Katie
By the time my shift finally ends, my feet ache, my hair smells like whiskey, and my brain feels stuffed full of cotton. I wipe down the last stretch of the bar, toss the rag into the sink, and glance around the quiet room. The TVs are still playing, but the volume is low now.
“Lock up behind you,” the owner calls as he heads for the door.
“I know,” I mutter.
Sarah left almost an hour ago, which means I’m the last one here.
The second the crowd thins out, everyone else disappears, leaving the unlucky closer to deal with the silent aftermath.
I shut off the last row of lights, grab my purse, and push out the back door into the alley.
The door shuts behind me with a heavy click that echoes off the brick walls.
Downtown Los Angeles never really sleeps, but the alley behind the bar is its own strange pocket of quiet.
The distant noise of traffic and music from nearby clubs drifts between the buildings, softened by distance, while the narrow strip of pavement itself sits mostly empty.
My car is parked where I left it earlier that afternoon, squeezed between the dumpster and the wall.
I unlock it and slide into the driver’s seat, tossing my purse onto the passenger side. For a moment, I sit there enjoying the quiet before turning the key in the ignition. The engine coughs weakly and dies. I frown and try again. The same pathetic sputter answers me before the car goes silent.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I mutter, turning the key once more.
The engine groans and gives up completely. I lean back against the seat and stare at the ceiling while the reality of the situation settles in. It’s two in the morning, I’m sitting in a dark alley behind a bar, and my car won’t start.
“Fantastic.”
I pull out my phone and scroll through my contacts, debating whether it’s worse to wake someone up or call a tow truck and sit here alone until someone shows up.
I’m still staring at the screen when headlights sweep across the alley, bright enough to make me look up.
A black SUV turns off the street and glides into the narrow space behind the building.
My tiny Honda looks ridiculous next to it.
The glossy paint reflects the yellow streetlight as it rolls forward almost silently before coming to a stop beside my car.
For a moment, nothing happens, and then the rear passenger window lowers slowly. Sitting inside is the man from the bar, looking exactly the same as he did earlier that night.
“Need a ride?” he asks calmly.
My brain takes a moment to catch up. “You followed me out here?”
“No,” he replies easily. “I waited.”
What the hell?
I stare at him before shaking my head. “I’m good. Thanks.”
His gaze drifts briefly toward my car and back to me. “Car trouble?”
“I’ll call someone.”
“At two in the morning?” he asks mildly, glancing down the empty alley before returning his attention to me. “While you’re parked behind a bar in downtown Los Angeles.”
I stare at him.
He gestures toward the front of the vehicle. “You can sit up front with the driver.”
I glance toward the man behind the wheel. He looks younger than the man in the back, maybe mid-twenties, with short dark hair and a much less intimidating presence. When he notices me looking, he gives a nod.
“I promise,” the man in the back says, “we’re very normal.”
“That’s exactly what a serial killer would say,” I mutter.
He chuckles quietly.
I glance down the alley again, then back at my car, which refuses to start no matter how much I glare at it. Waiting here means sitting alone in the dark for however long it takes a tow truck or a friend to get here, assuming either of them answers the phone.
I sigh and rub my forehead.
“Well,” I mumble to myself, “if I die tonight, at least it’ll be in a really nice vehicle.”
“What?” the man in the back asks.
“Nothing.”
I climb out of my car and walk over to the SUV. I open the front door.
Katie, you are so stupid.
The interior is as expensive as the exterior. I slide into the front passenger seat and shut the door.
The driver glances over at me. “Seatbelt, ma’am.”
I buckle it. Behind me, I feel the other man watching.
I stare straight ahead through the windshield and take a slow breath before saying, “So we’re clear, if this turns into a kidnapping situation, I’m going to be extremely annoyed.”
The man from the bar laughs softly, which is completely unsettling. The driver taps the navigation screen once the car pulls away from the curb. The map lights up the dashboard. He glances over at me politely.
“Where are we taking you?” he asks. “I’ll put the address in.”
I hesitate. The question hangs in the air. He wants my address. My exact address. The place where I sleep at night.
Am I seriously about to tell these men where I live?
