The Takeaway Driver
"She orders from the same Somali restaurant every Friday. He's the driver who always brings it—too handsome for Deliveroo, with a smile that makes her tip extra. When her order is wrong and he comes back to fix it, she invites him inside. Dinner becomes dessert."
Friday nights are sacred.
After a week of hospital shifts, I order from Mama Halimo's, run a bath, and eat suqaar in my dressing gown while watching terrible TV. It's my ritual. My sanity.
And for the past four months, Abdi has been part of it.
He's the Deliveroo driver who always gets my order.
I don't know if it's algorithm or fate, but every Friday at 8 PM, his face appears on my app. Every Friday, he shows up with my food and a smile that makes me forget I'm in slippers.
"Suugo pasta, extra basil, lamb suqaar on the side," he says tonight, holding out the bag.
"You remembered."
"You order the same thing every week." He grins. "Some things are worth remembering."
I tip him 30%. I always tip him 30%.
He leaves. I close the door.
And then I check the bag.
The suqaar is wrong.
Beef, not lamb. Someone at the restaurant made a mistake, and now my perfect Friday is ruined.
I open the app. Request a redelivery.
Twenty minutes later, there's a knock at my door.
"Sorry about that." Abdi holds up a new container. "They're training someone new."
"It's fine. Thanks for coming back."
"No problem." He hands me the food. Our fingers brush. "Same time next week?"
I should say yes. Should close the door. Should eat my proper suqaar and watch my terrible TV.
Instead, I say: "Have you eaten?"
He hesitates.
"I'm not supposed to—"
"I have too much food." Not true, but I can make it true. "And I'm tired of eating alone."
"Your husband won't mind?"
"No husband." I hold the door open. "No one to mind anything."
He looks at his phone. At the door. At me.
"I have three more deliveries."
"They can wait?"
They can't. We both know it. But he steps inside anyway.
We sit on my living room floor.
Containers spread between us like a picnic. He tells me about his life—arrived from Mogadishu two years ago, worked three jobs to send money home, drives Deliveroo because the hours are flexible.
"What about you?" he asks. "Why does a beautiful woman eat alone on Friday nights?"
"I'm a nurse. I work sixty hours a week. Dating is—complicated."
"Complicated how?"
"How do you date when you're exhausted? When you'd rather sleep than go to a bar? When the only men you see are patients or doctors who think they're God?"
"You see me."
I look at him. Really look.
"I see you every Friday. For about thirty seconds."
"Is that not enough?"
"For what?"
He sets down his fork. Moves closer.
"For this."
He kisses me on my living room floor.
Surrounded by takeaway containers and the smell of suugo, my delivery driver kisses me like he's been thinking about it every Friday for four months.
"Abdi—"
"Tell me to stop—"
"Don't stop."
He pushes me back onto the carpet. My dressing gown falls open—I'm wearing nothing underneath, hadn't expected company—and his breath catches.
"You're—"
"Underdressed?" I pull him down. "I wasn't planning on guests."
"Guests?" He kisses my neck. "I'm more than a guest now."
His mouth finds my breast.
I stop arguing.
He's gentle.
Careful. Like he knows I'm exhausted, like he wants to give rather than take. His mouth traces my body while I lie on my carpet, the TV still playing something stupid in the background.
"Let me—" He moves lower. "Let me do this right—"
"You don't have to—"
"I want to." He parts my thighs. "Every Friday, I think about you. Let me show you what I think about."
His tongue finds me.
I moan.
He eats me like I'm the best thing on Mama Halimo's menu.
Thorough. Appreciative. Taking his time even though his phone keeps buzzing with delivery notifications he's ignoring.
"Abdi—your orders—"
"They can wait." He sucks my clit. "You can't."
I come with the TV still playing, with takeaway containers scattered around us, with a delivery driver between my thighs.
"Please—I need—"
He rises over me. "Tell me what you need."
"You. Inside. Now."
He takes me on my living room floor.
The carpet burns my back, but I don't care. He's inside me, filling me, giving me something I didn't know I was missing.
"You feel—" he gasps.
"Don't stop—"
He doesn't stop.
Thrusts into me while I wrap my legs around him, while the suugo gets cold, while his phone buzzes with increasingly angry notifications.
"Yes—yes—Abdi—"
"I'm close—"
"With me—"
We come together on my carpet.
Collapse into each other while the TV announces something neither of us hears.
After, he checks his phone.
"Six missed deliveries."
"I'm sorry—"
"Don't be." He sets the phone down. Pulls me closer. "That was worth getting fired."
"You're not going to get fired."
"Might." He grins. "Worth it."
"Come back next Friday."
"As your delivery driver?"
"As my—" I hesitate. "I don't know. Something more."
"Something more." He kisses my forehead. "I like the sound of that."
He comes back next Friday.
And the Friday after. And every Friday until we stop pretending delivery is the reason.
"You still order from Mama Halimo's?" my colleague asks.
"Every week."
"That delivery driver still bringing it?"
"He lives here now."
She stares.
"The delivery driver lives with you?"
"The man I love lives with me." I smile. "He just happened to start as my delivery driver."
We marry in a small ceremony.
Mama Halimo caters. The food is perfect.
When we cut the cake, he whispers: "I still have my Deliveroo account."
"So?"
"So if you ever get tired of me—" He grins. "You can just rate me one star."
"Never." I kiss him. "Five stars. Forever."
Some love stories start in romantic places.
Ours started with wrong suqaar and a man who came back to fix it.
And stayed forever.