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The first time Sheldon ordered an Uber, it was an accident.
In his defense, he had only just downloaded the app earlier that day and there was bound to be some trial and error. He thought he was just entering in information to save for later, but then the next thing he knew, a driver was confirming he was on the way to pick him up.
And the destination? His girlfriend's apartment building. Because it was the first address he thought to enter.
His first instinct was to try to cancel it, but that was quickly disregarded. The driver accepted the trip, he was headed to Sheldon's location, a social contract of sorts was already entered. Not to mentioned there seemed to be cancellation fees involved. His only choice was to now get in the car and go somewhere.
Well, not just somewhere. Amy's apartment.
Why hadn't he entered the train store's address first?
His driver, Ramón, soon arrived, and Sheldon was pleased to see his car looked clean, cleaner than some of the other cars he's rode in regularly (e.g. Penny's).
“Headed to Glendale?” Ramón confirmed as Sheldon climbed into the backseat.
“You are correct.”
The inside of the car was also clean but he was less pleased to see the pine tree air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. For some reason, Ramón ignored him when he provided the statistics on how many crashes are caused by view obstructions such as those. Still, the ride was pleasant enough. He was dropped off in front of Amy's building without incident or ceremony, and Sheldon made sure to go back into the app to leave a good tip before he headed inside to surprise his girlfriend.
His girlfriend, who was not home.
Somehow it never occurred to him that she wouldn't be in her apartment, awaiting his arrival, even though he didn't tell her he was coming. What else could she possibly have to do?
«Where are you?» he texted, then was stuck awkwardly standing outside her door the four minutes it took her to answer.
«I'm visiting my parents. It's their anniversary. I told you that yesterday.»
She probably had told him, he figured, but he'd tuned her out. A lot was going on at work right then, she couldn't expect him to listen to everything.
Rather than text her back again, Sheldon instead pulled up the Uber app again and ordered his second ride, this time on purpose. He never told Amy about his failed surprise visit.
The next time Sheldon took an Uber, it was to meet Amy for Date Night.
He really would have preferred to have Leonard drop him off, but Leonard was being rather ornery lately, always claiming he was too busy with Penny or that he already drives him to and from work and that should be enough. It was getting quite tedious, Sheldon would be bringing it up at the next quarterly Roommate Agreement meeting.
The bus, too, was out of the question at the moment. The last time he rode on it, he witnessed an intoxicated woman seated across from him vomit into the aisle. There weren't enough bus pants in the world to protect him from that. It would be a while before he could deem it safe to ride again.
There was a time when he might have demanded that Amy come pick him up, but he had come to understand that this could be considered a “turn off” for a romantic partner.
Apparently he was worried about stuff like that now.
So, once again, he ordered an Uber to take him to Amy's apartment, not knowing this would lead to a brand new complication.
Amy had decided to cook dinner for him on this particular Date Night, and while she was bringing all the food to her table she casually asked him how Leonard was, assuming he had just dropped him off. And so Sheldon ended up telling her about how Leonard had declined to drive him and all his recent frustrations surrounding this.
“You know,” Amy said, “I could teach you to drive. Then you wouldn't have to rely on Leonard, the bus, or Uber.”
Sheldon's anxiety spiked at the suggestion. This wasn't the first time she'd ever brought this up, but it had been a while and this time felt different somehow. Their relationship was different now, deeper. He realized this was something he could probably trust Amy to help him with, but it was still scary.
“I don't think that's a good idea.”
“Why not? We could go after dinner.”
“That's really how you want to spend Date Night?” he asked, thinking that would surely get him out of it. Usually, when they spent Date Night in her apartment, she liked to finish the evening holding hands on her couch while he picked something to watch on TV. There was no way she'd give up her hand holding time for this, right?
Amy shrugged. “Sure. You were probably going to make me watch some dumb space movie we've already seen anyway. It will be fun to do something different.”
Sheldon stared at her. There were so many things wrong with what she just said, he didn't know where to start.
“Before you say it's not a good idea again, just know that I've already heard all the stories about your previous driving attempts from our friends,” she said. “And I don't care. I've watched you work through some of the most complex scientific and mathematical problems known to man without breaking a sweat. I have full confidence that you can learn to drive too. Provided you have the right teacher, of course.”
