was no big deal. Traffic was bustling, dogs were barking, the sun was shining, and a breeze had started to move the palm trees. It was warm. Absurdly so.
His phone pinged as he was unlocking the front door, surveying the courtyard from their open-air hallway. A few of the potted plants in front of his downstairs neighbor’s door had tipped over, and the dollar-store plastic ‘No Diving’ sign that was usually hanging on the wrought-iron fence was in the bottom of the deep end, but other than that, the old nineteen-fifties building seemed unfazed.
He stepped into his apartment, toed out of his shoes, and walked through the small space, checking for damage. Luckily, he and Leandra couldn’t afford expensive stuff like wall art, so nothing had crashed and broken in their place except the shampoo bottle, which had tumbled to the shower stall floor from its perch on the tiled nook in the wall. He picked it up, put it back where it belonged, and headed into the bedroom.
His phone pinged. He glanced at it as he reclined on the bed.
Leandra: Please say you felt that?
It hit him with a wave of panic that she was in Malibu and would be swallowed up by a tsunami if this quake triggered one. Yeah, his anxiety was at level 10 today.
Hunter: Are you ok? Is the ocean calm? Should you drive inland?
Leandra: I’m fine. Working. Can’t drive anywhere. So you’re fine?
Hunter: Yeah. I was at TJ’s when it hit. Thought I was gonna die.
Leandra: Did you remember to get salsa? The Authentica one?
Hunter blinked.
Hunter: I got nothing. It hit before I could shop, and it was chaos after.
Leandra: Hunter! We groceries! I wanted salsa and stuff for fajitas, maybe. And we need oat milk.
Hunter sighed.
Hunter:Can you pick it up on your way home?
Leandra took so long to answer he had to double-check that he actually hit send on the text.
Leandra: Sure. I can do everything.
At twenty-five, Hunter wasn’t the most experienced with women. Leandra was only his second real girlfriend, but he knew that wasn’t a good response. He thought about what to say to defuse the situation. It seemed like lately, no matter what he did, Leandra wasn’t thrilled.
After almost half an hour, he finally wrote back to her.
Hunter: Sorry, babe. I’ll make it up to you.
She didn’t respond.
The day didn’t get better after that. His agent called and told him that he didn’t get a call back for that two-episode guest role. They decided he wasn’t ethnically diverse enough, which made Hunter want to punch a wall. Hunter had been adopted, so his parents’ ethnicity —which was French Canadian and Swedish for his dad and Scottish and Korean for his mom— didn’t apply to him. But he had done one of those ancestry swab tests when he’d turned eighteen and found out he was a quarter Japanese, sixty percent British, and five percent Jamaican and ten percent Norwegian. He was the fucking United Nations of ethnicity, and yet casting agents constantly told him he wasn’t enough of something or too much of something else.
Leandra came home at seven, and her mood wasn’t any better than during their one text conversation. She dropped the groceries on the counter in the kitchen and muttered. “I need a shower. Estelle had a particularly rough day. I blame the earthquakes and the winds.”
Leandra was a nurse who had recently left her hospital job to become a private nurse for an eighty-six-year-old former actress with dementia. She rotated shifts with two other nurses hired by Estelle’s son. She also taught yoga at a West Hollywood gym on weekends. Hunter thanked her for the groceries, then silently cooked the fajitas as Leandra showered and changed.
When she re-entered the kitchen, her damp light brown hair was twisted up in a top knot, and her face was free of make-up. She didn’t make eye contact with Hunter.
“Warm the tortillas,” she muttered and then took the wooden spatula from him and began shoving the vegetables around in the skillet like they had personally wronged her.
“Look, you need more shifts at the restaurant,” Leandra told him as they ate at their small high-top table in the dining room. She tucked a wayward stand of hair behind her ear and glared at him. “The roles aren’t coming.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Hunter said, trying not to sound defensive. “I’ll ask for more shifts.”
“Day shifts. Aren’t they always hurting for waiters for day shifts?”
Hunter tried not to frown. “Yeah, but I need my days free for auditions.”
“Auditions for roles you aren’t getting?” Leandra said. Ouch. Hunter felt that like a slap. Her eyes softened just a little. “Okay, look. Can you take some day shifts just for this month? We’re behind on bills. Just take a few this month until we catch up. I’m working my ass off.”
She was, he knew it. But Leandra told him she loved yoga, and caring for Estelle was a much more rewarding job than the grueling shifts at the hospital. She said she liked her son, who also lived in the Malibu house, and Estelle was delightful in her lucid moments. So it was grueling, but Leandra was doing what she loved. But Hunter didn’t dream of being a waiter. Still, he mumbled, “Fine. Yeah.”
