Care and Comfort

Brian always hated his shitty job. 9 to 5 at a desk doing whatever menial task got put into his inbox. The only saving grace was the people there. None of them took their jobs all that seriously so it was pretty fun to rag on the company and the management staff with his colleagues during lunch breaks and down times. And not to mention the fairly big paycheck he brought home every week.

He put the dissatisfaction with his job out of his head for now. His shift was over and he was headed back home. A fairly large house that he had bought with his first years savings and turned into a pretty damn good bachelor pad/man cave throughout the years. A garage with tools and such for repairing his car or anything around the house, a living room with a big TV and comfy couch, a kitchen with a fully stocked fridge and cupboards, and his favorite part, a basement with a huge home theater complete with projection screen, theater seating and a snack "bar" at the bottom of the stairs. His house was always chosen for movie nights and sports watching among his friends.

As he was trying to decide what to do with his night, he caught a glimpse of something at the side of the road. It looked like a deer was laying on it's side and...oh GROSS! There was a stray dog eating it. As he got closer he pulled over to the side of the road and pulled out his phone to call someone to clean up the deer. He got out of his car and noticed that it wasn't a deer at all, but a woman laying there. Luckily the dog wasn't eating a dead body of some kind, it was just sniffing around. Brian shooed it away and it ran off. He went down on one knee to see what he was getting himself into.

The woman seemed to be alive and there were no outward injuries of anything. Just as he was getting ready to call the police, her eyes opened and looked at him. "Well that's not what I was expecting to wake up to." Brian wasn't sure what to say so he just started asking the only question he could think of as she sat upright.

"Are you okay?"

"I think so. I don't feel pain anywhere I don't think."

"Do you know where you are?"

"Well...the sidewalk on some road but no specifics."

"Do you know who you are?"

"I..." she paused for a second and thought. "I know my name is Ally. I remember old things but the last couple days are a bit of a blur." She looked down at her lap and avoided eye contact with Brian as they both took in what she just said.

"Alright Ally. Well first, I'm Brian." He gave her a soft smile and held his hand out to her which she shook carefully. "There are two paths that I can think of going down. The first would be to call the police and see what they can do. They'd probably know the right questions to ask you and all that. Or...I could take you to my place and we could see what we can do alone."

She pulled her knees up into her chest and hugged them. "I don't like police. They scare me too much. Can I...can we go to your place?" She looked over at Brian with a nervous expression like she was afraid he would still say no.

"Sure. It's not too far from here." He stood up and helped her to her feet and led her to his car, opening the passenger door for her once they got there. He got into the driver's seat and drove home with his new mysterious passenger.