Page 53 of Ashes

I turned my head and watched him slow his car tomatch my pace. I kept walking. “I’m about to be late for work,” I threw out behind me.

He pulled to a stop beside me and called my name again. I stepped down off the curb and walked over to his car, leaning over the rolled down passenger window.

“What do you want?” I asked in a hurry, needing to leave before I missed the bus.

Jamal rested his forearm on the steering wheel and turned his body toward me. “Get in. I’ll take you.”

“It’s okay. The bus will be here in two minutes. I’m sure you have better things to do.”

Besides, I planned on watching the first practice while I was on the bus since it was a race weekend. I moved to walk away, but the soft click of the door unlocking halted me in my movement.

“I’m not letting you take public transport. Get in.”

“Public transportation is perfectly acceptable.”

“I said, get in the car, Sienna.”

That’s when the bus whirred past us. So I got in the car.

“Just to clarify, I’m only getting in because you made me miss the bus and I can’t afford to be late if I wait for the next one.”

“Mhmm,” was the only thing he said before he pulled away from the curb. He reached for his dashboard and a few seconds later, my seat warmed up.

I sank deeper into it, silently grateful for it.

I slid a brief glance in his direction, wanting to say something to fight this suffocating silence that alwaysseemed to accompany our time together but thought better of it.

Instead, I unlocked my phone and pulled up the sports channel like I’d intended to do this morning. I reached for my headphones in my bag and connected them before placing them over my head. I rested my head against the window and watched the practice as I had intended to.

There were about ten minutes left to FP1 when Jamal pulled up in front of the hospital’s main doors. I took my headphones off, the practice still playing on my phone, and looked over at him.

“Thank you.”

I moved to open the passenger door but forgot that this wasn’t a car I was used to. Before I could look for the handle to open it, he reached over, his body pressed against mine, and pulled a lever from inside the door.

He pushed the side up to open it, but once it was, he didn’t move.

I peered down at him and held my breath. My cheeks flushed at his proximity and gravitational force urged me to lean further down and brush my lips against his, but he had the sense to pull away.

Something I should’ve done first.

My body instantly missed the feel of him pressed against me, but I brushed the thought away and simply muttered another thank you.

I stepped out of the car and closed the door behind me. I was barely a few feet away when he rolled the passengerwindow down and asked, “What time does your shift end?”

I turned around to face him. “Eight p.m. Why?”

“I’ll be here.”

Before I could say that it wasn’t necessary for him to pick me up, he drove off.

When I walked out of Monte Claro later that evening, he was there, just like he said he would. In fact, he drove me and picked me up for every shift since then, no matter the time.

After the fourth day of driving in total silence, I couldn’t bear it anymore. I’d usually welcome it after a long day of work, but if I had to spend another minute like this, I’d lose it.

“So,” I said tentatively, breaking the quiet stillness we basked in.

He slowly turned his head toward me. “So?”