The Rideshare Driver Drove Me Home Four Nights in a Row novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Drive-Through

On Wednesday morning at 1:30 we were parked outside a burger place on Colfax with the engine off.

A paper bag sat between us, and neither of us had touched it.

That wasn't the plan.

The plan had been to go to the garage again, or the reservoir, or anywhere.

When he opened the passenger door for me, I had said instead that I was starving.

I wasn't lying.

I fed three hundred people on Saturdays, and I had not eaten a real meal since a staff lunch on Sunday.

He had looked at me for a second.

"There's a place," he said. "It's open all night."

So we sat in the lot of a 24-hour burger stand under a buzzing red sign.

We ate fries out of the bag with the dome light off.

"Can I ask you something?" Mateo said.

"You can ask."

"Why are you out so late? Every night."

I licked salt off my thumb.

"I run the kitchen at a restaurant on South Broadway. I close at midnight and I'm out by one. Nine years."

"And before the ride?" he said.

"I walked."

He went still with a fry in his hand.

"A mile," I said. "I walked it most nights."

I wiped my fingers on a napkin.

"My ex-husband kept the only car in the divorce. He took the Subaru and the good pans, and I got a rented duplex and a folder full of papers."

"He's still on your account," Mateo said.

"On the phone plan and the ride app. Both are in his name. It's a stupid mess, and I haven't had the nerve to pull the plug."

"Why?" he said.

"Because he says things like 'be reasonable' in a voice that's so calm I start apologizing."

Mateo put the fry down.

He turned in his seat and looked out the windshield, and his hands closed into fists on his thighs, and he opened them slowly.

"I'd like to meet him," he said, mild.

"No, you wouldn't."

"No," he agreed. "I wouldn't like it much either."

I laughed, and it surprised me.

I picked up the shake from the bag and held it out.

"Order me another one. I want the drive-through."

"We're parked in the lot," he said.

"I know where we are."

He looked at me.

Then he started the car and pulled around to the back of the building, and we joined the line for the speaker.

There was one car ahead of us.

We sat behind it with the engine ticking and the menu board lit in red and white.

I unbuckled my seat belt.

"What are you doing?"

"Pull up to the speaker," I said. "And order."

He pulled up.

A tinny voice said, "Welcome, go ahead whenever."

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