Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 46223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Vanessa props one bare foot on the dash and cracks the window. “What’s first on a Riggs-approved road trip?” she asks.
“Rules.” I hand her a small Faraday pouch. “Your secure goes in this unless I tell you. We check in every ninety minutes on the dot. We fuel at crowded places, park under cameras, and don’t pull over on shoulders unless we blow a tire. Food comes from counters I can see. Bathrooms are in and out, safety first.”
“Sexy,” she says, grin unabashed. “What’s second?”
“Music,” I say.
She laughs and cues up a playlist. Motown, because the universe likes jokes. We hum along. I catch her harmonizing under her breath, eyes closed, shoulders finally down from her ears. I didn’t realize how much I wanted to see that on her face until I do.
We clear the line of Pueblo. Steel skeletons. A river that looks tired. She falls quiet for a stretch, watching tumbleweed fail at being a cliché.
“You were quiet this morning,” she says, finally. “I thought you might have regretted last night.”
“I don’t regret a second,” I say, and mean it. “I regret not living in two timelines at once.”
“Which two?”
“The one where I kiss you until the car runs out of gas,” I say, deadpan, “and the one where I keep you safe.”
She laughs so bright it makes the wind look at her. “We’ll get to the first one,” she says. “When your map says so.”
I look at her. “Soon,” I say, and I’m not joking.
We climb Raton Pass under a ceiling of storm—pewter clouds stacked like far-off cities. New Mexico smells different the second we drop in—piñon and dust and a hint of rain that hasn’t committed yet. We pull into a diner that was last remodeled when vinyl went to prom. I take the end booth with my back to the wall and a view of the pumps. The waitress calls me “hon,” calls Vanessa “darlin’,” and drops green-chile cheeseburgers that taste like decisions you make on purpose.
“This feels normal,” Vanessa says around a fry, her eyes soft. “Is this what normal feels like? The good kind?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s also the most dangerous part.”
“How so?”
“You forget to look left.” I nod past her shoulder to the door. A man in a trucker cap with a phone at low chest height pretends to scroll. He’s not looking at us. He’s looking at anything that will make a story. “People want to be narrators. We make sure they don’t get to write.”
“Roger that,” she says, then steals a bite of my burger and licks her thumb slow on purpose. My composure hiccups and she knows it. The smile she gives me should come with a warning label.
We make Santa Fe by late afternoon—blue doors, adobe shoulders, the light a religion. I decide to stop. Partly because the storm behind us wants to make a point over the plains, partly because every plan that runs perfectly dies of thirst.
I book an inn with interior corridors and a parking court I can control. The manager sees my face and the cash and decides to save his questions for later. The room smells like old wood and clean sheets. I wedge the door, lock the slider, set the chair under the handle, run the bathroom fan because white noise helps people sleep through their own hearts.
Vanessa drops her bag, crosses to the window, and stares at a sky made of paint. She’s quiet in the particular way she gets before she makes something. “I want to capture this,” she says.
“Do it,” I say, and I take her phone from her, opening up her camera.
She perches on the sill, tosses her hair until it's spilling loose. I snap the first picture with the sky as her backdrop, and it’s breathtaking. She was made to be on film. I take more pictures. One of her laughing. Her smile is gorgeous. Another of her looking just over my shoulder like she has a secret to tell the world. The last photo I snap, her eyes are pinned on me in a way that makes my whole body come alive.
My secure phone buzzes, interrupting the moment and I curse under my breath. It’s a text from Rae that reads:
Rae: Decoys worked. Twitter has “you two” boarding in C. Shots of your doubles are already a meme. Turner picked up Kellan leaving the concourse with a bag from the craft store and a smug face. They’re following him.
Jaxson: No geo on your devices. Good boys and girls.
Dean: Stay dark. Enjoy the road.
I show Vanessa the enjoy the road and she smiles like we did something right in a world that doesn’t love giving out those ribbons.
We put on a movie that doesn’t ask for blood. Vanessa tucks in under my arm like a word that learned where to fit. The storm finally commits somewhere over the Sangre de Cristos, a slow drum we can feel through the window.