Room Service

Chapter Six

            “And we’ve just ventured out,” he said, with a mischievous glint in his eye. “See what I mean? Adventurous.”

            “If you say so,” I answered, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself smiling.

            We drove for about fifteen minutes after that, though I couldn’t be sure of the exact timing. The clock on Leon’s dashboard was broken, permanently stuck on twelve minutes midnight, even though in reality it was no later than nine. In fact, his whole car was a lot more worn-down than I’d been expecting; the words Leon McCarthy tended to bring to mind the image of some flashy sports car, complete with all the latest add-ons. His rough-edged Toyota was miles more understated, with a dent in the bonnet and slightly chipped paintwork. It was just one of a number of things that had surprised me about him.

            However, when these fifteen or so minutes were over, what ended up happening was enough to leave me wishing he’d brought a backup sports car.

            The engine was making a weird clunking noise; it started off quiet, but rapidly increased in volume until we could barely hear the radio over it. I glanced over to the driver’s seat, my brows already shooting up, hoping to be faced with a calm expression and the reassurance that this was perfectly normal.

            “What’s going on?”

            Only after the words had left my mouth did I realise the obvious: the car was slowing down, its speed declining until we were barely crawling across the tarmac. Leon hit the hazard lights and salvaged the last of the power to steer the car to the side of the road, removing us from the way of oncoming vehicles. Still, we weren’t in any immediate danger; the road was mostly clear at this time of night.

            “Well,” he said eventually, after what felt like a long time to be sat in silence, especially the kind that was so ominous. “Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news?”

            “What have you done?” I muttered scathingly.

            “The good news,” he said, attempting to inject some positivity into his tone, “is that I happen to know exactly what’s gone wrong here.”

            “And the bad news?”

            “The bad news…” He paused, his eyes darting in my direction with worried anticipation. “Well, basically, the bad news is that I’ve been incredibly stupid and forgotten that my fuel gauge has been wrong for the past two months, and that quarter-full on the dashboard actually means zero.”

            I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You mean to tell me we’ve just run out of petrol?”

            “Well…” He drew out the word, his face twisting into a grimace. “If you want to put it like that, I suppose so.”

            “You’ve got to be joking!” I leaned right out of my seat, landing a whack on his arm that was only half playful. “You’re an absolute idiot, you know that? Did it slip your mind that your car doesn’t run on an unlimited supply of petrol?”

            “For a while, yes!” he cried, throwing his hands up. “I’ve been preoccupied, okay? I’ve had a lot on my mind. Especially when all I can think about is how pissed my manager’s going to be if she ends up finding me. The petrol on my car was actually pretty low on my priority list.”

            I sighed in exasperation. “I can’t believe this.”

            “Look, just think of it as—”