"You didn't kill him."
"But I'm with you. I'm choosing this. Choosingyou." Her hand comes up to cup my face. "That makes me just as guilty."
The dark thrill I saw in her eyes earlier is still there, and I realize with absolute certainty that she's not upset by what we've done.
She'sexhilarated. Fuck, she’s perfect for me.
"We need to move," she says again, but this time there's no panic in her voice, just determination. "We have to get ahead of this and disappear before they can connect the dots."
"Okay."
She starts gathering our things, moving with purpose. I take the time to watch her, this sexy ass woman who just found out I killed someone and responded not with anxiety but with a strategy. No judgment, but becoming a partnership.
I stand and start helping her pack. Neither of us speaks, but we don't need to. We both understand what just happened. What we've become, crossing into murder territory together, and there's no going back from that.
Only forward, into whatever comes next.
Together.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ROXY
A week on the road with Dom and I've adapted to a new routine, by having a person with me 24/7, and it hasn’t been hard to adjust to. I question how I’ve been able to drift on my own for so long. It’s like we’ve known each other our whole lives.
After that drunk asshole died, we decided to drive mostly at night, sleep during the day in rest stops or cheap motels that don't ask questions. We eat at diners where the waitresses are too tired to remember faces, and move through the world like ghosts, present but notthere, visible to a few, but forgettable.
Except we're not forgettable. Not really. We're just good at pretending to be.
A new town appears on the horizon around noon and it’s one of those places that exists only because a highway runs through it. The kind of town people pass through on their way to somewhere better. Colorado bleeding into New Mexico, the landscape all red rock and empty sky, and this little cluster of buildings that looks like it's been dying slowly for decades.
This is good.
I casually sit with one hand dangling out of the window as I suck on yet another lollipop, enjoying the cherry flavor that helps keep me still. Dom's hand rests on my thigh as I drive,his thumb tracing lazy circles through the denim of my cut-off shorts. The touch is casual, but possessive and a constant when I’m driving. He's always touching me now, whether it’s a hand on my neck, fingers tangled in my hair, or a palm pressed against the small of my back. Owning me in small ways, over and over, like he needs the physical confirmation that I'm still real and there with him.
I understand the impulse as I do the same thing to him. Sometimes I feel like it was all a dream that I met him, and expect to wake up to being alone again.
"We need gas," I say, nodding toward the gauge.
"And food."
"Yeah."
Bananarama is playing low on the cassette deck,Cruel Summer, and the vibe suits the landscape. Everything out here feels like it's dissolving into dust and heat.
I pull into the gas station, the only one in town from what I can see. The pumps are old, the type where you have to prepay inside, and the building itself looks like it hasn't been updated since the eighties. Faded paint, cracked windows, a flickering neon sign that says OPEN.
Dom gets out first, his eyes scanning the area with that careful attention he always has. Looking for threats, cops, for exits, for anything that doesn't fit. I've watched him do this at every stop for the past week, and it never changes. He's always assessing, always ready for the unexpected.
It should make me nervous, but it makes me feel safe and reassured.
I grab my camera from the passenger seat, the old 35mm I've had since I was sixteen, and follow him inside.
The interior smells like stale, that old smell of deterioration. There's a woman behind the counter, maybe sixty, with bleached hair and tired eyes behind her large glasses. Shedoesn’t acknowledge us and continues to read what looks like a magazine.
"Pump three," Dom says, pulling cash from his wallet.
He always has cash. I don't know where it comes from and I haven't asked. Just like he hasn't asked about the deposits that appear in my account every few weeks, the payments from the collectors who buy my work through encrypted channels. We survive on the margins, both of us, and the specifics don't matter. What matters is that we keep moving.
