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We’re currently about an hour behind them on the interstate. After quite a few months of sitting around in San Diego, Lennox’s granny knew the twins were getting stir-crazy, so she decided to give them their own opportunity. Lennox sold his pawnshop last month, and their new cover is going to be a family-run computer repair shop. It’s obviously right up their alley, and since they were promised that they’d only be in Bloomington, Indiana, for no more than three to four months at most, I think they’re all excited. After that, we’ll probably end up somewhere in Europe for real. That way, until we make our next move, the twins and Lennox will have something they truly love doing. I’ll be running the reception and marketing parts of the shop, and I have to say, this might be a cover job, but I’m pretty darn excited about it.
I know it would drive most people crazy, not knowing where they’re heading from one month to the next or not knowing where they’re going to end up, but I’m excited. I’m so pumped for this opportunity Lennox and I have to really start our lives together.
In San Diego, we kept our places until they were sold. We spent the past months going on real dates, spending nights at each other’s places, and getting all the loose ends taken care of. I couldn’t just up and leave overnight, and Lennox wouldn’t go ahead of me and leave me behind. I never asked him to stay. He made that decision all on his own, and I’m always going to be grateful to his granny, whose real name is Scarlet—I guess now that I’m part of the family in a big way, I’m privy to more and more formerly classified information—for setting a plan that included me into motion.
“How did your granny choose Indiana exactly?”
Lennox shrugs from the driver’s seat of our massive station wagon. Yes, it’s the same old beast, now packed with the things I couldn’t bear to part with. My furniture, all the antiques I love so much, is in a storage unit, and Ayana has promised to check in on it for me from time to time to make sure—oh, I don’t know—mice or whatever aren’t gnawing away at it. In the car, I just have a few boxes and suitcases. Even those, I have plans on paring down. I know the most important thing, the one thing I could never be parted from, is sitting right next to me. Erm, I mean, he’s not a thing, but you know.
“I don’t know. She’ll never tell us her secret ways because then they wouldn’t be so mysterious. She probably just rolled a die or set out a map and threw knives, and wherever one landed, that’s where she chose. I’m dang glad it landed somewhere nice, like Bloomington.”
“She throws knives too?”
“What can’t she do?” Lennox quips.
“Fair enough. That’s totally fair. I’m pretty sure there isn’t anything she can’t do.”
“If there is something, I don’t know it.”
Lennox grabs my hand, and then, a few miles later, he looks over his shoulder and pulls off the interstate at the next exit. I glance behind me too, but there’s nothing back there. For a second, I thought we were being followed, but my heart rate slowed down when he pulled into a gas station. After pumping gas into the monstrous beast that I swear eats like ten thousand gallons a minute, we’re back on the road. Except it’s not the road that we were supposed to be heading down. I didn’t even realize he went in the opposite direction from the interstate until our paved road turned to gravel, and there were just fields and trees and the occasional farmhouse and setback driveway. Mailboxes flash by, the kind you see in cartoons with the perfect box on a stake at the end, all colorful with people’s names on it.
“Umm, are we taking a backroad?”
Lennox doesn’t answer me. My skin prickles a little, but when he turns off down yet another gravel road—this one even more deserted—and pulls over, I relax. I trust this man with everything I have. I’m basically following him into the complete unknown. I’ve more than given up on the notion of luck. I say blessed now, not cursed, not unlucky. I guess sometimes shit just happens, and sometimes that shit is shitter than other times. Sometimes, that shit mounds up, and sometimes, it rains shit. Sometimes, we step in shit, and sometimes, shit stinks. That’s just how life is.
But here I am. Blessed beyond measure to be at this new stage in my life, about to move in with the man I love and officially start our lives together for real. Cohabiting. Yes, it’s scary, but also, yes, we’ve spent the past few months getting ready for this—getting to know each other properly and preparing for this. I’m good. I’m so, so good. With all of it.
