Page 4 of The No Touch Roommate Rule (That Steamy Hockey Romance #2)

I freeze a few feet from the front, dread icing my veins as I remember that my phone is still in my dress.

The dress I was so happy had pockets so I didn’t have to carry a purse.

The dress that’s currently underwater in the corner where I tossed it over twenty minutes ago.

Bleating out an obscenity from the core of my being, I spin and slosh back toward it, knowing better than to think my shitty cell case protected the phone, but feeling compelled to grab it just in case, when…the lights go out.

I freeze again, blood pressure skyrocketing in the sudden darkness.

The emergency lights kick in a second later, casting everything in horror-movie red, but the damage is done.

I just got the wake-up call I needed: I can’t afford to waste another minute fucking around or I might be about to find out.

Heart in my throat, I whirl around again, wading back to the front and climbing on top of the counter.

I’m about to slide back into the water on the other side when I spot a car floating by outside.

It’s a tiny car, one of those itty-bitty things from Italy that look like a cartoon come to life, but it’s still a hell of a lot bigger than I am.

If it’s being swept away, the chances of me making it through the current to the stairs and the terrace beyond are slim to none.

“Okay, okay,” I mutter, fighting tears as my thoughts race.

I can’t afford to waste time having a breakdown. I have to figure out another way to higher ground before it’s too late.

Pulse racing, I scan the ground floor, but the stairwell—my only real escape route, considering the elevator isn’t going to be working in an emergency back-up power situation—is on the other side of the lobby, near Allan’s place.

But that side is five steps lower than my side, and my counter is already nearly underwater.

I can’t see the coffee shop clearly from here, but it, and the door leading to the stairs beside it, has to be completely under by now.

I could try to swim down to it, but I don’t know what else is floating around in the flood, and the water pressure would probably be too strong for me to wrench open the door, anyway, even if I could find it.

Fuck.

“Fuck!” I croak.

There might be no way out.

No way out…

I bite my bottom lip hard enough to send pain flashing through my jaw.

No. This can’t be happening! I’m only thirty-three years old.

I make killer hollandaise. I just kissed a ridiculously sexy man in the rain after dancing all night at my best friend’s wedding.

I’m so close to moving off my storage shelf and into a real home.

I have friends and family who love me and will be devastated when my body washes up somewhere.

I can’t die like this. I just can’t.

“Help!” I scream, even though I know no one will hear me. No one is here at night. That’s how I’ve gotten away with illegally shacking up in my restaurant for so long. “Somebody help!”

But there’s no one coming.

I have to at least try to get out. Now.

I slide off the front of the counter, back into the cold, murky water, but the current rushing through the broken side of the glass doors immediately pushes me backward.

I grab the counter to brace myself, recovering my balance with an ease that’s comforting. But shit! How am I going to fight my way to the door without something to hold onto?

Maybe if I were taller than five foot nothing, and the water weren’t already up to my ribs, I’d have a chance, but…

“I’ve never hated being short more than I do right now,” I whisper, my voice thin and childish in the red glare of the emergency lights.

The water is everywhere, rapidly turning the lobby into an aquarium where I’m the only fish. It smells like muddy Mississippi and rain, with a top note of sewage.

Thinking about the likelihood that I’m standing in poop water nearly makes me gag.

I probably would have, but my teeth won’t stop chattering.

And it’s not just the cold.

It’s shock from realizing…this is probably how I die.

Not in some blaze of culinary glory, gored by a razorback while cooking in the bush.

Not old and successful with my own Food Network show and a line of cookware sold at a big box store.

But here, alone, in my underwear, because I was so stubbornly determined to recover from the mess my ex-husband made of my life as quickly as possible.

Christian, my ex, who will probably show up at my funeral and pretend to be sad, like he wasn’t at least partially responsible for the fact that I was sleeping on a storage shelf in a flood zone in the first place.

The water shoves me harder, like it thinks I deserve this for being an irrational disaster with terrible taste in men and outlandish dreams that were never going to come true. It’s the last straw. The final nail.

I’m about to climb back on the counter and wait.

And hope.

And, I don’t know…try to make my peace with a God I’m not sure I believe in, or something, when I see them.

Headlights!

Bright white headlights cutting through the water outside, getting bigger, closer, until?—

Crash!

I wince, my hands flying to cover my face as what’s left of the lobby entrance explodes inward.

