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Chapter Thirty-One
Point of View: Zoe

The next morning, I woke up to my favorite kind of day: a rainy day. They were somewhat rare in California, compared to Maine they never came. So, they'd become my favorite since I'd moved across the country. I smiled to myself. It was going to be a fun day for driving with students. They always forgot about things like hydroplaning, probably since rain almost never came, and I enjoyed taking them to empty parking lots and purposely braking on them too hard so they had to pull out of a skid on the water. Nick would definitely be getting this treatment.

He came out of the house at 7:57 AM without me having to walk to the door, which I was actually impressed by. When Nick got to the car, too, as I was climbing out from the driver's side, instead of immediately trying to get in, he walked around the car, inspecting it. We both got into the car, out of the rain, and while he was adjusting the seat, he turned to look at me, "Bumper and wheel again," he said, "I didn't see anything new."

"Okay, damages noted," I said, marking down the damages he'd mentioned the day before.

Impressively, Nick reached for the mirrors, adjusted them, and then yanked on his seat belt. "Do you have your belt on?" he asked dutifully.

"Why, thank you for reminding me," I said in my falsely sweet voice I always used when students remembered to ask me this question. "I forgot it." I reached for the buckle and connected it. Nick was staring at me. "Yes?" I asked.

"May I turn on the vehicle now?" he asked, his voice overly polite.

"Why, yes, Nick, you may," I returned, still in the fake-sweet voice.

Nick punched the button and the car turned on, beeping quietly. I could tell by looking at Nick's face that he was anything but impressed, even when the center console computer turned on and displayed a full body map of the vehicle's engine and a plot line showing how many more miles I could drive in the Prius before it ran out of gasoline. He took a deep breath, "Where am I driving to?" he asked.

"You can start by going to the end of the driveway and taking a right," I answered, pointing, "I'll give you step-by-step instructions along the way."

Nick was evidently not an element of surprise kind of guy. "I don't get to know?" he asked.

"It's a driving route I put together for you," I answered, "That's all you need to know. There's no specific destination. Basically, you're taking the long way to your driveway." Nick let out an irritated sigh, but he put his hands onto the wheel at eight and four, and shifted into drive. Then, he put his foot on the gas.

Now, the Prius is notorious for it's pathetic pick-up. Seriously, the thing goes from 0-60 in about... oh, I don't know, two, maybe three centuries? So the fact that Nick managed to floor the gas so hard that the car was doing 40 before we had gone around the circumference of the fountain was extremely impressive.

And also extremely merited my foot slamming onto the instructor brake.

Hard.

The Prius slammed to a halt. Having expected it, I was prepared for the fling forward. Nick, however, was not. When I wasn't looking, he'd ducked under the across-the-chest strap of his seat belt so that he'd been only wearing the lap belt, and when we stopped so abruptly, his upper-body was flung forward and he hit his face on the steering wheel with a crunch heard 'round the world.

"Ow!" he shouted as his face literally bounced off the wheel. His hand flew up and covered his mouth and nose.

"The vehicle isn't in park," I said as he started cursing and undoing his seatbelt with the hand that wasn't covering his face.

"What the fuck did you hit the brake for?" he demanded, voice sounding pinched.

I laughed, "If you need to ask..."

"I was driving," he snapped, "Which is what you said to do." He flung open the door and I reached over and hit the Park button while he got out - since he obviously wasn't going to do it.

"You were up to 40mph and we weren't even out of your driveway!" I said, "In a Prius, Nick!"

He bent over in the driveway, his hand on the bottom jamb of the driver's side door, bracing him up as he lowered into a squat. He moved his hand from his face, and my breath caught in my throat. His nose was bleeding.

"Shit," I whispered. I undid my own seatbelt and pulled my crutches from the back quickly. Getting out and going around took me a minute, but he hadn't moved, he was looking down at the tar, leaking blood. He had his eyes closed. I got over there and leaned one of my crutches against the car. In a maneuver that I knew would merit IB Profin later, I knelt down awkwardly next to him. "Are you okay?" I asked.

Nick's jaw tightened and he quickly ran the back of his hand across his nose. "Yeah," he muttered. Blood streaked his cheek where he'd rubbed it to clean it off. It didn't immediately regenerate, which was a good sign. But he didn't move from where he was, either.

"If you'd left your seatbelt on this wouldn't have happened. See why it's important?" I demanded.

"Yeah," he muttered, miserable and sounding sort of like a duck.

I reached to pat his back and he shifted his shoulder to indicate he didn't want me to do that. He was staring at the floor of the Prius, his eyes unfocused a little, thinking. "Nick," I said carefully, "I- I am sorry that I hit the brake so hard. I should have requested you to slow down first." The words came out awkwardly. I'm not the apologizing type. This merited one of my rare apologies, though.

Nick looked at me as though he already knew this about me - surprise crossed his face. He stood up and stared down at me where I was kneeling. He held out a hand to help me up. I took it, grateful I wouldn't have to struggle back up after getting in this poor position. I took hold of my second crutch, my knee already screaming in protest for having knelt, and started around the car to the passenger side. Nick watched and waited until I'd gotten in before he ducked into the driver's seat himself. We both closed the doors.

"Okay, let's try this again," I suggested.

"Seatbelt," he said, pulling his own on. "I'll keep it on this time."

"Good idea," I said.

He paused before shifting out of park again, and looked at me. "You swore," he said, "When you got out of the car. Just so you know."

I stared at him. "Do as I say and not as I do," I replied. "Someday, you'll be a driver's ed instructor and you can boss your students around and swear all you want. For now, you're not, so you can't."

"I'll never be a driver's--"

"Aw well, then, you miss out on all the fun." I motioned to the driveway, "Well come on, Marsha Brady, we don't got all day." Nick laughed, a sound I hadn't really expected. I looked at him, "What?"

"The football," he said, "Oh my nose!" Nick's eyes crinkled shut as he laughed, "That's great."

Note to self, Nick Carter is easily amused.

"Okay, well, let's drive."

"Okay." Nick shifted the Prius into drive and we started our journey on the open road.