Rain. Sheets and torrents of rain. It was all he could see. No matter how high he turned on his windshield wipers, and how slow he went, the only thing that he could see was this god forsaken rain.
It figured, that tonight of all nights it would be his turn to cover one of the local games. Normally the local games were no big deal, and they could just be called on account of rain, but not this game. It had been the annual tradition for almost as long as Corey had lived in the area, the Golden Bears and the Tigers played no matter what the weather was like. No one in their right mind would be out driving in this weather if they could avoid it, and yet they had insisted that the game go on.
So, here he was, driving home on a highway that had more right to be called a “river” than it did an interstate thruway. It was late, he was tired, and he sure as hell hadn’t wanted to be out driving in this shit.
Grumbling to himself as his jeep made its way along the slick roads; he eventually noticed a pair of blinking lights off to the side of the road. As he passed by he could see a woman traipsing about in the mud, trying desperately to climb up the embankment and wave for help. For a moment he considered just continuing on, like he hadn’t seen her, but he figured, who the hell else is going to be out on this night?
So, with that in mind, he stopped the car, and put it in reverse, slowly but surely backing his way towards the car he had seen.
“Just my luck, first, I get called out, and now I’m stopping to help what’ll probably be some ungrateful little bitch. What next?” He kept grumbling to himself as he got closer, until eventually he could see the highlighted form of the woman and her car in the glowing red of his tail lights.
He left the jeep running as he grabbed the umbrella and jumped out to help her. Corey handed the umbrella off to her and ducked his head under the canvas shelter for a brief moment. “What happened?!” He shouted, over the driving rain.
She opened her mouth to speak and for a moment no words came out, then she rapidly began to explain. “I hydroplaned a little ways back and I couldn’t get the car under control. Eventually it spun it self all the way into this fucking ditch!”
Corey eyes the car carefully, taking into account the crushed front end and the steam coming from under the hood. He sighed heavily as he realized that there was no way the car was going to make it out of that ditch in one piece. She was going to have to have the shit towed, and from the look of it, that could take a while in this weather.
He motioned for her to hop into the car and get out of the rain, and she quickly complied, handing him back the umbrella before sprinting for the far door. Corey himself managed to get back in the car only after slipping twice in the ever deepening mud and finally got the door open long enough to throw himself back into the driver’s seat, and the umbrella into the back.
He leaned his head back against his seat, oblivious to his new passenger for the moment and mumbled, “I hate this fucking town.”
After a short moment of silence passed, he picked his head back up and turned to the young woman. She was a lot younger than he’d first thought, perhaps in her early twenties, and highly attractive, even in her sopping wet state. Her long, curly black hair was plastered to her head, and her clothes were soaked. It was obvious that she had a nice body under it all, but he was more concerned with her face. She looked incredibly familiar.
“Thanks for stopping,” she said, in a smooth and confident voice. “I didn’t think anybody was going to stop in this weather.”
Corey had already turned at this point to grab some extra blankets and stuff that he kept in the back. Hopefully this would at least keep her warm until he got her wherever she was going. “No problem…umm….Miss. In all honesty, I figured if I didn’t stop, then no one else would. It’d be a shame to have someone like yourself get caught out in this with no way to get where you’re going.”
“Well, thank you anyways.”
After a moment’s search, he managed to turn himself back around holding two extra blankets that he usually kept for his dogs. “They’re covered with dog fur... but at least they are warm.”
She snatched the blankets up greedily, wrapping one about her shoulders, and the other she simply draped across herself. “Thank you, SO much.” She paused for a moment, then tentatively she spoke up again. “I’m Eliza.”
Taking her hand in his, Corey spoke up. “Name’s Corey. Nice to meet you, Eliza.”
Quickly, he ran his hands through his soaking wet hair, setting the spikes as he brushed the excess water from his head. “Where you headed?”
A slight sigh escaped her lips as she considered the question for a moment. “Well, I was headed Syracuse, but it looks like I’m going to be stuck here for the moment. How’s the nearest tow-truck place sound?”
Corey laughed slightly as he thought about it. It was almost midnight by this point. “Well….most of them aren’t open for “walk-ins” at this point,” He said “But if you don’t mind spending a little longer in my rather drenched company, you are welcome to give the guy a call from my apartment.”
She looked at him for a moment, obviously weighing the possibilities of his being a serial rapist, or ax-murderer. He spoke up before she had a chance to though. “No funny business, I promise. I’ll make you a cup of coffee and a bite to eat, and you can relax while some other fool comes out in this mess to pick up your car.”
She considered him for another moment before shrugging her shoulders and nodding an affirmation in his direction. After another short pause she laughed and added “Lead the way, Captain Nemo, sail us home on the high seas of I-81”
The made it back to his apartment in about twenty minutes. In that time he managed to learn that she was headed to Syracuse on business, but was actually from Elmira originally.
“I travel around a lot, whenever my work calls for it, but I spend most of my downtime here at home. My ma worries about me if I stay away for too long.”
He nodded silently as he gazed out the windshield, in a desperate attempt to find his own parking space, but it was useless. Eventually he just stopped the car and put it into park. “Well, here we are. Just another fifty feet of running and we’ll be in the clear, somewhere nice and dry.”
“Let’s do it then,” She said with a sly smile.
It was at that point that it hit him, who she was. The smile had been what really gave it away, but he still felt like a fool for not picking up on it before. Eliza Dushku, here in his car, soon to be in his apartment! Who would’ve thought that his shitty day would end with something like this?
The two of them sprinted from the jeep to the door of the apartment complex. As soon as they stepped within, the pounding of the water ceased, and instead they were greeting with the pleasant sound of rain beating against the roof of the stairwell. “Alright then, come on up it’s on the third floor.”
The ascent was quick, and the conversation limited, as both of them were idly considering the other. He couldn’t help but wonder what type of person she was. He had always assumed most of the actresses like her would be snotty and have their noses turned up at everything in front of them, but he was getting a wholly different vibe off of her at this point.
Eliza on the other hand was wondering more and more about the man she accompanied. He seemed totally unconcerned with who she was, and why she would be out here. He was treating her just like anyone else…it was nice, to be treated like a human being again.
They stopped in front of his door as he fumbled for the keys to allow them entry. “Here you go ma’am…” He said in a fake accent. “Home sweet home.”
