It was already starting to get cold and Angel had no idea what she was going to do. Her date had been an asshole and she had refused to get in the car with him. Not only was he not her type but he had been drinking and shouldn't have been driving at all. She had not even thought about the day or where she was only that it wouldn't be safe to get in the car with him. Now she stood looking at the transit map. Any other Monday she would have had two more buses she could catch, but this was Labor Day a Holiday schedule and she should have remembered as it was the only reason she had been out on a Monday night. No money for a cab and all her friends with cars were still hours away from the city enjoying the end of the long weekend. She had walked back to the bar hoping the staff would be able to help her but they too had closed early for the holiday.
The wind bit at her skin where the short skirt and fish nets left her bare. Had Angel known the sort of night it was to be she would have dressed more reasonably but she hadn't imagined being stranded in a remote neighborhood. Angel resigned herself to walking to the nearest covered bus stop and waiting for the first morning bus to arrive. The neighborhood wasn't bad but it was near some of the less savory parts of town and again she wished she had chosen something less revealing then her purple and black plaid mini and black tank top. Even as she walked she thought about the six hours of cold waiting yet to come and shuddered. The light was broken in the stop which she felt was for the best as she didn't want to be noticed by the police and mistaken for a vagrant or a prostitute but she also thought it made the stop seem colder. Another shudder ran through Angel this time as she sat on the bench. The metal was cold enough to send chills through her despite the skirt.
It felt like hours passed but each occasion she dared to check the time but it was never more then fifteen or twenty minutes from the last time. She was about to start calling her friends again when the voice startled her.
"You do know the buses are done running for the night don't you?" Angel stared at the man who she had neither seen nor heard approach her out of the darkness. He was over six feet tall, dark haired, and broad. He was wearing a dark suit with a dark colored shirt with a tropical pattern on it. He looked like he had stepped off the screen of some weird 70's psychedelic film. "Do you speak English?" Angel had been so stunned by his sudden and odd appearance that she had sat staring without responding for what must have been over a minute.
"Yes and yeah I know I am stranded until the morning bus." The man looked her over again and Angel could tell he was evaluating her outfit.
"You're just going to wait here until morning then?"
"That was the plan," she hesitated slightly not wanting to show any sign of her degree of desperation for a path out of this shelter, "unless you can get me a ride."
"Sorry, born again cyclist." He shrugged and kind of laughed "If you want to crash on my couch I live in the apartments right over here. You'll freeze to death out here."
"I'm-m-m," Angel had been about to say 'I'm not sure that's a good idea,' but a swift wind had sent her jaw shivering and as she paused she reconsidered her refusal. "I'm Angel, and thank you."
"I'm Tom and its my pleasure." She got up and walked with him toward the buildings behind the bus shelter. As they passed into the light of the building's courtyard she could see the both the suit and the shirt were of a dark blue and again she struck by the way he resembled a drug dealer from an old movie. He opened the front door of the building and she stepped in as he held it thinking that he was at least bettered mannered then the guy she had ditched who had nearly let the bar door hit her in the face in his rush to get his first drink. Tom motioned towards the stairs and she went up gladly enjoying the warmth of being indoors out of the wind. She got up the stairs and looked back at the smiling face now in the clear light. He was dark skinned, not Latin like her, but possibly Italian or Greek mixed. He keyed open the apartment to the right of the stairs. Angel was so happy not to be sitting in the bus shelter anymore she didn't look at the number on the door.
The old pleather couch was comfy enough she thought as she sat down. There was not much else in the room except for a computer and the desk and chair that went to that. Tom walked back towards what she guessed was his room and came back with a blanket and pillow and set them on one end of the couch. "I'm going to make some tea that should help warm you up." Angel nodded her head and started sorting out the bed makings then went to the bathroom. When she returned a large travel mug full of hot honeyed tea sat near one end of the couch and Tom was seated at the computer desk typing away.