Then he shoved the fajita into his mouth to avoid saying anything else. Leandra nodded, and Hunter assumed that she was content with that answer. But she stared at him as she chewed, and suddenly Hunter wasn’t sure what she was thinking. He was, in general, horrible at reading people. His anxiety created this white noise in his brain that blocked out rational thought, sometimes not to mention the ability to assess a situation clearly. He had a prescription for meds, but no insurance or money to fill it. So he’d been raw dogging it since he graduated from the Acting program at UCLA Extension two years ago.
“Cass invited me over tonight. Girls’ night.”
“Oh. Okay.” What else was he going to say? Stay here and watch TV with me? Let’s doom scroll Instagram together? Because even though they hadn’t seen each other much in the last month, he hadn’t actually planned anything more than dinner for tonight.
“I won’t be late.”
“No worries.”
He watched silently as Leandra nodded and grabbed their now-empty plates and her phone from the table before disappearing into the kitchen.
At one in the morning, Hunter woke up on the couch, a rerun of Law & Order playing on the TV, and realized Leandra’s version of ‘not late’ and his were apparently not the same… anymore.
He was debating calling her to check in when he heard a loud crack outside, followed by a hideous crunch.
Two
You think I have ambulance money?
Colby finished his set to a decent applause break. Probably the biggest round of applause of the night, and so he couldn’t complain. That made it worth using the gas to get all the way out to the Valley for this musical open mic night at a bar he’d never heard of until he saw an ad online.
“That new song kicks serious ass,” Briar informed him as he slid into the booth beside her. She patted his head like he was an adorable puppy before handing him a Whiskey sour. “My treat.”
He smiled gratefully and put the straw to his lips. “Did you like the bridge? I wasn’t sure about the bridge.”
“It’s perfect. No notes,” Briar assured him and stared right into his eyes when she did it, so he knew she wasn’t bullshitting. But still, Briar was his best friend, she might be biased.
She sighed and tapped her phone screen, checking the time. He watched her. “What time is your call time tomorrow?”
“Seven-Forty,” She groaned and then looked guilty. “It’s steady pay. I need to be grateful.”
Colby nodded —and waited— because whether she should be grateful or not, he knew Briar would still gripe at least a little bit. “It’s just the show is SOOO bad! Like so bad. I don’t know how it hasn’t gotten canceled yet. Like, fuck. Humanity really is devolving if they’re watching that garbage and liking it.”
Briar worked on a half-hour sitcom that really wasn’t funny. Colby agreed he had no idea how it got renewed for a second season. But Briar was the head make-up artist, and it was a steady gig in Hollywood (well, technically in Burbank), so she really shouldn’t complain. Colby knew thousands of people who would kill for a steady job in this town. Like that hot, spaced-out guy in the restroom today. He said he was an actor, so he would probably kill for a job on Briar’s shitty sitcom.
“Where were you when the earthquake hit?” He asked her as he pushed around the ice cubes in his drink with his straw.
“We worked until four in the morning the night before, so I was sleeping,” she explains, twisting one of her braids around her finger. “I mean, I felt a shake but just thought it was my roommate banging another rando.”
Colby laughed and tried not to make it sound awkward. He had been one of those randos —when the weather dipped really low a few months ago, and the heater was broken in his van. Briar had invited him to sleep on the couch, and that roommate came home drunk and horny. It had been fine. He hadn’t finished, but he had made sure she had.
If anything, the encounter had made it clear to Colby that he didn’t need casual sex. It felt like work. He usually couldn’t keep it hard long enough in those situations, even though he always went into them thinking he wanted it. He was beginning to think he was broken. Especially because then there were people he had a connection with, but he didn’t want to get sexual with them. Like Briar. He would go to war for her, and he knew that she would help him bury a body, no questions asked. Briar would probably enjoy it. But they’d never hooked up, and the idea of doing it made him feel almost queasy.
Briar finished her drink and rested a hand on Colby’s forearm on top of the table. “You good for tonight?”
“Yeah. Fine.” Colby nodded. She was always concerned about his living situation, which was nice. No one else was ever concerned. “Gonna go back to WeHo and find a nice curb by work. Have an early shift restocking all the shelves that got fucked in the quake.”
