“What?”
“My neighbor, she’s a nursing student. She’s probably asleep, but I need a hanger to open the car door.”
“This is the craziest thing I ever heard.”
Murphy crossed her arms in front of her, tightening her soaked blouse against her more than hard nipples. My eyes did their own thing as they scanned her body, landing right there.
“My eyes are up here, Ben,” Murphy spat at me.
“Yes, yes, I know. I’m trying to figure out how you know how to break into a locked car while stuck outside in a summer storm. I couldn’t even dream up something this crazy.”
She turned and knocked again on the door I’d come to know was her neighbor’s, then whirled back around. “I’ll let you in on another secret. The car is old, and it locks with the keys inside it. My key to the apartment is on the ring too, and it’s pouring down rain and I’m on a lonely, winding road in Vermont. Who the hell is going to help me?”
“Me?” I asked foolishly.
Murphy rolled her eyes. “Ben, this isn’t the first time my idiot self has done this. So, yeah, I know how to open the door. A trucker taught me at a rest stop on my drive up here.”
“Wait. You let a stranger help you, but you won’t let me. A trucker?”
“Yes, a trucker. Now go away.” Without another word, she spun around. The rain continued to pelt us as she banged her fist against her neighbor’s door.
This woman was so fucking stubborn, not to mention confusing the hell out of me. She went from debutante to downright independent I am woman, hear me roar in the blink of an eye. At least, in my mind.
Knowing she wouldn’t let me help, I went back to my car and decided to wait. I was on call, but my phone was quiet. I glanced at the radar and saw this storm should be passing quickly.
For the first time in my life, my fingers itched to google someone. Obviously, the internet held some of Murphy’s secrets, judging by her earlier reaction to my mentioning Google, but I didn’t want to invade her privacy. I hated when patients or other doctors googled me and came in with preconceived notions about me and what else I did with my time.
It was actually somewhat reassuring that Murphy didn’t want much to do with me. Maybe it meant she hadn’t googled me. If she had, surely I’d be more acceptable to her—and her family—with my small windfall. Another reason that I hated Google.
I hadn’t set out to make big money. In the beginning, I was coding apps while I was in college for chump change, but then I realized how I could help my parents.
Deep in thought, it wasn’t until I heard a clanking noise that I realized the storm had let up and Murphy was outside her car, scraping the shit out of her door with a coat hanger.
“Murphy, please, let me do it,” I yelled, hopping out of my Jeep.
“No, Ben. Go away. I told you to go away.”
“You’re infuriating.”
At that moment, I couldn’t even stand myself. I despised Murphy for what she did to my emotions at Pressman after I carried a torch for her for years. And I was intrigued by this new version of her, yet my heart wouldn’t let go of how the old version had broken my heart.
“Please, go,” she said while trying to maneuver the hanger to open the door. Her hand slipped and the hanger fell.
Before she could get to it, I’d snatched it up. “Murph, move over. Let me get it, so we can both go home and get dry.”
Christ, even my sister calls me to help her with these types of crazy things.
Frustrated, Murphy crossed her arms in front of her, looking formidable.
I forced myself not to look at her tits, but I couldn’t help the smile spreading across my face. The new Murphy was a live wire . . . a challenge in all the best ways. And she didn’t know I was independently wealthy (that’s what my advisor told me, anyhow). At least, I didn’t think so. The door to the car popped open, and she rushed in front of me to grab the keys from the ignition.
“Listen,” she said, standing next to the car. “I know you think you know me, but you don’t. Maybe you knew me back then, at school, but I’m different now.”
I’ll say.
“Stop smirking,” she said, looking like she really wanted to stomp her foot.
“Why are you different? What happened? Tell me.”
I stood to meet her eye-to-eye, although at six-foot-three, I had about eight inches on her and still had to dip my head to meet her eyes. With her red hair darkened and curled by the rain, her damp shirt sticking to her skin and her makeup mostly wiped off, she looked gorgeous.
“You want to do this now?” she said, glaring at me. “On the side of a country road with another storm about to roll in?”
“I checked the radar. We’re good.”
“Ugh.” She turned her back on me, taking deep breaths while facing the other way. Then as quickly as she’d turned, she whirled back around.
We were so close I could feel her tiny huffs of breath. I wanted to gather her close in my arms, but I didn’t think that would go over well. And I was still holding that stupid hanger.
“Look,” she said harshly, “I know I wasn’t nice or fair to you at Pressman. I used you to help me, to tutor me, you know that, right? Not just in science, but in life too. Later, when I was sure you liked me and would take me to prom, I used you then too. I
