“You look hungry,” Daniel remarked, pulling his Range Rover into the sluggish traffic on 47^th.

“I ate before my shift, thanks.” I didn’t bother telling him my shift started almost seven hours ago.

He chuckled at my response. “I wasn’t offering to get you something to eat. You look hungry for something, but whatever it is, it’s definitely not food.”

I shifted uncomfortably in the leather seat, my gaze focused on the logo on the side of the work van parked against the curb beside us. “I don’t know what the fuck that means.”

After a brief silence, I turned to Daniel and found him wearing a curious smile, as if he were considering whether he should let me in on a secret. Ultimately, he turned away to focus on the road, then he turned right into even worse traffic on West Side Highway.

“You could have used some of this feisty attitude in the restaurant,” he said, with what I interpreted as a note of disappointment in his voice. “Why didn’t you speak up when your boss asked what that Ted Bundy wannabe did to you?”

I was not mistaken. For some reason, this privileged asshole who barely knew me was disappointed in me.

I shrugged. “Can we talk about something other than Roger?”

“Sure. Why don’t we talk about why you want to disappear?”

I sighed. “You know, being good looking doesn’t give you the right to be a nosy little prick.”

His eyes widened, as did mine, as we both realized my slip. “So you find me good looking?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and stared out the window again. “All I meant is that you don’t have a right to pry into my personal life just because you think you saved me from Roger and Jerry.”

“I think I saved you?”

“I don’t want to talk about this, okay?”

He focused his attention on the highway. “I won’t ask any more questions about your job…except for one.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What?”

“Why do you work there? I mean, shouldn’t you be in college or graduate school?”

I snatched my purse off the floor and clutched it to my belly, suddenly feeling as if I needed something to hide behind. “It’s not a huge mystery or anything. I dropped out because I couldn’t afford it.”

“Isn’t that what scholarships are for? You’re a…girl. There’s scholarships for women in just about every field these days.”

I shot him a scathing look. “Can we drop the inquisition, please? I wanted to disappear, not put myself on trial for being a loser.”

Though I immediately regretted speaking these words aloud, I was grateful it managed to get Daniel to stop his interrogation. However, traffic slowed as we passed Pier 1 on our left, and the silence seemed too much for him to handle. He pressed a few things on his flashy touchscreen and crisp musical notes flowed out of his sound system. He leaned back with a satisfied grin spreading across his beautiful face.

I chuckled as the sound of elevator Muzak filled the air. “Very funny.”

“What? You don’t like jazz?” he replied without a hint of a smile.

I waited for him to burst into laughter, to say he was kidding, but he just stared at me as the car inched forward in traffic.

“Hey, keep your eyes on the road,” I demanded.

“We’re going, like, two miles per hour,” he replied, his gaze locked on my face.

“My dad died in a car accident. I take driver safety very seriously,” I replied, inwardly cringing at the words my mother had repeated to me so many times, which I was almost certain were a lie. But I didn’t mind using this probable lie about my father’s death if it got Daniel and his gorgeous green eyes to stop staring into my soul.

The Range Rover stopped dead as the other cars around us continued inching forward. “Your…your dad…died? What…I thought…”

I cocked an eyebrow at this odd response. “Hey, it’s no big deal. It’s not like I knew him. He died when I was a baby. But now I…I don’t know, I guess I have a kind of phobia of car accidents. That’s why I don’t drive anymore.”

I swallowed hard, trying to clear away the emotions that welled up as I thought of that night, and the real reason why I might never find the courage to get behind the wheel again. Suddenly, I could smell my own fear as the city lights burned streaks into my retinas while the car flipped over, spiraling into hell.

We both let out deep, audible sighs at the same time, which confused the fuck out of me.

“Are you okay?” I asked, unable to hide the note of torment in my voice, the result of allowing myself to remember that night.

He nodded vigorously as the Rover moved forward again. “Yeah, yeah. I’m great. I just…I guess what you said about your dad caught me a little off guard. I…I never really had a dad around. My dad…He’s been in and out of prison since I was six.”

I stared at him for a moment, searching for any indication that he was pulling my chain, trying to relate to me on some deeper level by constructing a fake sob story, but he appeared extremely uncomfortable, like someone who had just shared a shameful piece of their past with a complete stranger.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied, setting my purse back on the floor. “How about your mom?” I shook my head as the words came out of my mouth. Now I was the one being nosy.

“She’s gone,” he said, the solemn look on his face betrayed by the ridiculous soaring bellow of the saxophone coming from the speakers. “Breast cancer. She died a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

A sickening weed of guilt grew inside my belly as I thought of my mom, at home alone. I could have gone home to be with her instead of going to the Botanical Gardens with a complete stranger, but I needed a break. I needed to forget, just for a few minutes, that I was the only thing standing between my mother and me being homeless.

Daniel was saying something, but I couldn’t hear him over the thundering roar of guilt drowning out every thought in my head.

“Can you just take me home?” I interrupted him. “I’m not far from the Botanical Gardens.”

His gaze skimmed over my face, possibly searching for signs I had tired of his company. “Of course.”

He seemed distant now, and I found myself wishing I had paid attention to whatever it was he was just saying. This happened often, tuning out in the middle of a conversation. I’d be speaking with a customer or coworker, then suddenly I’d find I hadn’t been paying attention for an unknown period of time. Always lost in thoughts of all the things I needed to do for my mother, or all the things I’d never get to do for myself.

Or the terrible things I’d done in the past.

We were four blocks from Hughes Avenue when my phone began to ring. Looking at the screen, I saw Leslie’s name and face. Leslie knew who to call if she ever saw my mom trying to leave the apartment without me.

I understood my mom got bored up there with no one and nothing but the TV for company, but I couldn’t afford to hire a caretaker to watch her while I worked. I wished we had family in New York who could help. With my mom’s entire family in South Dakota, and my father supposedly dead, I was alone. Totally alone.

“Leslie, what’s wrong?” I said, pressing the phone to my ear to hear her voice over the shrill bleat of the saxophone.

“Oh, honey, you should get down here as soon as you can,” she said, her gravelly voice sounding as tired and weary as ever. “We’re at the Bronx-Lebanon ER. Your mom took a spill.”