“Hey! Extra cash. Guess earthquakes are good for something.” She slipped out of the booth, then leaned over the table and cupped Colby’s angular chin in her hand like an overbearing mother. “Be safe. Be strong. Wear a condom.”
Colby laughed. “Be safe. Be strong. Fuck the haters.”
“With a condom!” she called back.
He watched Briar strut out of the club and wished he were attracted to her. God, how simple would life be if he wanted to fuck Briar, and she wanted to fuck him? They could move in together and support each other, and maybe marry and have babies, and his family loved her —and would love him again. Probably.
“Excuse me.” Colby looked up and saw a guy in a rumpled dress shirt and leather jacket standing across the table. He looked like he hadn’t slept much or maybe just got off a bender.
“Hey,” Colby said with a friendly but distant smile. There could be some grade A weirdos at these things. One guy once offered Colby forty bucks to play guitar, live, in the background of an adult film. Naked. He said no, of course… because his van hadn’t needed a heater at that moment.
“You were good,” he said and jerked his head toward the stage. “Best one tonight.”
“Thank you.” Colby’s smile got softer.
The guy scrubbed his uneven beard with his hand. “I’ve seen you before. Once at Jones’.”
“Oh yeah?” Colby nodded. “I love playing that room.”
He did because the crowd was engaged. Jones advertised well, and people actually came to hear music. In places like this, the audience was sometimes startled when people started getting up on stage, like they had no idea why people were singing while they ate mozzarella sticks and drank cheap beer.
“You always been a solo act?” He asked.
“Mostly. I mean, in high school I was in a couple bands.” Colby shrugged, and the guy stared. He was studying Colby for some reason.
“Would you consider it? Again?”
“Joining a band? Why?”
“I have these two guys…” The man stopped when Colby’s face dropped into a mask of disinterest. “I should start by saying my name is Maxwell Ford, but everyone calls me Ford.”
He leaned over the table to drop a business card in front of Colby.
Colby stared at it. Who even has business cards in this day and age? It was rigid black cardstock with silver print. It said “Range” in a big retro-style font. The other side had his name, a phone number, and an email address. Colby’s first thought was that it could be fake. But would a serial killer go through this much trouble? For him? Probably not. And he had heard of Range. Anyone trying to make music in this city had heard of it. It was a live music venue that was incredibly popular and ridiculously hard to book. People called it the modern-day Troubadour, which was a club where bands like the Eagles and acts like Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne had started out back in the day.
“I managed the Range and have final say on all the acts that perform. It’s on Fountain in West Hollywood. We do a new talent night every second Friday. I hand-select six artists, and you get thirty minutes each,” he explained. “And we pay.”
Colby nodded calmly, but inside he was buzzing. New Talent Night at Range was too big a dream to even be on his radar at the moment. You couldn’t audition for it. You had to be selected, but no one knew who did the selecting. Apparently, Maxwell Ford did. And now Colby knew. “Are you inviting me to play there, Ford?”
“Yeah. If you wanna play in the band I’m putting together. Play and sing, of course. We need a vocalist. The other two guys play drums and bass, and they’re good. Really. They can harmonize too, but not quite lead-singer material. You are, though,” the guy says with a smile and then extends his meaty hand.
“That’s why I sing. Alone. For myself.”
“Well, Colby Keaton, you can definitely keep doing that. Here. At Jones’ when they remember to book you,” Ford said easily. “Or you can entertain my offer. Meet these guys. Jam a little, see if there’s a vibe. And if there is, you can do New Talent Night at the Range. Every week. With pay.”
Wow. Okay. He was hard-selling this.
“And if I don’t vibe with them, or don’t go meet them, I’m what? Blacklisted?” Colby asked bluntly. He had been shooting his shot in Los Angeles since he was eighteen years old. Now at twenty-five, he’d learned cutting to the chase was best.
Ford exhaled slowly and rubbed his jaw pensively. “I’m not saying that. I don’t blackball people unless you’re like some kind of homophobic dick bag or like a rapist or drug addict.”
“I’m none of those things.”
“Yeah, I get that vibe, or I wouldn’t have bothered approaching,” Ford nodded. “So maybe eventually you’d get a shot solo. Probably. But I can guarantee you one in the next thirty days if you give the band thing a try.”
“I’m confused. This isn’t just booking talent,”Colby said and flipped the business card between his fingers nervously, like he sometimes did with a guitar pick as he waited to take a stage. “Do you always try and create talent?”