I’m too far away for the shards to hit me, but it’s hard to think rationally when a truck is barreling through the floodwater like something out of an action movie, sending glass and hunks of metal flying.

My brain can barely process what I’m seeing.

This isn’t real. It can’t be. No way did someone just drive a truck into my building.

The headlights blind me a moment, but I can still make out a man swinging out of the driver’s side through the glare. He’s tall. Broad shoulders. Moving through the water with purpose.

And then he steps out of the glare into the gentler glow of the emergency lights and…

“Parker?” I croak, tears stinging into my eyes again as he wades toward me, shouting, “What the fuck, Makena? Why are you still here?”

“Why are you here?” I shout back as he gets closer. “You could have died. You could still die.” Oh God, he could, I realize, my stomach pitching. “You shouldn’t have come, Parker. You should have stayed safe. You shouldn’t have?—”

He reaches the counter, and suddenly my face is in his hands, and he’s kissing me—hard, fast, but deep enough to take my breath away.

When he pulls back, his eyes blaze into mine. “I don’t leave the people I care about behind.”

My throat squeezes so tight, I couldn’t speak if I tried. Even if I knew what to say. How to thank him. How to tell him how much this means.

No one ever comes to save me.

I always have to save myself.

But here he is, grabbing my hand as he adds, “You can yell at me more later if you want. Right now, I think we should get the fuck out of here, how about you?”

“Yes. Yes, please,” I agree, my teeth chattering again as I drop into the water behind him, clinging to his arm as we start for the truck.

The current is stronger than it looks, tugging at my legs like a kid who doesn’t want me to leave the party. Parker shields me from the worst of it. Still, by the time we reach the truck, his arm around my waist is the only thing keeping me from being swept off my feet.

At the open driver’s side door, he literally tosses me past the wheel into the passenger’s side before surging into the driver’s seat.

“Hold onto your ass,” he says, slamming the door behind him.

The engine sputters as he shifts into reverse.

“Come on, buddy,” I say, willing the truck to move. “Keep going, you beautiful, gas-guzzling planet killer. You don’t get to give up now.”

Parker hits the gas again. The engine coughs one last time before engaging with a roar.

We lurch backward through the hole in the building onto the street, and for one terrifying second, I feel the truck lift.

Actually, float off its wheels like it’s always dreamed of being a boat and is ready to make that dream come true.

“Oh God, please. Please, keep going, please,” I shout-cry-pray, as Parker shifts into drive and the wheels grab pavement.

Then, we’re in motion, moving up the street, through the water, churning slowly, but steadily, toward higher ground.

But holy shit, that was close.

So crazy, scary close…

I sit panting on Parker’s leather seat, shaking and dripping as I try to wrap my mind around what just happened.

“We…” I gulp, fighting to swallow past the lump in my throat. “We almost died. I almost died. I would have died if you hadn’t come for me.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says, the words low and rough. “Thank God I didn’t listen to the voice in my head saying it was crazy to drive my truck through a building when I didn’t even know if you were inside.”

“Yeah,” I breathe. “Thank God.”

I sneak a glance his way. His jaw is tight and his hands grip the steering wheel like he’s worried it might try to run away from him…

the way I did earlier tonight. Water clings to his skin, and his shirt is once again plastered to every perfectly formed muscle.

He looks like an action hero. Like a white knight in a wet tuxedo.

Like everything I’ve told myself isn’t real, let alone in the cards for yours truly.

But he came for me.

Risked his life.

For me.

This goofy, too-young, over-the-top man-child, who makes me feel things I’m nowhere near ready to feel, looked Death straight in the eye and said, “No, sir, you will not have Makena today,” and charged into battle in his shining silver pick-up truck and I…

I don’t know what to do with that right now.

But I know I’m grateful.

So fucking grateful.

“Thank you,” I say, my voice breaking as tears fill my eyes again. “Thank you so much, Parker.”

“Of course, weirdo.” He reaches over and takes my hand again, his fingers warm and steady. “Anytime. Every time.”

I shouldn’t cling to him. I should give his hand a thankful squeeze and let go, remember all the reasons having more-than-friends feelings for him is a bad idea.

Instead, I hold on tight.

Just for now. Just until the shaking stops.

Just until I figure out what comes next.

Parker eventually merges onto the highway, picking up speed, leaving the flood behind us.

But I have a feeling I’m already in deep water of a different kind…

The kind that leaves a girl rethinking the wisdom of staying in the shallow end.