He stumbled, but before he could fall, she was at his side, her body propped up under his. “I can help you.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
Yes, he was. He was a man. A manly man! He could work a grill and chop firewood.
He straightened, but then he realized he wasn’t actually straightening, just leaning on her harder.
He deflated. No, he was not okay. But he didn’t know if he wasn’t okay because he was drunk or because his brain was firing up with even more not-right thoughts, like how good she smelled, like some sort of expensive perfume. She was smaller than he’d thought before, barely coming up to his breastbone.As small as Eve.
He shied away from that thought. He’d done a pretty good job all night of not thinking about Eve. He wasn’t about to fuck up now, after he’d invested so much time into pickling his brain so that weird tension choking him would go away. “I’m so sorry,” he muttered, and the remaining sober part of his brain cringed at how slurred his speech was.
Fuck, she was going to one-star him, and then he’d have boring, impersonal drivers forever. He’d grown fond of their chats.
He deserved it. Carrying his drunk ass into his house definitely wasn’t her job. Shame shot through him. He adjusted his grip around her shoulders so she wouldn’t be forced to bear as much of his weight. “Thanks for helping.”
“No problem,” she said, and he peered down at her. Her voice sounded different, but the alcohol was making it really difficult to pin down why.
Maybe it was the breathlessness. He tried to lessen his weight on her more, but he almost overcorrected backward, and she had to haul him close. For a second, he felt every round, soft inch of her against him.
No, no, no. “Ugh, just leave me here.”
“We’re at your door.” A tiny hand extended in front of him. “Keys?”
He stared at that hand for a second. “Huh?”
“Your keys?”
“Oh yeah.” He propped himself up against the wooden frame. He’d never been so delighted as the day he was able to afford this house. His big sister had offered to buy him the mansion of his choice, anywhere in the world, when she’d struck it rich in the tech world, but he’d wanted something he’d bought and paid for himself.
Something that would prove to the town and to the world he was more than an abandoned, unwanted charity case.
He shook the dark thoughts away and dug in his pocket. He pulled out his keys, handing them to her. There was no way he’d ever be able to fit a key into a lock in this current state.
Or anything into anything, for that matter.
Yikes, way too inapp—not right, these thoughts.
“Gabe!” Her voice sounded like it was coming from so far away, and there came that body, pressing up against his side again. His arm automatically went around her shoulders. Her sweatshirt was old and cheap, the cotton catching on the calluses of his hands.
She should be out getting more fares, not caring for him. He’d send her off, but Jesus, had he almost fallen asleep standing up? He started to tell her he was fine now that he was a foot away from crossing the threshold, but truth be told, he wasn’t sure if he was. The floor lurched with every step he took into his home, his head ringing when she closed the door behind them.
“You shouldn’t come inside passengers’ houses,” he had the strength of mind to scold. “Especially when they’re in this condition.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
He looked down at her head, hating the hoodie. He wanted to see her hair. He wanted to see her face properly, here, where he could catalog her features by the faint moonlight. “No. Never.”
“Then I think we’re okay. Where’s your bedroom?”
He nodded at the stairs. A small beam of light bounced on the wall, and he frowned before realizing she’d turned her phone’s flashlight on. On their way up the stairs, they knocked into one wall, then the other, and he had to take a deep breath and use every ounce of sobriety left in him to focus. “A serial killer would say the same thing.”
“Huh?”
What had he been saying? Oh yeah. “A serial killer would tell you he’s harmless, and then by the time you wind up with your head in a freezer, it’s too late.”
“Your Ryde rating wouldn’t be a perfect five if you were stuffing all your drivers’ heads in freezers.”
