“I must be crazy, right?” he says quietly, smirking. He gets to his feet, reaches for my free hand and pulls me out of the bed. He steadies me on my feet and looks down at me. “But it’s New York. We don’t do anything less than crazy in this city.”
Now wide awake, excitement rushes over me. The thought of driving Tyler’s car, the possibilities of what that engine can do, fills me with euphoria. I’ve never been all that into cars, but Tyler’s is an exception. Quickly, I reach for my clothes and pull them on, rummaging around the room for my Chucks afterward. The same Chucks I’ve worn for four weeks straight now. They seem to be the only shoes I ever wear now, and they’re not as white as they were to begin with.
“One scratch on my baby and you’re gonna get it,” Tyler says once I’m dressed, but he’s smiling. He throws an arm over my shoulder and leads me over to the door, opening it without a single sound and walking me through the living room.
Through the darkness, I can make out Snake’s outline on the couch. His couch, thankfully. He’s fast asleep and snoring softly, so Tyler and I creep our way over to the apartment door as silently as we can. We make it out into the lobby without waking him, and Tyler lets go of me while he locks up.
The building is silent and neither of us talk in fear of waking people up as we pass their apartments and head into the elevator. I jingle the keys in my hand and I sense Tyler watching me from the corner of his eye. I hope I don’t get arrested for this.
Once we leave the building and step outside onto Seventy-fourth Street, I realize New York is still busy. Admittedly, the traffic and flow of people on the sidewalks is substantially less hectic than during the day, but for 3AM there are still a lot of cars on the roads. Cabs, mostly. It’s hardly warm out, but it’s not cold.
Parked against the curb on the other side of the street, Tyler’s car awaits me. I eye it with excitement building up inside of me again and swiftly unlock it. To my surprise, however, Tyler snatches the keys from my hand and darts across the road. He throws open the driver’s door and looks back at me with a glint his eyes. My eyebrows are raised, demanding an explanation.
“What, you thought I was gonna let you drive around Manhattan?” Tyler laughs into the night air as he slides into the vehicle, and just before he shuts the door behind him, he adds, “No way in hell.”
Folding my arms across my chest in irritation, I force myself over to the car and slip into the passenger seat. I glare at him, disgruntled. “Where can I drive it then?”
“Jersey City,” Tyler shoots back as he starts up the engine. It purrs smoothly to life and a chill runs down my spine.
“Jersey City?”
“Yeah,” he says. “The Target parking lot.”
The dashboard glows orange in the darkness, the numbers on the speedometer lighting up. The music and climate controls ahead of the center console also light up, and I lean forward to adjust the heating before sinking back into my seat, and as Tyler edges out of his confined parking spot, I pull on my seatbelt.
It’s a good thing I do, because the moment we pull around the corner onto Second Avenue, he floors it straight until we hit a set of traffic lights. I listen as he revs up the engine, waiting. Glancing sideways at me, he smiles, clenching his jaw before narrowing his eyes on the road ahead. We’re the first at the lights. In front of us, the road is clear. Tyler’s fingers tighten around the gearshift, his other hand firmly gripping the steering wheel. The red flashes to amber, and as he slams his foot down on the gas, there’s a tremendous screeching of tires as the car catapults down the avenue. The speed is so forceful that it throws my body back against the seat. The engine roars behind us, the exhaust pipe sputtering fumes in our wake. Usually I would rebuke reckless driving, but right now, at 3AM in the middle of Manhattan, I’m loving it.
As Tyler shoves the gearshift toward sixth, his eyes flicker at me and there’s a mischievous smirk playing on his lips. His eyes zero back in on the road, and as the car continues to increase in speed, I find myself gripping onto the seat with one hand and my seatbelt with the other. I glance over at the speedometer and find that we’re flying along at double the speed limit, and Tyler only slows down when we reach the end of the traffic flow ahead of us, caught up in more traffic lights.
No more opportunities open up for reckless driving after that, only because the streets aren’t clear enough for it. We’re stuck trailing along behind a truck, and we only get away from it when we turn right onto Houston Street. We continue to head west across Manhattan until we enter a tunnel, just like the Lincoln Tunnel I crossed the first day I arrived in the city, only this time Tyler tells me this is the Holland Tunnel.