He said, "So, so what? So I'm asking if you're okay?" She stared at him. A semi blew past at 70 mph, not 30 ft behind her, and the wind from it whipped her hair sideways and rocked her on her heels. And she didn't even flinch.
Like she'd been out there long enough to stop being startled by it. That told Marcus something. You got a phone? He asked. Dead.
You got a ride coming? I had an Uber. It canceled. Second one. She didn't answer which meant no.
How long you been out here? A pause. A while. Clare. He kept his voice level.
How long? Hour and a half, she said. And she said it the way you say something you don't want to say. Fast. Quiet. like getting it out before you can change your mind.
An hour and a half on the shoulder of I-20 in the dark. Alone, Marcus exhaled through his nose, he reached back into his truck cab without taking his eyes off her and pulled out the water bottle from his center console, unopened, still cold from the gas station he'd stopped at 2 hours ago. He held it out toward her, not close enough to reach, he took one step forward and set it on the gravel between them and stepped back. Take it, he said. She looked at the bottle.
She looked at him. She didn't move for a long moment. And then, finally, with the energy of a woman who was exhausted, but not about to admit it, she walked forward and picked it up. She cracked it open and drank half of it without stopping. When she lowered the bottle, something in her expression had shifted just barely.
The armor was still there, but there was something underneath it now, something tired and real and very, very human. That's when she said it. Are you seriously stopping your car because you think this is how you flirt? And Marcus, standing there on the shoulder of I-20 at midnight, tired, hungry, with pasta, waiting on his passenger seat, looked at his coworker and almost almost smiled. "No," he said.
"I'm stopping because my coworker is walking alone on a dangerous road at midnight." Clare looked at him. Really looked at him this time. Not the threat assessment look, but something longer and more complicated. That's it, she said.
That's it. You're not going to try to be my hero. I'm going to offer you a ride, Marcus said. What you do with that offer is entirely your call. She didn't accept immediately.
That mattered to him. The fact that she didn't immediately say yes told him she was smart. And the fact that she didn't immediately say no told him she was practical. Instead, she asked him for his ID. He handed it over without a word.