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She raised her eyebrows. She stepped out from behind the car door, and shut it, muscles visible in her legs from her Converses all the way up to the edge of her cutoffs. “I’m very serious about this.”
“Me, too.” I felt my chest tighten. I was saying the words before I could comprehend what they meant. But it felt scary and correct at the same time, like in an animal way, a primal way, like sprinting down a hill or waking up suddenly after a long, sober sleep. We were both trapped in a corner of our lives, snarling and biting until we got out.
She closed her eyes, shaking her head. “I don’t know.”
I tried to make my voice softer. I wanted her to open her eyes again. “What are you worried about?”
“First, I don’t know you. I think we made that pretty clear the other night.”
Well, duh, I resisted saying. “We only have a few days that we have to get along. We don’t have to actually like each other.”
We caught each other’s eyes.
She bit her nail and spoke, quiet. “I don’t mean that, I mean. Well, maybe I do, but whatever. I mean, how am I going to know you’re not going to fuck me over?”
I tried to resist the anger that rose, heating my skin. I knew it wasn’t for her. The anger was for a past version of myself, running down Arikara Street with twenties in my pocket. “How do I know that you’re not going to fuck me over?”
She looked at me like I was stupid. “Because it’s my idea. I’m the one with the medical bills.”
“Right.” I nodded in the direction of the Cucciolo house. “We tell Frankie. Frankie holds us to it.”
“Yeah, but then what?”
I shrugged. “We get...” An image flashed of Jake and Hailey outside the church, grabbing hands as people flowed around them. “We get married.”
Cassie squinted. “So, wait. What’s in it for you?”
The image of Jake and Hailey again, the phone vibrating, a razor slicing a pill. I tried to look her in the eye, to let her know how deeply I meant it, how much I needed it. Less detail, more truth. “I’m in the hole, too. I need to get it paid off as soon as possible.”
“What are you in the hole for?” she asked.
My lungs tightened. Would she get it? No. She’d think I was unreliable. She’d think I’d blow the money on pills. “That’s not something I want to discuss.”
“Uhh...” She narrowed her eyes with a sarcastic half-smile. “It feels kind of important, Luke.”
I put up a hard line, hoping I wasn’t sweating. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”
“Great.” She gave me a pointed look.
“Hey,” I said, stepping away from her, steeling myself. “You’re the one who had the illegal idea. We’re par for the course here.”
“Yes, it’s very illegal,” she said, sighing. “If they find out, you’ll be court-martialed and kicked out of the army. We both could go to jail.”
“I know that.” I didn’t know that. But if I could get Johnno paid off before they found out... Jail was better than Johnno going after my family.
She began to walk. I followed her. “We’d have to convince everyone,” she said, turning her eyes on me. My heart leaped. She was getting back on board.
“Right.” We were walking side by side now.
“It wouldn’t be that hard, I guess,” she mused. “I’m not close to that many people. And you’re about to ship out. We go to the courthouse, we don’t make a big deal.” She was speaking fast now. “Then you come back and we get into a fight. I mean, not really. But irreconcilable differences. That kind of thing.”
“You could cheat on me, or something,” I suggested, using air quotes.
She stopped in the middle of the block. “Do I look like someone who cheats?”
I turned to look at her, confused. “No? I don’t know.”
“I’m not a cheater,” she said, as if I had accused her of it.