I glance at the driver again. He looks normal enough. He’s young and clean-cut. He strikes me as the type who probably says please and thank you to servers. From the back, there’s a faint shift of movement as the man from the bar leans forward slightly.
“Doll,” he says in that same calm voice I heard all night, “we just want to make sure you get home safe.”
I turn around in my seat and look at him, rolling my eyes before facing forward again.
“Fine,” I mutter, and give the driver my address. Then, under my breath, I mutter, “I have a name.”
The driver lets out a laugh before straightening again behind the wheel. The reaction makes me smile.
“It’s Katie, by the way,” I say.
“I know,” the man behind me replies.
That makes me turn all the way around in my seat. I stare at him, my expression sliding somewhere between disbelief and disgust.
“You know,” I say flatly, “you’re really creepy.”
His mouth curves into a faint smirk.
“I heard it at the bar, Katie,“ he says, stressing my name.
I narrow my eyes at him. “You’re still creepy.”
I turn back around and settle into the seat again. When I glance over at the driver, I notice a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
The SUV glides through the streets for several minutes before the man behind me speaks again.
“You have a long commute.”
I glance back at him. “Huh?”
He gestures the navigation system on the dashboard.
“For that bar,” he says calmly. “Why are you driving twenty miles to work in some dingy bar?”
I huff and turn around in my seat again. “My actual job is in the town I live in.”
He raises an eyebrow. “So your real job isn’t bartending.”
“God, no,” I say immediately. “I’m a teacher.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I squeeze my eyes shut. Because apparently tonight I’m just handing out personal information to mysterious men in luxury SUVs.
The silence stretches after that before he speaks again. “What kind of teacher?”
I open my eyes and glance back at him over my shoulder.
“Not until you tell me your name and what you do,” I say.
One corner of his mouth lifts slightly.
“Michael,” he replies. “I run my family’s business.”
I study him. He’s wearing a tailored suit. He’s in an absurdly expensive SUV with a driver.
“Must be a pretty successful business,” I say, glancing around the interior of the car before looking back at him, “if you’re dressed in that suit and riding around in this thing with a driver.”
“We do well,” he says.
I look at him. “I’m a high school English teacher. The bar is my summer job.”
He leans forward slightly in the back seat.
“Isn’t school still in session?” he asks. “It’s not even June yet.”
“It ends Monday, but they asked me to start early,” I say with a shrug. “I needed the money.”
Michael watches me after I answer. The car settles into silence, and I think maybe the conversation is over. Then he speaks again.
“So this week,” he says, “you worked until two in the morning every night and got up to teach the next day?”
“Yes.”
There’s a pause before he asks the next question.
“Why would you need to do that?”
I don’t answer right away. Instead, I look out the windshield, watching the streetlights pass one after another across the hood of the SUV. The truth sits right there in my chest, but it’s not something I usually hand to strangers during a car ride in the middle of the night.
The truth is simple. The bar job isn’t about extra spending money or something fun to do during the summer. It’s about my mom.
Two years ago, when I took the teaching job, she was still mostly herself back then. She was forgetful sometimes, repeating stories more than she used to, but still my mom. The doctors called it early-onset dementia.
The facility I found for her is beautiful.
It’s safe and clean. The staff are kind and patient in the way people need to be with someone who forgets the same conversation three times in ten minutes.
It’s also unbelievably expensive. I teach during the day and pour drinks at night, and somehow I make it work.
I realize a second too late that I’ve been quiet for a long time. I don’t answer him. Instead, I turn around in my seat until I’m facing him again.
“So let me get this straight,” I say. “You seriously came to the bar every night for a week and just sat there staring at me?”
His eyebrow lifts slightly.
“Obsessed much?”
The car goes quiet. Then Michael bursts out laughing. It’s not a polite chuckle or the quiet, controlled laugh I expected from him. It’s a full laugh that seems to surprise even his driver.
His laughter eventually fades, though the amusement still lingers on his face as he looks at me. His eyes drag over me in a way that should probably make me uncomfortable.
“I liked what I saw,” he says simply.
I roll my eyes at him, even though I can feel the corner of my mouth turning upward. “God, you really are a creeper.”
He doesn’t look the least bit offended. If anything, the smirk on his face deepens.