Page 59 of You Can Run

“Peanut butter and crackers,” he said. “That's what we've got.”

“Works for me.”

He glanced back at her, and she caught it—the flicker at the corner of his mouth, the small smile that brought out his dimple.

“Dante,” she said.

He stopped, the jar in his hand.

She wanted to ask him about last night, about what it had meant, about how this time they couldn’t blame it on adrenaline and heightened feelings. But she didn’t want to ruin this tiny moment of almost-domestic bliss, so what she said instead was, “Bring the whole jar. And come back over here.”

He didn't smile, but his eyes changed, and that was better.

He brought the jar.

The burner phone buzzed while Jessica was licking peanut butter off her thumb.

Dante reached across the counter for it, his shoulder brushing hers as he read the screen.

SALVAGE YARD. NORTH HARBOR. DITCH THE CAR. THEN PIER 19. 9AM.

He showed her the message. She read it twice, her expression shifting.

“He wants us to leave the car,” she said.

“He's right. It's a beacon.”

Jessica looked at him, and he could see her registering what that meant—not just tactically, but for him. The 'Cuda wasn't a car. It was the last thing he owned that belonged to who he'd been before all of this, and Miller was asking him to leave it in a scrapyard.

“Dante—”

“It's fine,” he said, because it had to be.

They left the stilt house ten minutes later. Neither of them looked back at the unmade bed.

The morning was grey and overcast, the Gulf flat after the storm. Dante backed the 'Cuda out of the drive, tires spittingcrushed oyster shells, and pulled onto the narrow road heading east toward the harbor.

They drove in silence for a while, the engine filling the space between them. Jessica leaned forward and ran her fingers along the dashboard.

“I remember the first time you pulled up in one of these,” she said, her gaze fixed somewhere past the windshield.

“You said it was the ugliest thing you'd ever seen.”

She nodded seriously. “I meant it.”

A pause. Then, still not looking at him: “And then a few hours later, we were parked by the lake.”

“Lake Michigan.”

She turned to him. “I remember you leaned against the side of it, looking all dark and broody, and I kissed you right there, pressed against the door. The handle was digging into my back the whole time, but I didn't want you to stop.”

Dante could still feel the ghost of it—the cold metal, the smell of the water, her hands pulling at his singlet. He almost smiled, but it didn't quite land. “You were high as fuck.”

“I wasn't that high.”

The moment hung between them, warm and bittersweet, until the industrial skyline of the harbor rose ahead and swallowed it.

Dante steered the 'Cuda into the salvage yard, threading between rusted hulls and stacked anchor chains until he found a spot deep enough in the maze that the car wouldn't be visible from the road. He killed the engine.