She smiled at him from across the table, and that smile was a like laser beam that hit him and crumbled his resolve. That was the problem with Amy; whenever she praised him like that, he found that he wanted to do whatever it took to keep that praise coming, live up to whatever image she had of him. He wanted to be annoyed, but how could he be when she had just stroked his ego like that?
So the next thing Sheldon knew, dinner was over and he was behind the wheel of Amy's car in the Caltech parking lot, Amy grinning away in the passenger seat.
The sun was setting on the horizon, making the sky glow pink at the edges. At this hour the lot was largely deserted and the only obstacles Sheldon had to worry about were the light poles. Still, his eyes skimmed over all the various gauges, knobs, and buttons on the dashboard with trepidation. Amy gave him a full rundown of everything, walked him through how to adjust the side mirrors to minimize blind spots, and reminded him which pedal was which, and yet it still didn't feel like enough.
“Why don't you try taking a few laps around the lot?” she suggested. “Go slow to start out, see how it feels.”
“Okay.”
Under her watchful eye, Sheldon shifted from park to drive, then very, very carefully eased his foot off the brake. The car rolled forward a couple feet.
“Go ahead and try a turn,” Amy instructed. “Pretend there are cars in these spaces and see if you can make it around without going over the lines.”
Sheldon did as she suggested and turned the wheel, easing them out of the space Amy had backed into and onto the main drag of the lot. The whole time, his eyes kept darting around between the view straight out of the windshield, the rearview mirror, each side mirror, and the speedometer. It seemed to take forever, but he made three more successful turns and neared the end of his first circuit.
“You're doing great.”
“I am?” He wanted to look over at her for confirmation, but he didn't dare.
“Yes, you've almost made it back to where we started. Try going a little faster for the next lap.”
Amy's words helped him loosen up. He relaxed his tense shoulders a little bit and allowed his foot to ease off the break some more. The speedometer ticked up from 4 mph to 7. After another successful lap, he managed to get up to 11.
“This isn't so bad,” he said, surprising himself.
“See?” Amy said. “Do you want to try driving to one of the other lots? The street isn't too busy right now.”
“Let's not get crazy.”
“Alright,” she agreed easily. “Next time, then.”
Sheldon swallowed, already nervous about the next time.
He circled around a couple more times, and that's when it happened. He was up to the breakneck speed of 16 mph when a squirrel ran from one of the nearby trees and into the car's path.
In a flash of an instant, Sheldon could see how it would all unfold. The broken, furry body flattened on the asphalt, the blood and guts that would have to be cleaned off Amy's car, and Amy's disappointment in him. She'd say it was okay, that these things happen, but she wouldn't be smiling anymore. It would be like the Glendale Galleria pet store all over again, only worse because it would be real.
Thankfully, unlike with the virtual pet store incident, this time his reflexes kicked in and he slammed the brakes. Amy gave a small startled yelp as the car jerked to a stop and Sheldon froze in the driver's seat, his heart pounding. For a split second he thought he was too late, but then he saw the squirrel continue on its way, darting across the rest of the lot and disappearing into the grass on the other side.
“Um, Sheldon?”
His relief was short lived as Amy brought his attention back to the interior of the car, and he realized hitting the brake wasn't the only action he'd taken in that moment. Instinctively, he had reached one hand over to Amy, holding her back in her seat and combatting the inertia she'd experience from the sudden change in motion.
And his hand was still there. Spread across her chest. Lower than he'd ever gone with the VapoRub.
His eyes went wide and he quickly pulled his hand back, placing it back where it belonged on the steering wheel.
“There, um, there was a squirrel,” he explained, hoping she had seen it too.
“That's alright,” she said. Her voice sounded off and he scrutinized her warily out of the corner of his eye.
“I think I've made enough progress for one evening,” he said finally, shifting the car into park.
“Okay.”
They got out and switched seats without another word, and Amy started driving him back to his apartment. The whole ride back, Sheldon tried fruitlessly to forget what had happened, to forget how she felt under his hand. Her warmth and the rise and fall of her breathing. The softness of her sweater and what lay beneath it. Now that he knew, it couldn't be unknown.
“I'm proud of you,” she told him as she pulled up to the curb outside his building. “And I had a good time tonight.”
She was doing it again, praising him, and he already knew that he would be accepting another offer for another driving lesson from her in the near future. Despite everything.
Perhaps that wasn't a bad thing, though. Perhaps he really did need to start driving himself. Just look what happened when he didn't. His Uber ride brought him to second base.