“Oh mygod! Get off me, you brute!” My voice is a ragged gasp, muffled against the cab’s stained upholstery. The vinyl seat smells of stale smoke and industrial cleaner, a scent now imprinted in my memory alongside this imbecility.
“Get out, and we’ll discuss it!” he barks, his grip on my ankles like iron manacles.
“Thisisthe discussion! Unhand me!”
He pulls. I hold on tighter to the seat. The cab driver, a man with the weary eyes of a philosopher-king witnessing the fall of Rome, twists in his seat.
“Enough!” The driver’s voice cuts through our panting. “What thehellis going on here? This is not a damn wrestling ring! I drive a taxi, I don’t referee the WWE!”
“I was here first!” I shout, my cheek pressed against the cool vinyl.
“A lie!” the man bellows behind me.
“Someone decide, or I drive away empty!” the driver yells, throwing his hands up.
“Me!” We both shout in unison.
Our shouts overlap, a discordant chorus of entitlement. He gives a mighty heave. My fingers, slippery with sweat, lose their purchase. I tumble backward in an ungainly sprawl, landing hard on the gritty sidewalk, palms stinging as they take the impact. He stumbles back a step, releasing me as if I burned him somehow.
We both watch, stunned, as the cab door slams shut. The driver locks it with an audible click, shoots us a look of profound disgust, and peels away from the curb, heading straight for a perfectly composed woman in a trench coat down the street who raises a single, elegant arm.
Silence, thick and ringing, descends. I sit on the cold concrete, breathing in lungfuls of diesel-tinged air, watching the taxi’s taillights recede into the river of light on Avenue B. The adrenaline recedes, leaving a cavernous, shaky sensation in its wake.
The man stands over me, his own breathing ragged. His previously neat hair is a riot of dark curls, a lock of it falling across his forehead. In the sulfurous glow of the streetlamp, I see the fury etched on his face, but beneath it, something else—a deep, bone-weary frustration that seems to age him by a decade.
“That,” he spits, the word sharp as a shard of glass, “is entirely your fault.”
I push myself up, brushing bits of grit from my stinging palms. The leather of my jacket is scuffed. “Myfault? You manhandled me!”
“You could’ve been perfectly reasonable and let me pay for your next cab.”
“Oh, right.Reasonable. Because you were soreasonableyourself!” I throw my hands up. “I could’ve been standing out here for god knows how long waiting for another one that might never show up!”
“That’s not—”
“And it’s notmyfault you have some desperate booty call waiting for you at home. I’m a woman! I shouldn’t be out here alone at night any longer than I have to be.”
He goes very still. The anger in his eyes cools, crystallizing into something harder, more complex. “A booty call.” He repeats it flatly, as if tasting the words and finding them bitter. “You think that’s what this is about?” A harsh, humorless sound escapes him. He drags a hand through his hair again, a gesture of pure exasperation. “You have no idea.”
“Then enlighten me! What’s so desperately important?”
“That,” he says, his voice dropping to a low, tight register, “is none of your business.”
The dismissal is a slap. “Well, your mystery emergency doesn’t trump my basic safety.”
“It wasn’t an emergency. It was a responsibility. One you just made significantly harder to meet.” He takes a step closer, and I’m struck again by his sheer physical presence, the solidity of him. The exhaustion on his face isn’t just from tonight; it’s etched into the fine lines around his eyes, the tight set of his mouth. It’s the weariness of someone carrying a constant, heavy weight. For a fleeting second, a ridiculous, traitorous thought flashes: his lips look soft. There’s a distinct, perfect seam in the center of his lower lip I suddenly, inexplicably want to lick with my tongue.
Which I hate. Because this man is an asshole.
“You are monumentally impossible,” he states, each word clipped.
“And you are clinically deranged.”
“I’m tired,” he corrects, and the honesty in it disarms me. It’s not an excuse; it’s a confession. I can tell he means it. It’s the kind of tired that sleep doesn’t fix, the kind that seeps into your marrow, takes root in your very being.
A flicker of something akin to pity threatens to surface. Then I feel the phantom grip on my ankles, see the cab speeding away, and it evaporates altogether. “Well, go be tired somewhere else. I have nothing more to say to you.”
He holds my gaze for a long, charged moment—a silent exchange of pure, undiluted animosity. Then he turns on his heel and walks away, his shoulders set in a rigid line, hands shoved deep into his pockets. I watch his retreating form, a knot of hot, frustrated energy burning in my chest.
