Before the Storm. Diane Chamberlain

      “It’s fine,” he said. “Your car took the brunt of it.”

      “No, you did.” I looked again at the shredded leather on his arm. “I wish you’d…yell at me or something. You’re way too calm.”

      He laughed. “Did you cut me off on purpose?”

      “No.”

      “I can tell you already feel like crap about it,” he said. “Why should I make you feel worse?” He looked past me to the shops along the street. “Let’s get a cup of coffee while we do the insurance bit,” he said, pointing to the café down the block. “You’re in no shape to drive right now, anyway.”

      He was right. I was still shivering as I stood next to him in line at the coffee shop. My knees buckled, and I leaned heavily against the counter as we ordered.

      “Decaf for you.” He grinned. He was a good ten inches taller than me. At least six-three. “Find us a table, why don’t you?”

      I sat down at a table near the window. My heart still pounded against my rib cage, but I was filled with relief. My car was basically okay, I hadn’t killed anyone, and the Hells Angel was the forgiving type. I’d really lucked out. I put my insurance card on the table and smoothed it with my fingers.

      I studied the width of the Angel’s shoulders beneath the expanse of leather as he picked up our mugs of coffee. His body reminded me of a well-padded football player, but when he took off his jacket, draping it over the spare chair at our table, I saw that his size had nothing to do with padding. He wore a navy-blue T-shirt that read Topsail Island across the front in white, and while he was not fat, he was not particularly toned either. Burly. Robust. The words floated through my mind and, although I was a virgin, having miserably plodded my way through high school as a social loser, I wondered what it would be like to have sex with him. Could he hold his weight off me?

      “Are you doin’ all right?” Curiosity filled his brown eyes, and I wondered if the fantasy was written on my face. I felt my cheeks burn.

      “I’m better,” I said. “Still a little shaky.”

      “Your first accident?”

      “My last, too, I hope. You’ve had others?”

      “Just a couple. But I’ve got a few years on you.”

      “How old are you?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t a rude question.

      “Twenty-three. And you’re about eighteen, I figure.”

      I nodded.

      “Freshman at UNC?”

      “Yes.” I wrinkled my nose, thinking I must have frosh written on my forehead.

      He sipped his coffee, then nudged my untouched mug an inch closer to me. “Have a major yet?” he asked.

      “Nursing.” My mother had been a nurse. I wanted to follow in her footsteps, even though she would never know it. “What about you?” I opened a packet of sugar and stirred it into my coffee. “Are you a Hells Angel?”

      “Hell, no!” He laughed. “I’m a carpenter, although I did graduate from UNC a few years ago with a completely worthless degree in Religious Studies.”

      “Why is it worthless?” I asked, though I probably should have changed the subject. I hoped he wasn’t going to try to save me, preaching the way some religious people did. I was beholden to him and would have had to listen, at least for a while.

      “Well, I thought I’d go to seminary,” he said. “Become a minister. But the more I studied theology, the less I liked the idea of being tied to one religion like it’s the only way. So I’m still playing with what I want to be when I grow up.” He reached toward the seat next to him, his hand diving into the pocket of his leather jacket and coming out with a pen and his insurance card. On his biceps, I saw a tattooed banner, the word empathy written inside it. As sexually excited as I’d felt five minutes ago, now I felt his fingertips touch my heart, hold it gently in his hand.

      “Listen,” he said, his eyes on the card. “Your car runs okay, right? It’s mostly cosmetic?”

      I nodded.

      “Don’t go through your insurance company, then. It’ll just cost you in the long run. Get an estimate and I’ll take care of it for you.”

      “You can’t do that!” I said. “It was my fault.”

      “It was an easy mistake to make.”

      “I was careless.” I stared at him. “And I don’t understand why you’re not angry about it. I almost killed you.”

      “Oh, I was angry at first. I said lots of cuss words while I was flying through the air.” He smiled. “Anger’s poison, though. I don’t want it in me. When I changed the focus from how I was feeling to how you were feeling, it went away.”

      “The tattoo…” I pointed to his arm.

      “I put it there to remind me,” he said. “It’s not always that easy to remember.”

      He turned the insurance card over and clicked the pen.

      “I don’t even know your name,” he said.

      “Laurel Patrick.”

      “Nice name.” He wrote it down, then reached across the table to shake my hand. “I’m Jamie Lockwood.”

      We started going out together, to events on campus or the movies and once, on a picnic. I felt young with him, but never patronized. I was drawn to his kindness and the warmth of his eyes. He told me that he was initially attracted to my looks, proving that he was not a completely atypical guy after all.

      “You were so pretty when you got out of your car that day,” he said. “Your cheeks were red and your little pointed chin trembled and your long black hair was kind of messy and sexy.” He coiled a lock of my stick-straight hair around his finger. “I thought the accident must have been fate.”

      Later, he said, it was my sweetness that attracted him. My innocence.

      We kissed often during the first couple of weeks we saw one another, but nothing more than that. I experienced my first ever orgasm with him, even though he was not touching me at the time. We were on his bike and he shifted into a gear that suddenly lit a fire between my legs. I barely knew what was happening. It was startling, quick and stunning. I tightened my arms around him as the spasms coursed through my body, and he patted my hands with one of his, as though he thought I might be afraid of how fast we were going. It would be a while before I told him that I would always think of his bike as my first lover.

      We talked about our families. I’d lived in North Carolina until I was twelve, when my parents died. Then I went to Ohio to live with my social-climbing aunt and uncle who were ill-prepared to take on a child of any sort, much less a griefstricken preadolescent. There’d been a “Southerners are dumb” sort of prejudice among my classmates and a couple of my teachers. I fed right into that prejudice in the beginning, unable to focus on my studies and backsliding in every subject. I missed my parents and cried in bed every night until I figured out how to keep from thinking about them as I struggled to fall asleep: I’d count backward from one thousand, picturing the numbers on a hillside, like the Hollywood sign. It worked. I started sleeping better, which led to studying better. My teachers had to revise their “dumb Southerner” assessment of me as my grades picked up. Even my aunt and uncle seemed surprised. When it came time to apply to colleges, though, I picked all Southern schools, hungry to return to my roots.

      Jamie was struck by the loss of my parents.

      “Both your parents died when you were twelve?” he asked, incredulous. “At the same time?”

      “Yes, but I don’t think about it much.”

      “Maybe you should think about it,” he said.

      “It’s