A/N: As promised, here's the next one...

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Chapter 4

"Are you serious, Jude?" Tommy asked incredulously, apparently thinking I had a severe lack of judgment. "We just met this guy, we don't know anything about him. He could be a rapist or a murderer for all we know."

I glanced back at where we left Mitch standing to see him leaning through the open window of his car, most likely checking out the damage to the interior. As he removed his upper body, Mitch banged his head on the edge of the window and cursed loudly while he rubbed his hand over the newly injured part of his head.

Looking back at Tommy, I answered sarcastically. "Yeah, Tommy, we've got a real ax-murdered right there, complete with a full-feature comedy act." I rolled my eyes. "Honestly, though, if he was going to kill us I think he would've done it by now, or at least pulled a knife or a gun or something."

"Fine." Tommy responded, somewhat appeased by my answer still not looking happy. Could be because he realized how crazy he sounded with his rapist/murderer theory. Plus, I didn't think Mitch was gay, so Tommy didn't have to worry about the first part. "Fine, he's not going to kill us. But I'm not going to let you ride on the counsel--you won't be wearing a seat belt. And in case you forgot, we almost collided with that guy a few minutes ago, not to mention that your father and sister are in the hospital as we speak because of a car accident."

There was a pause as Tommy suddenly realized what he had just said, followed by a curse under his breath. "Shit." Tommy grabbed my hands as he tried to catch my eye. "Jude, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to say that and upset you--"

"I'm fine." I cut him off, although the waver in my voice told otherwise. "Really, I'm okay. I just...forgot about that for a little while."

Despite my protests of being alright, Tommy still looked like he wanted to shoot himself right then and there. For some reason, this made me a little angry--I had more steel in my backbone than he thought. A few ill-spoken words weren't enough to shake me, no matter how true they were. Since when was I made of china, anyway?

Taking a deep breath, I got back to the matter at hand. "Look, Tommy, Mitch needs to see a doctor. Besides needing stitches, he might have a concussion or something. Take a look around--we're in the middle of nowhere." Okay, so that was a lie, since we were right outside of L.A. Oh well. "It'll be forever before somebody can get out to him, and we're going there anyway. Hell, what are the chances of this happening again in the next ten miles?"

Tommy released a sigh, and I knew I had him. Mitch was hurt and needed to go to the hospital. We were already going to the hospital. The lack of one seat should not be cause for Tommy to leave a guy stranded out here, and he knew it. Plus, it was illegal to leave the scene of an accident, and we were technically part of this one even though the Viper was unscathed.

My producer sent me a pointed look, and I knew I had his consent--however reluctant--about taking Mitch to the hospital with us.

We walked back over to Mitch and he gladly accepted the offer of a ride to the hospital, although he too was unsure about the seating arrangement. At first he refused to go, then said he'd sit on the counsel instead of me. I quickly put that idea to rest with the argument that he couldn't fit on it--but I could. Just as we were about to walk back to the Viper--which was still sitting in the middle of the intersection, definitely not a good thing--Tommy stopped.

"What about your car? We can't just leave it here, can we?" Tommy reasoned, looking back at the pathetic excuse for a car. Well, it was still a hunk of metal on four wheels, so I guess it counted, even if the metal was a bit...crunched.

"I called a guy I know to come take care of it while you guys were, um, talking." Mitch stated. Hmm, a guy he knows? Now how many people can just call up a guy they know at one in the morning to come take care of a car they crashed? I took a closer look at the car. BMW. Ah, that'd explain it. Mitch must have money, and lots of it if he could afford a car like that and not be worried about leaving it for someone else to clean up.

"And I know you're not supposed to leave the scene of a crime, or accident, whatever, but I don't feel that this needs to be, uh...reported." He continued, causing Tommy to raise his eyebrows. Catching the gesture, Mitch hastily continued. "I'm not some sleaze who's just trying to get out of anything, and cost isn't really a problem for me." Ah, my suspicions were confirmed--the guy was loaded. "But if you look at this logically, we both ran the stop sign. Our insurance rates are going to skyrocket, and they're already insane to begin with. Plus, an incident like this will look really bad on record. I just don't see the point in making this more complicated than it already is."

