“Taxi’s almost here,” I say, brisk, business, bones wrapped in tape. “We regroup at the hotel. We stick to the plan.”
“Yourplan,” he says, not pushing.
“Ourplan,” I correct, because I need the reminder as much as he does.
The taxi arrives an inch from hydroplaning, headlights carving the rain into ribbons. The driver leans across to pop the lock. “You two need a ride or a canoe?” he shouts.
“Ride,” I answer, teeth chattering on ther. Jason opens the back door and the car takes a gulp of weather. We tumble in, dragging cold with us.
The backseat is a humid shoebox. Vinyl sticks to my thighs; wet clothes cling, wicking chill straight into my spine. The heater blasts and fogs the windows, turning the world into smeared halos of red and white. The radio mutters traffic updates under a bass line that vibrates the floorboards.
Jason’s shoulder eats half the seat even when he tries to make himself small. He fails. Heat rolls off him like he manufactures it. Our knees bump when the cab lurches; I pretend it doesn’t trip a switch in my belly.
“Hotel Blackwood,” I tell the driver. He nods, flips the wipers to frantic, and merges with a confidence I don’t share.
“Here,” Jason says, shrugging out of his jacket. It’s soaked but somehow warmer than mine. He moves to sling it around me and checks himself mid-motion, fingers closing on air. He redirects, drops it in my lap like a peace offering. “For the tape. Wouldn’t want your hands to freeze.”
“My hands are fine,” I lie, tucking the jacket around my thighs anyway because pride is stupid when hypothermia is auditioning. My fingers burn as feeling returns. I flex them and glance at his wrist. The wrap is dark where the rain got it; the padding holds. “You’ll change it the second we’re back.”
“Bossy,” he says, softer now, worn at the edges like something you keep in your pocket for luck. He braces a palm on the seatback as the driver fishtails and corrects. His other hand is a fist on his knee, tendons standing out. He’s not afraid of weather. He’s afraid of not controlling it.
The cab hits a pothole the size of a small lake. We jolt. I land a palm flat on his chest to catch myself. Heat and muscle and the thud of his heart slam into my hand like an answer to a question I’m not supposed to ask.
“Sorry,” I say, snatching back like I grabbed the wrong wire.
“Don’t be,” he says, voice lower, and for a second the only thing in the car is humidity and the memory of my palm on hissternum. The driver whistles at someone who cuts him off. The spell cracks; I rebuild.
“New rule,” I say, light as I can make it. “No conversations that start withremember whenor end withwhat if.”
He huffs. “That eliminates, what, ninety percent of the words I want to say?”
“Good. Use the other ten to confirm you’ll follow the protocol.” I angle my knees away and they boomerang back on the next turn anyway. “We are not doing nostalgia.”
“We are in a time machine,” he counters, gesturing to the fogged windows, the heater, the rain that made us a closed system. “Feels like that night after the charity gala. Same weather. Same city pretending it’s not listening.”
The memory zips through me wearing neon and a bad idea. I pin it with a look that saysno. “Different us.”
He studies my profile like the answer’s written there. “Is it?”
“Yes,” I say—too fast, then steadier. “It has to be.” I scrape condensation off the glass with the side of my hand and watch a smear of taillights stretch like a lie that wants to be true. “We do our jobs. We don’t… revisit.”
He turns his face to the window, reflection pale in the glass. “For the record,” he says, quiet like confession without the sin, “I’m not trying to pull you back somewhere you decided not to live.”
The words land under my ribs where secrets go to breathe. “Good,” I say, because anything else would be gasoline. “Thank you.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t think about it,” he adds, then bites it back like it got out on its own. His jaw works. “Forget it.”
I don’t. I can’t. I switch tracks before my heart jumps them. “You tell Collins I’ll staple his mouth if he makes another bench joke?”
Jason’s mouth twitches. “Told him he was an idiot. He apologized.”
“Miracles,” I say, and this time the smile escapes. It sits between us, small and bright, lighting nothing and everything.
The driver cranks the radio up to drown a siren and mutters, “Honeymooners, am I right?”
I bark a laugh too loud. Jason does, too. We laugh until it sounds wrong, then swallow it whole, both of us staring forward like the future is a windshield we can muscle clear if we keep the wipers going.
My phone vibrates against my thigh, a little bee trapped in wet denim. I fish it out, thumb smearing a crescent in the condensation on the screen.Nolan Blackwoodflashes across it in clean white letters that look like consequences.
