Three.
That's the number of old ladies that were in the front area of the car.
"Right, now let's go" the driver said.
As she said that a safety demo came over the speakers.
"Hello, it Hermes the traveling god-" the speaker began.
Then the cab shot off at the speed of sound (maybe not that fast, but still).
"Now give me the eye, I'm driving" one said.
"It's my turn, we went over this when we drove that other demigod" the other said.
Then I saw the driver reach over and TAKE OUT THE OTHER'S EYE.
As if on cue James put his hand over my mouth to stifle a scream.
He removed his salty smelling hand away from my mouth and looked at me with those sea green eyes and mouthed Get used to it followed with a smile.
I almost melted. Snap out of it I thought he's just a friend.
"Ladies just give me the eye" the third one said.
"No!" The others snapped in unison.
"Okay, okay fine" the third one sighed.
This went on for 10 mins when the driver screamed and made a super sharp turn to avoid pedestrians. Then the whole car squeezed between two trucks. That reminded me of that scene in Harry Potter where the double decker bus squeezed in between mortal cars. Only in the movie the people seemed unfazed, in real life I felt like I was gonna die from suffocation. James and I were squished together and I would have done something other than hold my breath if I was ever that close to him, but I did just that.
I held my breath. My arms and sides hurt when we stopped squeezing and I felt like I was just hit in the chest with a football that knocked the breath out of me. Even James looked pained.
James told the driver to drop us off a few feet behind the group. A few minutes later we were running up to the back of the group trying not to look like we just ran to the Hudson River, flew across water, and rode in a taxi at the speed of sound. We had just arrived before lunch. We shared laughs the whole trip just by looking at each other. Then it was time to go back to the hotel.