The man had a point, and Tommy seemed to agree. He thought about it for a moment, looked at me, and said "Sure" before continuing back to the Viper.

I looked at Mitch, shrugged, and followed Tommy, hearing Mitch's footsteps not far behind alerting me that he was doing the same.

Reaching the Viper, I found Tommy already seated behind the wheel, waiting somewhat impatiently for us to get in. I opened the passenger door, and like a gentleman, Mitch handed me in. I guess money equals manners...sometimes. But this was good--every girl likes manners, right? I know I did, so Mitch earned another point in my book. It was rare in the past for Tommy to open the door for me when he gave me a ride to the studio, let alone hand me in, kind of like they used to for carriages way back when.

While I was arguing the merits of Tommy and Mitch, I tried to maneuver myself--rather ungracefully, I might add--onto the black counsel, which was suddenly much smaller than I remembered. Thank God the top was already down--there was no way we could pull this off with the top up. My head would make a large bump in the black cloth, and I wasn't even going to wonder about the odd looks we'd receive from people. Once I'd adjusted and stopped moving, Mitch slid into the passenger seat and closed the door.

Okay, this was so not going to work. Not that I was going to admit that right away to Tommy, although I'm sure he noticed the flaws in the plan right away just like I did. Seeing how I was still wearing my floor-length dress from the awards, my leg movement was limited. The current position I was in basically had my dress covering the gear shift, which was something Tommy just might need to drive. No matter how I moved, I was still in the way and Tommy wouldn't be able to shift.

Crap.

Pulling my dress up to my thighs was out for two main reasons. First, I wasn't sure if it would go that high and secondly, I was sitting between two testosterone oozing males. I knew for a fact that Tommy wouldn't be able to drive even if he could use the stick because of how much skin I would be showing.

I also realized that even if I was wearing jeans, this still wouldn't work because Tommy's hand would be between my legs. Okay, mind get out of gutter right now. Anyway, Tommy's arm would have to rest on the inside of my thighs, and if he shifted into second...or fourth...

Oh God. I shivered. I've established that this brilliant idea of mine was so not going to work, so I had to come up with something else, like, now.

There weren't a lot of options, anyway, so I decided on the best one--in my opinion, anyway--before I chickened out.

"This won't work." I said to Tommy, and if he smirked I knew without a doubt that I'd slug him. He had no right to talk--at least I graduated from high school. Okay, low blow, Jude, but he'll never know about it since I said it all in my head. Ha.

Unless, of course, Tommy can read minds and never bothered to tell me.

But I don't think so.

With what I hoped was an apologetic look, I slid off the counsel into Mitch's lap. He looked surprised, to say the least, but did nothing to move me. This was good. I think.

I chanced a glimpse over at Tommy. Any faint traces of a smirk from a few seconds ago were long gone, replaced with a hardened jawline and a steely, unreadable gaze. Uh-oh, did I do something wrong?

Dumb question: obviously, the answer was yes. But there was nothing I could do now, and there was nothing Tommy could say, either. And apparently he knew it, too, because not a word came out of his mouth.

Instead, Tommy revved the engine to life and accelerated, probably harder than he needed to, because I was jolted backward into Mitch's chest. Mitch's nice, solid, strong chest...

We reached another stop sign, and now I was thrown forward, my face heading straight for the windshield. I guess I'd never realized how handy seatbelts really were. Before my face collided with the dashboard or the windshield, though, a pair of arms wrapped around my waist, anchoring me to a body. Mitch's body.

And I wasn't complaining.

Tommy looked over at us, noticing Mitch's arms wrapped around me. I knew he realized his mistake, because he took more care to accelerate and brake gently since I was riding sans seatbelt. But the damage had been done, and Mitch didn't release his hold on me.

This was going to be a long drive.