Crashing Into You

Chapter 12 - His House

Lauren

“You never mentioned you only lived a few minutes away.” I said as we pulled into his driveway.

“You never asked.” Chris replied.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” I asked him, a little sarcastically.

“What do you mean?” He asked me, slightly confused.

“Sweep me off my feet and carry me inside.” I said, smirking at him. 

“You have two feet, that aren’t broken.”  Chris replied. I pouted and looked at him annoyed.

“Fine,” Chris said, climbing out of the car and walking around to my side of the car. He opened my door and scooped me up.

“Yay!” I squealed, smiling and wrapping my arms around his neck. He carried me through his front door and put me down inside the house.

“Come on, I’ll show you around.” Chris said, putting an arm around me.

“Ok,” I said.

“So what do you want to see first? The food, the living room?”

“Where I’ll sleep when you’re gone?” I said.

“Ok,” Chris said after hesitating for a second. He took me down a hall and opened a door for me. “This is my bedroom, I’d show you the guest room, but I’m guessing you’ll spend most nights in here.”

“Wow, for a guy, you have an amazingly clean bedroom. Except for that bed.” I said, pointing to a mass of crumpled blankets pushed to one side of the bed. I walked over to the bed and threw myself onto it.

“Umm Laur?” Chris said, pointing at the mass of blankets.

“Huh?” I asked him, before I noticed that they were moving.

“Meet Boomer.” He said as a mountain of fur jumped on top of me. I screamed in panic and lept off the bed into Chris’s arms.

“Ok, yeah that might be the deal breaker in our relationship.” I said, pointing at the dog.

“Umm, Lauren, hate to tell you this, but I’d get rid of you before I got rid of Boomer.”

“Oh really? Well I was gonna get in your bed and let you kiss me since you won’t be able to for a while, but now I think Im just gonna go veg out in your living room.” I said, playfully angry and annoyed. I marched out of the room and started to walk down the hall when I heard bounding footsteps behind me. I turned around only to be knocked to the floor by Boomer.

“Get him off me,” I said angrily.

“I don’t know why you don't like him, he loves you. I didn’t even have to tell him to chase after you, he just didn’t want you to leave.” Chris said, trying not to laugh as he pulled the dog off me.

“I’m just not a dog person ok?” I said, getting up off the ground.

“Ok, but you two do have one thing in common.” 

“Oh really, yeah now somebody’s definitely not getting a kiss.” I said, turning around.

“You both saved my life.” Chris said from behind me.

“How?” I asked, stopping because I was curious how I saved his life.

“Boomer here was a bomb-sniffing dog, partly why he’s named Boomer. He saved my life more times than I could count when I was deployed. You gave me hope, you let me be happy and made it easier to live with some of the things that I’ve done. You gave me a life.” Chris said, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me closer to him. I smiled, feeling good that he thought that I had that much of an impact on his life. I looked up at him and leant in closer.