Page 36 of Furious

“And a getaway driver …” Zaynah adds. “I mean, if you’re going to break into Jolene’s garage and steal the keys, you’ll need someone to help you escape.”

“Are you volunteering?” El says, her eyebrows flying upward.

“Begrudgingly. If I can’t talk you out of it, I guess I have to help. What’s your role in this heist anyway?” Zaynah shoots back. “The muscle?”

“Wild card, of course!” El picks up a handful of fries and pops them into her mouth. “You never know what I’ll do!” she manages to say through the fries.

At this, CJ bursts out laughing. “Well, I’m going to be lookout, because I have zero heist skills. And James, you’re with me because, well, you’re with me.”

“And that way we can hide between cars at the garage and make out.” James pulls CJ in for a kiss, which makes all of us groan.

Beside me, El scoots even closer, so she’s practically sitting in my lap, and I plant an oh-so-quick feather-soft kiss on her shoulder. She leans into the kiss, and a warm, tender feeling along with a heat low in my belly fills me.

This girl.

Good grief.

“What does that make you, JoJo?” CJ says when they pull out of their kiss with James, distracting me. “Who are you in the heist crew?”

“The Inside Woman, of course,” I say.

All my friends groan and laugh at that, teasing me and saying it’s not a heist if you can easily unlock the safe. Which I totally disagree with because you’ve still got to break into the garage and get the keys and get out and not get caught. Which causes another round of spirited arguments. And, as we eat our dinner, our plan for breaking into Grandma Jolene’s garage to get the keys to the Hornet quickly goes from a ridiculous notion to an actual plan.

And somehow, as we leave the diner, Motorcycle Girl™ El Blum’s hand is in mine, and we’re totally doing a heist so we can then do an illegal street race, and holy shit my life is officially a Fast & Furious movie, but as El and I sneak a kiss when no one else is looking, that seems just fine to me.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

El

“You’re gonna get us pulled over for going too slow, Getaway Driver,” I complain.

Zaynah white-knuckles the wheel as though she’s smuggling a van full of escaped convicts across state lines and not a couple of sunscreen-and-french-fries-smelling teens, our still-wet hair dripping river water on her dad’s car’s upholstery. “No, I’m not. Just don’t draw any attention to us.” She darts a glance at the rearview mirror, in case the cops are in hot pursuit, I guess.

“Well, I was gonna rip off my top, lean out the window, and flash the good people of Dell’s Hollow as we go by, but now that you’ve told me not to …”

“You still can!” Jo pipes up from the back seat.

“DO NOT,” Zaynah commands.

You’d think we blackmailed Zaynah into driving us when she was the one who insisted, while everyone else left their cars outside the diner; I think she wanted an excuse to stay in the car, rather than actively heisting with the rest of us.

I look back to catch Jo grinning at me. And I wish more than anything that in this moment, I didn’t feel a sharp pang … of something. I mean, what’s to be sad about? We’re here, we’re full of burgers and sun flushed and loopy after a day at the river. I’m still buzzing a little from the rope swing; it took me right back to the drop-off at Devil’s Paradise. I remembered the nerves, but somehow after just a few months away, I’d forgotten the adrenaline rush, and how good it can feel to step off the edge of something solid and let yourself fall.

But.

I can’t keep from thinking about the application form in Jo’s bag, the one I now know exists and can’t forget. She told me about her F1 dreams the day we met, and about the academy, and it’s not like I expected her to factor me into her future plans after a few dates and a handful of short-but-impossibly-fantastic make-out sessions. That would be irrational. Illogical. I just didn’t know she was walking around with the application form filled out already, or that the program would start so soon… .

Stop it, I scold myself. Just enjoy this. Quit overthinking and over-worrying. Be fearless like Jo. Be fearless like—

“There!” Jo shouts, draping herself across CJ in the middle seat to point dramatically at the garage coming up very, very slowly on our right. “Park behind the building so nobody sees us.”

“How could they, in this stealthy vehicle?” James giggles.

I pat Zaynah’s dashboard and croon, “You’re so stealthy, you’re doing fiiiine.”

With a startling lack of speed, she turns into the garage parking lot and pulls around back, stopping next to a chain-link fence that surrounds the customer cars. The floodlights are already on, illuminating Fords with fender dents and Jeeps up on jacks, their windshields painted pink and orange under the sunset.

“You’re sure nobody’s inside?” CJ asks.