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“Thanks,” I tell him as he gets off to make a call. I press the phone back to my ear. “Bus died.”
“Really, who did you piss off?” she asks. “I’m on it.”
“I’m going to start walking toward Back Bay.” The very last thing I want to do is get up and walk fifteen minutes toward the rail line, but my choices are limited here.
“It’s down,” Cayenne mutters.
I flop back on the bench and pinch my nose. “All right, the bus and the line are out. What’s left?”
“Taxi,” she says absentmindedly, her keyboard clacking away. “Bluebikes, Uber, Lyft.”
“Ma’am,” I hear to my left. My whole body instantly feels like fire ants are marching across my flesh as I turn to find an older gentleman with kind eyes standing ten feet from me with his hands up. “A few of us are going to use a ride share. What direction are you going?”
“No,” Cayenne says into the phone.
“I appreciate the offer, but I have backup on the way.” I hold my phone up.
“Liar,” Cayenne tells me.
This time? Yes, I am.
Clearly, he doesn’t believe it, because he opens his mouth to say something.
Unfortunately for him, I have Cayenne in my ear. “Ride in three, two” —I hear a wild clack on the keyboard just as a sleek black SUV pulls up— “one. Damn, I’m good.”
“See?” I jerk a thumb at the car and give the older man a fake smile. To Cayenne, I mutter, “Creds?”
“Quinn Clarke. I’ve never met her, but we play together,” Cayenne says. By play, she means those shooting games she gets lost in. She’s competitive by nature, and I love her for it.
I nod, relief washing over me. Standing up on my sore feet, I begin to wobble past the bus and stop at the license plate that I read off to Cayenne, then I approach the passenger seat. As I reach for the door handle, a flicker of uncertainty crosses my mind. What if Cayenne’s online friend isn’t who we think they are?
“I paid the driver,” Cayenne says jolting me back to reality.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I tell her with my hand on the door handle. “But thank you.”
“You’re right—I didn’t,” she replies, and I damn well know she isn’t done, not by a long shot. “I’d just prefer to have my friend in one fucking piece. One extreme emergency per lifetime, Aria. One.”
I wince as I slide into the car. She’s right. She once found me beaten to within an inch of my life. If it weren’t for Cayenne, then…well, I probably would have died that day.
I don’t argue with her. She’s right.
“Aria Collins?” a man asks after I shut my door, and he takes off.
“Um…Cayenne?”
“I’m on it,” she says in a very quiet, delicate voice.
“Hey, is that Cayenne?” the guy asks me. All I see in the rearview mirror are dark, soulful brown eyes. “Tell her this is my last drive, and I’ll log in.”
“Male? Quinn is not a male. Quinn is a female,” Cayenne says over the line. “I don’t make mistakes.”
“Well…” I admit, it isn’t a good look for me. “It sure as hell looks like you did.”
“Fuck,” she curses over the line.
“What do I do?” I hiss as he drives down the street. It’s a half-hour drive home, an hour by public transport. I want to get home safely, not in a tight space with a random person I don’t know.
I’m not panicking.
