I hurry out of the Boathouse and across Central Park, shoving the idea of a future Perfectly Unperfect Just For Me fantasy out of my head. I have a manicure, dammit! If I make it over to the 81st Street subway station, I might still make it on time. My fingernails are getting ragged, and there's just no way I can make it till tomorrow to have them fixed. Plus, Chaz would punish me for a week for standing him up.
I hurry down the stairs and into the subway. It's a little grimy but I do my best to ignore that. I only take trains under extreme circumstances, but even I know they won't actually kill me. I'll just have to scrub underneath my fingernails extra carefully today.
Waiting for Train 6, I pull out my iPhone again, and instantly double tap the Instagram pic of the three of us that Ashley just posted. I may roll my eyes every time I hear them sigh about how happy they are, but seriously, they are some of my closest friends. I do want them to be happy. I just don't want them to be obnoxiously happy. That’s possible, right? I flip over to Facebook to check to see if—
Someone runs into me. A small someone. My phone fumbles in my hands as I'm looking down to see a small boy running down the platform and my phone is going sideways and I'm going sideways, trying to catch it and then, I'm falling, falling...
Wham!
The breath is knocked out of me and I'm staring up at the concrete ceiling, trying to figure out what just happened. Where...
I scramble to my feet, moving awkwardly because I hurt so bad but I didn't seem to have anything broken, so that was a good sign, right?
Except...as I shove my phone back into my Coach purse, I realize—I'm on the fucking train tracks. And the platform is, like, waaayyyy tall. If I stand on my tiptoes, I can just barely see over the edge and onto the platform. A few jumps, a few times of grasping the edge of the platform and pulling, and…
I've got nothing. I never knew that pull-ups would be the difference between life and death.
So here I am, trapped, all because I hate doing pull-ups at the gym.
Oh fuck.
I can hear a train coming.
Which is when the screams begin.
82
Diesel
So there I am, walking through the subway, and I look over to see a lady just disappear. Flash – she's just gone. A little kid is running off, down the platform, but no one else is there.
The top of her head appears and then disappears, then up to her chin and back down again and I realize that she's trying to jump her way out of the train tracks.
I react then. There's no thinking, no contemplating the consequences, I'm just going. Fuck the turnstiles; I jump them with ease and I'm running, heart pumping, as I sprint across the platform and throw myself down into the train track area, the landing sending shooting pains up my legs.
God, that hurt, but I didn't have time to worry about that. I pick up the blonde and throw her over my shoulder and then from there, throw her up onto the platform above us. I can hear a train coming, barreling down on us, and I'm motherfucking high-jumping my way out of this because if I don't, I'm going to die and the train is honking and screeching on its breaks and I throw myself up, up and away, and I'm rolling across the platform, through the dirt and the grime and the train is still screeching but goddamn, I'm alive.
I lay there for a moment, gasping for breath, staring up at the ceiling, when the lady's face comes into view.
“Tha—”
“Oh god, Diesel, I have to take you in again?” a voice broke in and I looked over to see Sgt. Whitaker standing there, his hand on his nightstick. “The alarms for the turnstiles just went off. You just can't help from breaking the law, can you?”
I push myself to get up and start wiping o
ff the dirt, then put out my hand for the blonde to help her up. As she's standing and brushing herself off, I look her up and down, my dick instantly springing to attention. Yeah, she had a bit of dirt in her hair and her skirt is torn to shit, but daaammmnnnn, she has some nice legs on her.
“C'mon, Diesel,” Sgt Whitaker says, clapping his hand on my shoulder. “Turn around.”
He flips me around, facing straight at the lady, who protests. “Hold on!” she says. “Why is he being arrested?”
I just shrug as the cold rings snap around my wrist. “'Cause I'm an outlaw,” I say with a naughty grin.
My lawyer will tear this case into shreds the moment we get into the courtroom, so I'm not worried about being arrested. I'll be out soon enough and hell, sometimes, you just have to make the cops feel good, like they're doing their job, you know? Everyone wants to feel like they're making a difference in the world, and good ol' Sgt. Whitaker thinks that catching turnstile jumpers is just the ticket to make that happen.
The lovely lady looks me up and down, inspecting my dirtied Polo shirt and Brooks Brothers khaki slacks. "Yeah, a real outlaw," she snickers.
83