But this? This feels like arrival.
At another stoplight, he turns his head slightly.
“You still with me?”
“Yes!”
“Regretting it yet?”
“Not even a little!”
The light changes, and he accelerates smoothly again.
A few minutes later, we pass a low shopping plaza with a faded sign.
He points.
“That laundromat right there?”
“Yes?”
“I once helped a guy carry his washer in there because he insisted it was ‘making a weird sound’ and needed professional intervention.”
I burst out laughing.
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Turned out it was just unbalanced.”
“And you… diagnosed that?”
“I own a bar. I know things.”
“Clearly.”
We ride another mile before he slows near a residential area.
“That park over there? I coached peewee baseball there for two summers.”
“You?”
“Hard to believe, I know.”
“No,” I say honestly. “Actually, that tracks.”
“Oh?”
“You’re patient.”
He glances back at me briefly, surprise flickering in his eyes.
“You noticed that?”
“I notice things.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I think you do.”
The ride shifts then.