“I’m branching out,” Ford replied. “I’ve been running the club for seven years and booking the talent for five. I know what people like, and I’m not quite seeing it out there. Not the way I envision it. A new hot young group, like what Kings of Leon used to be, or like Arcade Fire, without the problematic lead singer. That’s what there’s a lack of right now. That’s what I’m looking to make happen.”
“And the songs? What’s the sound?” Colby asked, and Ford nodded a smile, almost pulling his lips up. Almost.
“Well, you’d be the lead singer, so that would be up to you. You’ve got good originals, and if you wanted to save them, I’m sure you could come up with some new shit. These other two guys, Kenner and Trevor, have a few originals too, but yours are definitely stronger. Their style vibes with yours, though, which is key,” Ford sounded like a music nerd who, Colby had to admit, sounded like he knew his shit. “So email if that seems like something you want to be a part of. Also, Range pays a hundred bucks per act, but if you and these guys work out, I’ll pay you a hundred each. Out of my pocket.”
“I’ll definitely think about it,” Colby replied, and he actually would because what would it hurt to meet these guys? Unless this was some really elaborate male sex trafficking thing, or he was about to be forced to become a drug mule or something. In L.A., anything was technically possible. “Thanks.”
“Sure, man. Hope to hear from you.” Colby stood before Ford could leave and extended his hand.
“Email me,” Ford said as their handshake ended, and with a curt nod, he turned and left.
Colby finished his drink, alone, staring at the business card, and then he took a picture of it in case he did something stupid like lose it. Because he’s had some shit luck lately, and anything was possible. He grabbed his guitar and headed out the door.
The air was dirty, warm, and swirling everywhere. Great, Colby thought, so an earthquake wasn’t enough, now we need the Santa Anas? These winds were diabolical. They had a folklore history of messing with people’s minds, but a very real history of causing devastating wildfires. Colby opened the side door and hooked his guitar onto the clips where it hung securely against the side of the van. He shut the door and walked around to the driver’s door. His blond curls flew every which way in the damn wind, so he yanked the hair tie off his wrist and tied it back.
He took Laurel Canyon instead of the freeway. There was no traffic, but he took it extra slow through the Canyon because it was one of his favorite places in the city. So many artists lived and loved and created there through the years, and Colby swore you could still feel the buzz of creative energy.
Colby’s mom had always called Colby her little flower child. He was a hippie at heart, always drawn to music his grandmother loved like the Eagles, Neil Young, and Fleetwood Mac. He wanted to live in Laurel Canyon one day. In a mid-century modern house on one of the winding streets that climbed the hill.
As if the universe was giving him a sign, the shuffle on his playlist landed on One of These Nights by the Eagles, and Colby smiled and sang along with the band, dodging palm fronds the relentless wind had knocked to the pavement. He found a quiet street a couple of blocks from Trader Joe’s that had a spot just big enough for him to squeeze the van into. Barely.
Still humming the Eagles, he turned off the van and put his expired West Hollywood parking pass in the window, hoping no one would notice the date on it. Then he changed out of his jeans and t-shirt, pulled the business card from the back pocket of his pants, and brought it to his bed at the very back. He didn’t put up window coverings because there was no camping on the streets of West Hollywood. The covers were a clear indicator he was in there, “camping”. Instead, he had this piece of heavy black mesh that he hung over a wire behind the front seats so no one could see in the back. Looking in it just gave the illusion of a dark, empty space. He crawled into his sleeping bag on top of the thick foam he called a mattress, on the square platform of plywood he called a bed frame, and pulled up his email on his phone.
This wasn’t going to be his big break, probably, but it was still a break. Any chance he got to play music and get paid for it was a step forward. His email to Ford was polite and simple. He would like to meet the guys and jam with them. He gave Ford his availability based on his Trader Joe’s schedule.
Colby fell asleep despite the wind rocking the van and the occasional voice of a passerby. At least with the wind, maybe he wouldn’t notice an aftershock? Because a Quake the size of the one earlier today would definitely have some of those. He wondered if the hot guy from the restroom was freaking out over the aftershocks? That was his last thought before he dozed off.
His next thought was that his van had been hit by a truck. Because he was woken by it shaking violently and by the horrendous sound of crunching metal. Colby sat up, and his forehead crashed into the roof of the van so hard he almost blacked out. He fell off the makeshift bed and hit the floor of the van with a thud. His hip instantly ached, along with his forehead. Why was the roof of the van so low he couldn’t sit up? What was happening?
There was a creaking sound that was so loud it sent fear tearing through his veins, and he frantically searched for his phone and his guitar —two things he couldn’t afford to replace. There was the crunch of metal again, and the whole van rocked. Outside, he heard a voice say loudly, “Holy shit!”
