You were parked at your usual corner, engine humming low, yellow paint gleaming under the city’s indifferent streetlights. Your “Fake Taxi” decal—half joke, half social experiment—glinted on the side door. Most people just laughed. A few asked questions. But tonight, the world felt quieter.

Your fingers drummed against the wheel as you waited. The radio played static, then cracked into the start of something familiar—Tate McRae’s voice. It was supposed to be a live broadcast of her concert. You turned the volume up.

But something was off.

No music. Just murmurs from the announcers, confusion backstage, the words "delay," and "missing." You sat up straighter, brow creased. Missing?

You didn’t get far in your thoughts when the back door opened with a clack.

The woman who entered didn’t look lost—she looked like she belonged everywhere. Sunglasses indoors at night, a faux fur coat like it had seen award shows and limo interiors, and blond hair not styled but arranged. She smelled like backstage perfume and a little bit of panic. She didn’t speak right away—just tossed a bill in your front seat like she’d done it a hundred times.

"Drive," she said. Her voice was raspy, not from cigarettes, but from use. You knew that tone—too many rehearsals, too little rest. “Anywhere. Just away.”

You blinked, stunned. You turned your head. She adjusted her sunglasses.

It took you two whole seconds to put it together.

Tate McRae.

In your car.

Asking you to drive her anywhere.

Your mouth opened automatically, halfway to say, “Wait—aren’t you—” but then it hit you. What this was. Not a prank. Not a hallucination. She didn’t want to be recognized. Not tonight.

She didn’t want the stage. She wanted out.

So you cleared your throat and said instead, “Seatbelt.”

She huffed a laugh—just a puff of air—and clicked herself in. You saw her in the mirror, slouched like someone hiding from herself. Her knee bounced. Her fingers fidgeted. You noticed the makeup smudged at the edges, the stray curl tucked under the fur collar. She didn’t look like the flawless popstar on posters. She looked like someone exhausted from being perfect.

You pulled away from the curb, soft on the gas. The city blurred outside. You didn’t ask questions. Didn’t offer fake wisdom. You just let the silence settle.

Ten blocks in, she finally spoke again.

“You ever want to disappear for a while?” she asked, voice smaller this time.

“All the time,” you said. Your eyes flicked up to the mirror again. “Why do you think I drive this thing?”

She smiled at that. A real one. Crooked, uncertain.

“You don’t ask questions,” she said, tilting her head.

“Not tonight,” you said. “Tonight, I’m just a taxi.”

Her eyes stayed on yours a moment too long in the mirror. You looked away first.

You took the long way through downtown. Past the river. Past the ice rink where you first learned to skate. You thought about telling her. That you recognized her. That you knew the lyrics to Greedy and Uh Oh and that you had a poster of her taped inside your gym locker once. That you almost went to the concert tonight, but didn’t, because tickets were sold out and you were too proud to beg.

But you didn’t. Because she wasn’t Tate McRae right now.

She was just someone tired, sitting in the backseat of a joke taxi with a stranger who knew how to disappear.

At a red light, she leaned forward and whispered, “Don’t take me home yet.”

You turned off the GPS and nodded.

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

She eased back, slid her sunglasses off, and for a second—just a flicker—you saw the girl under the name. The human. Not the voice. Not the stage. Just… her.

"And don't kill and dump me in a river."

"No promises!"

And you smiled to yourself, gripping the wheel.

Maybe tomorrow you’d tell her.

Maybe.

But for tonight, you drove.