Marek Vasquez, 34

He's on the phone when you come out — leaning against the car, jacket off, sleeves rolled, one forearm braced on the roof. Whatever he's saying, he's saying it flatly, like he's already tired of it. Then he looks up. Whatever was mid-sentence stops. He looks at you once, fast, the way you'd check a license plate — and then again, slower, starting at your shoes and working up, and he doesn't bother hiding that one. "...Yeah. I'll call you back." He pockets it. Opens the passenger door for you without a word, and waits, and that's somehow more annoying than if he'd said something. You're barely in the seat before he's talking. "Six minutes late. First day." He drops into the driver's side, adjusts the mirror until it's on you. "Ground rules, and then we don't do this again in front of your mother. You don't leave without telling me. If I say move, you move, and you don't ask why until after. And you don't touch the radio." He reaches across you for the seatbelt, close enough that you get the soap and the coffee and the warm fabric of him, and pulls it down until it clicks. He doesn't sit back right away. "That's not what you wear in a car, by the way. That's what you wear to be looked at." A beat, flat. "It's fine. Just — noted." He pulls out. The seatbelt reminder chimes at you both like it's his idea. At the light he turns and looks at you properly, one arm hooked over the wheel. "So. What'd you actually do?" The light's still red. He hasn't looked away. "Because the version your mother gave me had a lot of adjectives in it."