The rain came down in sheets the kind that turned gutters into rivers and made every windshield look like static. James pulled his jacket tighter, shifted the insulated bag on his back, and checked his phone again.
4:17 p.m.
The apartment buzzer still hadn’t answered.
He had arrived at the building twenty-three minutes ago, soaked through before he even stepped into the lobby. The doorman had waved him past without looking up from his crossword. James had called twice. The first time, it rang until it went to voicemail. The second time, someone picked up, said “Hello?” in a distracted voice, and hung up before he could speak.
So he waited.
The order was supposed to be a quick drop-off: one Thai basil chicken, one green curry, extra rice, a side of spring rolls. Easy. Except the building had no clear unit number on the directory, the elevator required a key card, and the customer’s note read:
Buzz 8B. Leave at door if no answer.
There was no 8B.
James had checked the list of names beside the mailboxes. There was an 8A, an 8C, and an 8D. No 8B.
He called again.
This time, it went straight to voicemail.
By minute thirty, the lobby felt colder than the street. James stood near the glass door, water dripping from his hair onto the marble floor, watching cars blur past outside. His phone buzzed with a new delivery request. He declined it. Then another came in. He stared at it until it disappeared.
A woman in a gray coat walked past him and paused.
“You okay?” she asked.
James forced a smile. “Just waiting on a customer.”
She glanced at the mailboxes, then back at him. “This building’s tricky. Half the numbers were changed last year.”
He nodded, too tired to ask what she meant.
At minute thirty-five, he tried the intercom for 8A.
A man’s voice crackled through. “Yeah?”
“Hi, I have a delivery for 8B.”
Silence.
Then: “There’s no 8B.”
“I know. The customer wrote it in the notes.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“Leave it with me,” the man said finally. “I’ll make sure it gets there.”
James hesitated. The app said to leave the order only at the correct address. But the customer wasn’t answering, the rain wasn’t stopping, and his next delivery window was closing fast.
“Are you sure?” James asked.
“Yeah,” the man said. “I know who it’s for.”
James handed over the bag. The man thanked him in a quiet voice that didn’t quite match the impatience in his earlier words.
James stepped back into the storm.
The wind hit him like a wall. He climbed onto his bike, wiped rain from his eyes, and pulled away from the curb. For a few blocks, he thought about the man in 8A, about the missing unit number, about the way “I know who it’s for” had sounded almost rehearsed.
Then his phone rang.
The customer.
James braked under an awning and answered. “Hey, I just—”
“I’m so sorry,” the woman said. Her voice was breathless, shaky. “I fell asleep. My phone died. I just woke up.”
James blinked. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m so sorry. Did you wait long?”
He looked down at the empty insulated bag on his back.
“Yeah,” he said. “A while.”
“I’ll leave a good review. I promise.”
James almost laughed. The app would still ding him for a late delivery. The customer might rate him kindly, but the system wouldn’t care that he’d stood in a lobby for forty minutes while the city drowned around him.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“It’s not fine,” she said. “You must be soaked.”
He was.
“I’m okay,” he said. “I left your food with a neighbor. He said he’d pass it along.”
There was a pause on the line.
“A neighbor?”
“From 8A.”
The silence that followed felt heavier than the rain.
“Oh,” she said softly. “There’s no 8A.”
James froze.
“What do you mean?”
“My building,” she said. “The one I ordered from. There’s no 8A. I checked when I moved in. They skipped it.”
He looked back toward the building through the rain. It stood at the end of the block, gray and ordinary, its windows glowing faintly in the storm.
“I gave it to someone,” he said.
“I know,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
James didn’t say anything for a long moment. The call ended with a soft click.
He sat on his bike, the rain drumming against his helmet, and realized he could not remember the face of the man who had taken the bag. Not his eyes. Not his voice. Only the strange certainty in it, and the way he had thanked James like he had been waiting for something much longer than dinner.
James started the engine.
The next delivery was six blocks away. He pulled into traffic, headlights cutting through the rain, and tried not to think about the lobby, the missing number, the bag disappearing into someone else’s hands.
But when he reached the next building, he paused before ringing the buzzer.
Somewhere behind him, a door opened and closed.
He didn’t look back.
Not yet.
