I sat back down on the curb and settled Malcolm on my lap. He was in that post-tantrum Zen-state, where he just clung to me, quietly sniffling. Now that my panic over the blood on his face was subsiding, I felt a warm wash of exhaustion flow through my veins.
The man we'd hit turned back around and handed me the roll of paper towels with an odd expression on his face, but I was too tired to worry about what it could mean. I tore off a piece and silently handed it back to him before gently dabbing Malcolm's lip. Luckily the uniform I was wearing was black and would hide the bloodstains he kept smearing on my shirt, but I wasn't sure about the snot and tears.
"He's okay?" the man asked, crouching down to our level.
I blinked up at him, somehow unable to resolve the person shaped blur in front of me into an actual person. My brain, which seconds before had been in overdrive now seemed like it had slowed to a halt. I felt like I was squinting through a thick haze, trying like hell to make sense of what I was seeing.
The way he crouched down with an easy, athlete's grace made me do a double take, and suddenly I could see everything at once. Blue eyes, sharp but kind, with little amused crinkles at the corner like he spent a lot of time laughing out in the sun. Short, close-cropped blond hair that glinted like gold against his scalp. For a moment, I had the profoundest feeling of déjà vu, like I'd seen him before. Maybe a tourist that had come through the diner, but he was dressed like no tourist I'd ever seen. In his sharply tailored gray suit that looked like it cost half a year of my house payments, he definitely stood out. The fact that he was hot as hell seemed to only dawn on me after I'd stared at him blankly for a solid minute.
"You look nice," I blurted nonsensically.
The crinkles around his eyes deepened. "Why thank you," he said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. "I was on my way to a meeting you see..."
"I'm on my way to work," I interrupted testily. "And now I'm going to be late because you ran a stop sign."
He narrowed his eyes. "I did not run it. I came to a complete stop. You sat there for so long..."
"My son dropped his toy."
"Oh, and you think that gives you an excuse for jamming your foot on the accelerator?"
My heart was suddenly racing and forcing that strange lethargy away. I stood back up again, meaning to move Malcolm back to his car seat, but this asshole was in my way. "Could you move please?"
"Oh, now you're waiting for me to get out of the way before you go?" he scoffed.
I glared at him and waited, lifting my chin. Even though I was on the curb and he was standing in the street, he was still taller than me, so I craned my neck and went up on to the balls of my feet to look him right in the eye. "Move," I challenged.
He glared back for a beat, his eyes blazing. And then they widened in surprise and suddenly he stepped aside, looking completely surprised.
"Thank you," I hissed. Malcolm was quiet as I settled him back into his car seat and buckled the straps around him, tightening them carefully so as not to jar his little body too much. Fuck, I'd need to take him to the doctor somehow, and also find the money for a new car seat since this one had been in an accident and...
Shit that guy was still standing there, way too close. "Can I fucking help you?" I demanded, whirling around. He was laughing, why the fuck was he laughing? "Is this a joke to you?"
"Nah," he grinned. "I was just thinking about how you gave me the perfect excuse. Hang on."
I stood there, utterly bewildered as he went back to his car and searched around for something. I couldn't see what he held so tightly in his hand until he returned and showed it to me.
"A quarter?" I snarked. "Is that to help with my car repairs? Thanks, but it'll cost me a bit more than that."
"Call it," he said, putting it on the side of his hand. "Heads or tails?"
"Are you high right now? Is that why you hit me?"
"Just do it?" he asked. "Be my lucky charm."
"Fine you freaking weirdo."
He flicked his thumb underneath and sent the shiny silver coin spiraling up into the air. We both watched as it spun, glinting in the sun. "Heads," I called.
He deftly reached out and snatched it from the air and then slapped it down on his other hand. Then he pulled his hand back and stared.
"Well?" I demanded, craning my neck to see it. "What is it?"
He took a deep breath. "Heads," he said slowly.
"Fine," I sighed. "Great. What did I win?"
He shrugged and put the coin back into his pocket. "Looks like I'm going to that meeting after all."
"Well good. We can both be late for where we need to go." I looked back down the street with a heavy sigh. "So what the hell do we do now?"
He stared at me for a moment and then it was like his whole body shrugged. "Is your car okay?"
I looked around the side to the front bumper. "Big ugly dent, but it's still drivable.”
"And your..." He gestured to Malcolm.
"Son," I supplied with no small amount of pride.
"Son." He nodded. "He's okay?"
"Seems that way. He'd be yelling if he wasn't, trust me."
"We only hit each other..."
"You hit me..."
His nostrils flared and he ignored that. "...At like five miles an hour," he finished. "So..."
All at once I realized what he was doing. "So... what? We don't report it?"
He grinned and looked at me. "What do you say?"
I shook my head. "Well what if I need you to... or you need me to do... something?"
"How about you give me your number?"
I glared at him. "Are you trying to pick me up after we got in an accident?" I yelled.
He shrugged again. "I'm a big believer in luck, and you might have just changed mine. We'll see though."
"Whatever. I don't believe in luck. You have to actually be lucky to believe in something like luck. I'm the least lucky person on the face of the planet." I gestured to our cars. "Look at what happened! I get in an accident, I'm going to be late for work..."
"Were you hurt in the accident? Is your car totaled?"
"Well no..."
He cocked his head to the side. "Luck depends a lot on how you choose to see things."
His smile knocked the breath from my lungs. I was feeling decidedly unsteady and that feeling, coupled with the lingering adrenaline left over from the accident was making me openly hostile. "So now I'm getting life lessons from some random guy on the street," I said witheringly. "I count that as being pretty unlucky if you ask me."
"I'm not some random guy." He held out his hand. "I'm Jameson Tellar."
Once again that weird feeling of déjà vu washed over me, but I shoved it aside. "Is that supposed to mean something to me? Lemme guess, your friends call you Lucky?"
"Chance, actually. Good guess, uh..." he paused. "And now would be a good time for me to find out your name, sweet thing." He grinned widely, showing perfect, pearly white teeth.
I stepped back, away from the megawatt power of his charming smile and the fact that he'd called me "sweet thing." My son was sitting two feet away from me. There was no way I could flirt back. Those days were over for me, no matter how blue his eyes were. "No thanks," I told him. "Maybe you'll figure it out by chance somehow." I turned and headed back to the driver's side of my now dented car. "Thanks for being cool and not involving the police and insurance and stuff, Jameson Chance Tellar." I was moving way too fast in my desperation to get away from him and nearly opened the door into my head. "Um, maybe I'll see you around. Hope not though."
I slammed the door and started the car, practically peeling out in my haste to get away from him, but I couldn't resist one last look in the rear-view mirror.
He was standing in the street staring after me, and I sort of understood that. What I couldn't understand was why he was still smiling.