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)
“Road,” he says, looking up with that quiet yes in his eyes, and it feels like the kind of invitation you don’t get on the internet—no RSVP, just come with me.
We’re back in the silver Outback by eight, phones zipped into the Faraday pouch between us like sleeping snakes. When he starts the engine, Motown spills out—Rae’s revenge playlist, probably—and he doesn’t change it. We hum through “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” while the town falls away in our rearview and the road unspools toward blue distance.
I tuck one foot under me and unwrap my burrito. “Confession,” I say around a blissful mouthful. “I love being off-grid. I didn’t know how loud everything was until it got quiet.”
He checks the mirror, then me. “Quiet’s underrated,” he says. “You hear what matters.”
“What do you hear?” I ask, because I want in.
“Your stomach being happy,” he deadpans. He waits a beat. “Also, the rear quarter-panel vibrating at sixty-eight. We’ll be fine.”
“Romance,” I say solemnly, and he huffs a laugh—the kind that’s mostly breath and still somehow hits me like a shot of espresso.
We climb out of town and into country that looks like Camille could have painted this. Soft hills, cotton-candy clouds, and long fences with the occasional bored cow. Riggs drives like he does everything—steady, aware, absolutely present. His hand finds mine without either of us making a thing of it, and the simple fact of our fingers laced over the gear shift is…everything.
“I could get used to this,” I admit, watching a hawk fly high in the sky. “Windows down. No itinerary. Just—us.”
His thumb strokes the back of my hand once. “I already am,” he whispers.
My breath catches at his implication, and I don’t want to get too ahead of myself.
Breathe, Vanessa.
We stop at a roadside stand that sells piñon, turquoise bracelets, and pecans in brown paper bags scribbled with prices. The woman behind the table calls me mija and calls Riggs handsome and I buy both a bracelet and a pound of sugared pecans because I’m weak. Riggs picks jerky and a bottle of water with the label half-peeled, then asks the woman if the camera in the corner actually works.
“Sometimes,” she says. “When my grandson remembers.” Her eyes crinkle when she looks between us. “Honeymoon?”
“Recon,” Riggs says, too fast.
“Vacation,” I say, at the same time, and the woman laughs like we’re both cute and wrong.
Back on the road, we invent games. He teaches me Spot the Exit—counting egress points without looking like you’re counting—and I teach him Story Time—picking a passing car and inventing a life for the strangers inside it. He’s surprisingly good at mine.
“Two kids sleeping under those blankets,” he says, pointing with his chin at a minivan, “and a beagle named Sprocket. Parents haven’t talked about anything but snacks since Tucumcari. They’re happy.”
“You can tell happiness from this far?” I tease.
“Doesn’t lean as much,” he says, and glances at me like he’s not talking about driving anymore.
We cut past Clines Corners and open up into that flat expanse that makes the sky feel big enough to live in. Amarillo arrives in a bright slap of billboards and wind. We detour five minutes to a gas station with shady-looking shade and a grocery inside where the clerk calls everyone hon and squeegees flies off windows like it’s a sacrament.
Riggs fuels while I dance a little to a song I loved when I was fourteen. He comes around the pump with that half-smile that makes me want to misbehave and says, “You’re going to start a line dance if you keep that up.”
“Only if you join,” I say, and before I know it we’re slow-swaying in the rectangle of sun between pump twelve and the ice machine, ridiculous and perfect. He hums into my hair. No cameras, no metrics. Just us.
We make it back to the highway before our check-in window. He pulls into a rest area with two trucks and a family picnic, checks mirrors, unlocks the pouch, and passes me my secure phone. The screen lights our stillness. Even off-grid, we don’t disappear. We just choose when to appear. He sends a single-line update to Rae.
Southbound. Clean.
She sends back a thumb-up and a peach because Rae is a menace.
When he tucks the phones away again, I put my bare feet on the dashboard and sigh. “What would you want,” I ask, “after?” The word hangs there—heavy and fragile. “After we catch…him. After I can stop pretending I’m not addicted to this”—I lift our hands—“and you can stop pretending you don’t want chili-stained Sunday afternoons.”
He thinks a long time, not because he doesn’t know but because he wants to say it right. “A house that creaks the same way every night,” he says finally. “A garage that smells like cedar and oil and the dog.” He glances sideways. “You, laughing at me for how seriously I take coffee filters.”