Colby found his phone first, on the floor by his left leg. His guitar had fallen to the floor too, off its clip against the van wall. He grabbed it and crawled to the van’s side door. It was stuck. He yanked and yanked, but it wouldn’t open. Colby let out a loud yell. “Help!”
“Is someone in there?” A voice asked from outside.
“Yes! The door is stuck!” He called out louder.
“Can you get to the front?” The voice asked. And then he heard someone trying to open the passenger door. It was locked, of course.
With his guitar in one hand and his cell in the other, Colby began crawling toward the front. As he lifted the mesh, he heard the guy try the handle again. It was a guy, Colby could tell from the voice. He crawled into the passenger seat and slipped the lock just as the guy was yanking again, and the door flew open. “Fuck!”
Colby watched the guy swing backward with the door, but he righted himself swiftly and reached a hand out for Colby. “Come on!”
Colby allowed the stranger to wrap a hand around his forearm and pull him out of the van. He felt slightly lightheaded, probably from the adrenaline, and swayed as he turned to grab his guitar. The man, who was broad-shouldered and Colby’s height, which was roughly six feet, put his hands on Colby’s shoulder to steady him. The touch was gentle and warm. The street was abnormally dark, and Colby could only make out the silhouette of whoever helped rescue him.
He was disoriented and confused, and his heart was galloping in his chest like a wild pony. A chunk of his hair was stuck to his forehead and felt wet. Why did his hair feel wet? He dragged out his guitar and went to put his phone in his pocket, but he was only wearing boxer briefs, so there was no pocket. Instead, he clenched it in one fist and his guitar in the other.
“Dude, you’re bleeding,” the guy said, and he started to push Colby toward the grass at the curb on the other side of the street. Colby let him because he didn’t know what else to do. There, the guy turned Colby around and gently started to push him down, so he was sitting on the curb. Colby put his guitar on the grass beside him and his phone on top of it before reaching up and touching his hair. His fingers came away wet, sticky, and… red.
“Fuck,” the guy said, and Colby finally looked, really looked at the helpful stranger.
It was hot earthquake guy. How the fuck was that possible? Colby blinked what felt like a hundred times in a few seconds.
“Trader Joe’s guy?”
“Colby.”
“Right. Fuck. Shit. What are you doing here?” The guy —Hunter— Colby remembered because he was actually good with names— was staring at him with wide brown eyes and an open mouth. “What are the fucking chances?”
“I was sleeping. I was parked and…” He finally remembered to look at his van —his home— and immediately wished he hadn’t. The top of the van was dented in, as if Thor himself had whacked it right in the middle of the roof with his hammer. Only it was a very thick, very large hunk of tree that was the culprit. It still lay across the severely dented roof.
“My living room window is just up there.” Hunter pointed behind Colby to the apartment building, but Colby didn’t bother to look. “I heard the tree fall. I don’t know if it was an aftershock, the wind, or what, but it made this huge boom! When I looked out the window, I saw it had landed on the roof of your van. I came outside to get a better look and heard you.”
“My home,” Colby croaked and touched his forehead again. “Fuck! It hurts.”
“We should call an ambulance.”
“No.”
“But you’re bleeding.”
“And I’m a musician who works part-time at a grocery store and lives in a van,” Colby shot back. “You think I have ambulance money?”
Hunter’s chiseled jaw sagged in understanding, and his dark eyes went to Colby’s forehead and narrowed. “It doesn’t look good.”
“Yeah, it looks totaled.”
“Not the van. Your head.” Hunter said, and he stared at Colby with a concern that really wasn’t necessary for a guy he didn’t even know. “I took first aid. I could check it out. If you want to come to my place.”
“I can’t leave the van.”
Hunter raised an eyebrow. “Worried someone will jack your sweet ride?”
Colby glanced at the van and back at Hunter. “Well, that was bitchy.”
Hunter smiled. He looked very… pretty, was what Colby thought. He may be concussed. Hunter walked back to the van, and Colby watched helplessly as he crawled inside and came back out a few minutes later with an armful of Colby’s belongings and his keys. It took a couple good yanks, but Hunter got the van door closed again.
He walked back over to Colby and motioned for Colby to pick up his phone and his guitar. “Come on. Let’s get a look at that head in my bathroom. I have a first aid kit.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Colby quipped, and Hunter stared at him and shook his head.
“You may be concussed.”
“Funny. I thought that too.”
