I climb between the seats and his eyes open properly for the first time since he got in, finding my face immediately.
"Follow my lead," I whisper, already reaching for the buttons of his shirt. "And when I signal you — pretend to be sick."
"What—"
"Now is not the time." I get his shirt open and push it aside, exposing the wound, then reach back and unzip my dress at the side, pull it off my shoulders, and unhook my bra and drop it somewhere behind me. I let my hair fall loose and position myself so that my body covers the wound at his chest completely, my bare shoulders catching the thin light from the street outside. "Do you understand me?"
Those pale green eyes move over my face with an expression I can't name and then he gives the smallest possible nod.
The voices sharpen outside.
"I told you he ran the other way." Frustration, barely contained, one man to another. "Now we've fucking lost him. We are cooked?—"
"There's a car."
The footsteps resume.
I lean into him and moan and the footsteps stop.
"Are they—" A pause. A low sound of disbelief. "Are they fucking in there?"
I moan louder. His hands find my waist somewhere in the last few seconds and I feel them tighten slightly.
The knock on the window is hard enough to rock the glass. I keep going.
Another knock comes. "Open up. Open it now or we blow it open."
I scramble, performing humiliation, yanking my dress back up over my shoulders just enough to look decent, just enoughto look caught, rolling the window down with wide eyes and flushed cheeks and one arm pressed across my chest. I make sure my body stays angled across him and that his face stays in shadow.
The man outside has a broad, close-shaved head, a torch in one hand and a gun in the other.
"Sorry to interrupt." He doesn't sound sorry at all. His eyes move over me and then drop, just briefly, to the shape of the man behind me. "We're looking for someone. A friend." The torch shifts. "Can we see his face?"
"I'm so sorry, he is drunk." I widen my eyes and turn back, pressing my hand to his shoulder. "Baby. Baby, hey?—"
He makes an absolutely convincing sound. His whole body lurches forward and then he heaves directly onto my lap.
"Oh my God! Are you puking? Matt, you are so disgusting!"
I shove at his shoulders. With the corner of my eye, I see the man outside move the torch away in disgust, not wanting to see another man's vomit.
"Hey." His partner is further away. "You hear that? I hear something — come on, this way?—"
The torch swings away and the footsteps break into a run, heading in the opposite direction, fading fast, and then the garage is quiet except for the sound of my own breathing.
I sit completely still for a moment.
Then I look down at myself and close my eyes briefly.
"That," I say, very quietly, "was deeply unpleasant."
His breathing is labored beneath me but when I look at him those green eyes are open and fixed on my face and there is something in them that might, under very different circumstances, have almost been amusement.
I climb back into the front seat, zipping up my dress and pulling it down.
He is bleeding worse than before. The composure he carries himself with is beginning to fray. His eyes are still open but working harder to stay that way.
"Shit," I say. "Shit, shit."
