Page 53 of Just One Little Bargain

We pass under a canopy of maples, and the shadows dapple the hood in shifting lace patterns.

“All of this really fascinate you?”

“What does?”

“This.” She gestures at the windshield. The street, the town, the maples shedding their first yellow leaves onto the asphalt. “Normal stuff.”

“None of this is ordinary.” I watch the road, guiding the car around a gentle curve. “You live on a planet that grows food out of dirt and turns water into clouds. A giant ball of fire keeps you warm from millions of miles away, and you treat that like background noise when it’s extraordinary.”

Her answer is a small, non-committal hum.

“Were you any good?” I ask, desperate to hear her voice again.

“At what?”

“Driving when you first started.”

She snorts. “I was horrible. Kept clipping the curb on turns. Mixed up the gas and brake in the first five minutes and almost launched us across the parking lot. My mom sat there going you’re doing great, sweetie with both feet braced against the floor.”

“Did you want to quit?”

“After I nearly took out a mailbox, yeah.” She shifts, her knee drawing an inch closer to the center console. “But Daisy told me if I gave up she’d bring it up at every holiday, birthday, and family dinner for the rest of our lives. So I didn’t.”

“Daisy sounds like an effective motivator.”

“That’s her in a nutshell.” She’s studying me now instead of the road. Her gaze moves from my hands on the wheel to my face with an expression I can’t fully decode.

“What?”

“You.” She shakes her head slightly, a small smile playing on her lips. “You look like you’re having your sixteen-year-old learning to drive moment right now.”

“Is that bad?”

“No.” Her smile widens, and it transforms her entire face. “It’s actually really cute.”

The word lands squarely in my chest. The car drifts left before I catch it, my concentration fracturing for a split second.

“Cute,” I repeat.

“Don’t make it weird.”

“I’m not.” I clear my throat. “In Hell, that’s an insult. In fact, a pretty devastating one. They use it right before they reassign you to latrine maintenance.”

“Hell has latrines?”

“That’s what you took from that?” I glance at her incredulously.

“You brought up demon bathrooms. I have follow-up questions.”

“The point is, where I come from, being called cute means you’re a joke, not someone worth taking seriously.” Her curiosity is both endearing and dangerous. The more she wants to know, the more I’ll tell her, and the more I tell her, the harder it becomes to maintain any kind of professional distance.

Her silence stretches until I assume I’ve made it weird, despite her explicit instructions not to.

“Well, you’re not in Hell,” she says, softer than before. “Here it’s a compliment.”

Brindlewood scrolls past the windows. Mailboxes with little red flags, picket fences in need of fresh paint, and somebody’s sprinkler arcing silver over a green lawn.

“Can I ask you something?” Evie says after a while.