You're Always You

Chapter Five

David Minett

David liked Lydia's coworkers. They were fun. And, he wasn't exactly the jealous type normally. He was a little at the start, and being overseas on deployment had been rough, but by now Dave was quite secure in his marriage. He wasn't worried about relationships on stage especially, since that was the point of acting.

They all respected each other, and that was definitely helpful.

As his wife had requested, David was heading out to grab something for them to eat. There was plenty of choice in New York, certainly, but abundance wasn't always a good thing. Too much choice easily led to indecision, which was why the couple had decided long ago, "When in doubt, get a pizza."

So he was getting a pizza.

Because of New York's traffic situation, there weren't many reasons for David to drive for himself, but grabbing dinner was one of them, because he wasn't going to just carry everything home again.

That was ridiculous.

Decidedly more ridiculous than the traffic.

Given there wasn't much movement going on half the time, it was easy to almost fall asleep at the wheel, though the odd stretch of open road ahead was always exciting. Pathetic, but...exciting.

David was patient, sometimes seemingly inhumanely so, but god he hated traffic. By the time he'd picked up the pizza and was on his way home, every chance he got to move forward, he was taking it.

Traffic rules be damned.

Except, that was how people got hurt, and he just knew—he could hear it already—that Brett would hand his ass to him for it.

He especially knew he was going to get an earful, from a few people at least, when he shot himself forward and nearly hit somebody. In David's defense, the dude was jaywalking like a motherfucker, and he died it would've been his fault okay, but thankfully the dude was not dead.

Exceptionally angry, but not dead.

David wanted to just poof and disappear as the hood of his car was slammed by this angry person whom he'd nearly just hit, but that kind of reaction didn't surprise him. There was a reason people shouting "'Ey, I'm walkin' 'ere!" in New York was a cliché.

It was when, while he'd had his forehead on the wheel waiting for the person to move on, that he was startled nearly out of his wits by his passenger door opening.

....

Because it had been locked.

The man he'd nearly hit just casually climbed into the car as if that was the most normal thing in the world and said, "Hey, man."

What the fuck.

"...Why are you in my car?" David questioned, ignoring the honking behind him.

The man waved a hand. "Don't worry about it, drive dude, you're makin' the problem worse."

....

Confused, David started to drive again. He wanted to insist this person get out, but he would pull over somewhere first, because he was a nice guy like that. In the meantime, it couldn't hurt to, y'know, get a clue what the hell was going on. "Uh...." David muttered, glancing at the stranger. "Who the hell are you and why are you in my car?"

The man sighed and rolled his eyes. "Well if you asked my brother he'd call me shithead sonovabitch, but I'm adopted, so fuck 'im. You don't need to know my name, what you need to know is that you fucked up, buddy."