Long Way Home
"A three-hour rideshare. An empty highway. Two strangers who won't be strangers by the end."
The app says her name is Patricia.
Five stars. Three hundred rides. A photo that shows a woman in her fifties with kind eyes and dark skin.
I'm standing outside the airport at 11 PM, luggage at my feet, waiting for a three-hour ride home because my connecting flight got cancelled and I refuse to sleep in another airport hotel.
A silver SUV pulls up. The window rolls down.
"Marcus?"
"That's me."
"Hop in. I'm Patricia."
She's bigger than her photo suggested.
The seatbelt strains across her chest. Her thighs spread wide on the seat. Her arms are soft and full, hands gripping the wheel with easy confidence.
She's wearing a simple dress—dark blue, sleeveless—that shows off shoulders and arms and a hint of cleavage that makes me look away quickly.
"Long flight?" she asks, pulling onto the highway.
"Long week. Work conference in Atlanta."
"Those'll kill you." She glances at me in the rearview. "You can sleep if you want. I'll wake you when we're close."
"I'm too wired to sleep."
"Then we'll talk." She smiles. "I like the late-night rides. People open up more when it's dark."
She's right.
Something about the highway at night—the rhythm of the road, the darkness outside—makes it easy to talk. She tells me about herself. Fifty-four. Divorced twice. Two grown kids who live out of state. She started driving rideshare after the second divorce, when she realized her life had gotten too small.
"I like meeting people," she says. "Hearing their stories. Gets me out of my own head."
"What's in your head?"
"Loneliness, mostly." She says it without self-pity. "I got so used to being half of something that I forgot how to be whole on my own."
"I know what you mean."
"Do you?" She glances at me again. "You seem young for that kind of knowing."
"I'm thirty-two. And I just ended a five-year relationship."
"Ah." She nods. "That explains the conference."
"What do you mean?"
"You booked a three-hour rideshare at 11 PM instead of staying in a hotel. You're not trying to get home. You're trying to get away."
She's more perceptive than I expected.
"Maybe," I admit.
"From the breakup? Or from yourself?"
"Both."
She's quiet for a moment. The highway unspools ahead of us, empty and dark.
"I drive a lot of people running from things," she says finally. "Some of them are running toward something too. They just don't know it yet."
"What do you think I'm running toward?"
She looks at me in the mirror. Holds my gaze.
"I don't know yet. But it's a long drive. We've got time to figure it out."
Somewhere around the halfway point, she pulls off the highway.
"Pit stop," she says. "I need to stretch."
We're at a rest area—empty except for a few trucks in the far lot. She parks away from the lights, turns off the engine.
"Come on. Walk with me."
We walk along the edge of the lot, where pavement meets grass. The night is cool, quiet. Stars visible above us.
"Can I ask you something?" she says.
"Sure."
"When you looked at me earlier—when you got in the car—what did you think?"
I hesitate. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I saw you look at me. Really look." She stops walking. Turns to face me. "Most passengers don't. They see a fat old woman driving a car. They don't really see."
"I saw you."
"And what did you see?"
The honesty of the night, the darkness, the distance from anything familiar—it pulls the truth out of me.
"I saw a beautiful woman. I saw someone who takes up space unapologetically. I saw—" I stop. Shake my head. "I saw someone I wanted to keep looking at."
She's quiet for a long moment.
Then she steps closer.
"I've driven three hundred rides," she says. "I've never done this before."
"Done what?"
She kisses me.
Her mouth is soft and warm.
She tastes like the coffee she's been sipping. Her hands find my chest, my shoulders. I pull her closer, and she comes willingly—all that softness pressing against me.
"The car," she breathes. "Back seat."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm fifty-four years old. I know what I'm sure about."
The back seat is cramped, but we make it work.
She straddles me—her weight settling onto my lap, her dress hiked up around her thighs. I push the fabric higher, find soft skin, no underwear.
"I stopped wearing them," she murmurs. "After the divorce. Felt like freedom."
I touch her—wet, ready—and she gasps.
"It's been so long," she breathes. "So long since anyone—"
"I've got you."
I stroke her while she fumbles with my belt. She frees me, wraps her hand around me, and I groan.
"I need this," she says. "I need you. Right now."
She positions herself and sinks down.
She's tight.
Hot. Gripping me like she's been waiting years for this exact moment.
"Yes," she moans. "Yes."
She rides me in the dark of the back seat—the SUV rocking gently, the windows fogging. Her breasts press against my face through her dress, and I pull the fabric down, take a nipple in my mouth.
She cries out. Her hips move faster.
"Just like that—just like that—"
I grip her ass—so much softness, spilling through my fingers—and thrust up into her. She's moaning continuously now, lost in it.
"I'm gonna come," she gasps. "You're gonna make me come—"
"Come for me, Patricia. Let go."
She shatters.
Her body convulses around me. She screams—no one to hear in the empty lot—and I feel her pulse around my cock in wave after wave.
I follow her over. Explode inside her while she's still shaking.
We collapse together, tangled in the back seat.
Panting. Trembling. Strangers who aren't strangers anymore.
She drives the rest of the way with one hand on the wheel, one hand on my thigh.
We don't talk much. Don't need to. Something has shifted—the air between us charged and comfortable at the same time.
At 2 AM, she pulls up to my apartment.
"Here you are."
I don't move.
"Come up."
She laughs. "I can't. I have another ride in the morning."
"Then give me your number. Not the app—your real number."
She's quiet for a moment. Then she pulls out her phone.
"This is crazy," she says as she types. "I don't do this. I've never—"
"Neither have I." I take the phone, add my number. "But some things are worth being crazy for."
She looks at me. Really looks.
"You're going to regret this in the morning."
"I'm going to call you in the morning. That's not the same thing."
She smiles—surprised, hopeful.
"Then I'll answer."
I call her at 9 AM.
She answers on the second ring.
"I thought you'd sleep in," she says. "Long night."
"Couldn't stop thinking about you."
"That's a line."
"It's the truth."
She's quiet. Then: "What are you doing tonight?"
"Taking you to dinner. If you'll let me."
"And after dinner?"
"Whatever you want. For as long as you want."
She laughs—warm, surprised.
"You're serious."
"I've never been more serious."
Another pause. Then:
"Pick me up at seven."
Six months later, she moves in.
Not because it makes sense. Not because it's practical. Because something that started in the back of an SUV at a rest stop turned into something neither of us expected.
"You know what the craziest part is?" she says one night, curled against me in bed.
"What?"
"I almost didn't take that ride. Almost logged off for the night."
"But you didn't."
"No." She kisses my chest. "I didn't."
Some rides take you home.
Some rides take you somewhere better.
I found both in the same car.