Julie opened her eyes to find herself lying on her back on the ground, her bike with its wheels still spinning a short distance away. Her head hurt. She put her hand to it and pulled away blood.
In what seemed like almost no time, someone was there, a young man in a blue uniform. He had longish black hair and dark brown eyes. "Are you all right?" he asked her.
"My head is bleeding!" she cried.
The young man, whom she now realized was a paramedic, frowned as he examined the wound on her head. "Yeah, that's quite a scrape you got there," he agreed. "Can you sit up?"
Julie tried and felt a wave of dizziness. As she waited for it to pass, she watched the paramedic calling in her vitals to Rampart Hospital. When he was finished, he looked back at her.
"I'm Julie," she said, a bit shyly.
"I'm Johnny, and this is my partner, Roy," the paramedic told her. "We're gonna take you to the hospital just to make sure you don't have a concussion or neck injury."
As Julie rode in the ambulance to the hospital, she thought about Johnny's eyes, how they were the most gorgeous dark brown eyes she'd ever seen.
Later, Johnny and Roy were walking down the hall at Rampart when they saw Julie walking toward them.
"Hi, Johnny!" she called. "And..."
"Roy," Roy reminded her.
"Thanks for saving me," said Julie.
"It was nothing. We were just doing our jobs," Johnny said modestly.
"Are you guys married?" asked Julie.
"I'm married," said Roy.
"I'm not," said Johnny.
Julie scribbled her telephone number on a piece of paper and handed it to Johnny. "Call me sometime," she said. She had the sudden urge to kiss his cheek but decided that that might be too forward.
"She's gorgeous!" Johnny said later to his partner when they were together in the fire truck. "How often do I get a chance with a girl like her?"
"But you hardly know her," Roy pointed out.
"How long did you and Joanne know each other before you got married?" asked Johnny.
"Twelve years."
"Twelve years?" Johnny was incredulous.
"I didn't have a job when I first met her. I was only in fourth grade," Roy said dryly.
"Well, anyway, it's about time I settled down. Can you believe I'm almost thirty?"
"Yeah, you'll be ready for social security soon."
Johnny knew that Roy's jibes were only in fun, but they irritated him nonetheless. He was sick of Roy not taking him seriously just because he was slightly younger. He wished more than anything that he could do something to make Roy admire him and truly think of him as an equal.
He smiled fondly when he thought of Julie. The look of admiration and gratitude he'd seen in her eyes had thrilled him to the core, and he couldn't wait to see her again.
Julie was overjoyed that the handsome paramedic who'd come to her rescue when she'd fallen off her bike was single. At twenty-three, she was the only one of her group of friends from high school who wasn't married yet. Some of her friends even had babies now, and she hadn't even been on a date in six months. Not since Mike had left.