NICK
It was one of those nights that made it damned obvious why people moved west in the first place—so clear and empty that it felt like everything was possible. After my shift, I took the long way back to her place. Because I needed to think.
I went up by the air base, then north on Tramway. There was hardly anybody out, and way out west there was still a slice of red left over from the sunset. I had this feeling, as I tore down the straightaway, that she might ask me to help her steal the North Star. She was up shit creek, and in every way that mattered—locks, cover, backup plans—I knew I could be her paddle. The question I had to ask myself, though, was how the fuck I was going to answer her if she did ask.
As the road curved in front of me in the dusk light, the two ways this could play out unfolded on either side of me. To my right was empty high desert. No lights. No people. No chaos. No temptation, no risk. To the left was the city, bright and vast. In the sprawl was chaos and trouble. I’d lived my whole life in the sprawl. I had no fucking idea how to live anywhere else. Jail was a fresh memory. I could still smell the fucking place, like cleaning solvents, sweat, and cafeteria food. Fucking miserable. And I had no desire to ever go back.
And yet, Stella was still the sprawl herself. She was trying to get out—and trying to get everybody out with her. Crabs in the bucket; the oldest motive that there was.
The risk, for me, was fucking enormous. If I got caught, it would be my second strike—my second felony. With my past conviction, a robbery charge would land me in jail for dozens of years. My debt would compound with every tally on the cinder block cell wall. And I’d have lost Stella before I even really had her.
On the flip side, the payoff would be huge. If we got our hands on the North Star, it meant a fresh start. It would mean I’d never have to pick another lock or fence another jewel for as long as I lived. The reward would be freedom. Period.
Looking after myself was important. But way out in the distance, where there was no debt, where life was a little easier, I could just about see us together. It was possible. Anything was possible. But not if I didn’t help her—and protect her—when she needed it most.
I was pretty sure I had my answer. Now I just needed her to ask.
I could tell she was nervous when I walked in. In the microwave spun a plate of leftovers. She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and rushed around the kitchen like a little tornado, grabbing up utensils and plates. She flung open the fridge and gathered up all the cold leftovers she could carry, then dumped them on the coffee table before rushing back to the kitchen again. I let the tornado spin. I hung my helmet on the peg by the door above her purse and locked the door behind me.
On the kitchen counter sat my broken pick. When she caught me staring at it, she froze. She said, “Sorry. I tried and it snapped.”
As I dropped it in the garbage, I told her, “I broke a dozen of them before I got the hang of it for real.”
“And I think you’re going to have to take the hinges off my door,” she said, making a knot out of the tie of her apron.
“I had to do that a time or two too.” Actually, I hadn’t. But no point in rubbing her nose in it.
She clutched the plates to her chest and looked up at me, glancing from left to right like she wasn’t sure which of my eyes to settle on.
C’mon, I thought. Do it. Ask me. Fucking ask me.
The microwave dinged, and she spun away. While she bustled around, I calmly filled two glasses of water and opened the bottle of wine from last night. I rinsed out the glasses we’d used, dried them, and brought them over to the table with the bottle. I noticed that on her right middle finger, she wore a Band-Aid.
“That from earlier?” I asked.
She nodded and stuck down the slightly frayed edge. Even her breathing sounded nervous—strained and quick. She looked up at me again, and I pulled her closer, one hand on each shoulder. “You OK?”
This time she settled on my left eye, and her stare never wavered. “OK. I have to just do this. I have to just . . . OK.” She drew back her shoulders and blinked at me once, then again. “Do you think . . .” She stopped herself. “Are you . . . would you . . .”
It was actually kind of adorable, all her nerves and stutters. But I didn’t want to put her through the wringer. “You want me to ask?”
She swallowed hard. “Do you know what I’m going to say? Because honestly, I don’t need a knight in shining armor. I just need . . .”
Jesus Christ, she was killing me with all this. If ever there was a moment for comic relief, this was it. I didn’t want her flustered. I wanted her happy and laughing and not so fucking wound up over a question I’d already asked and answered in my head. I could think of one surefire way to make her laugh, right then and there, and so I grabbed my chance. A knock-knock joke wasn’t going to cut it. It was time for the big guns.
So I dropped down on one knee, took her hands in mine, looked her in the eye, and I said, “Marry me.”
She exploded in nervous, wonderful giggles. “Nick!”
“Oh wait,” I said. “That wasn’t the question?”
Her eyes shimmered with tears of laughter, relief, and all the things I wanted to give her. I got back up off my knee, groaning a little. Forty wasn’t the new thirty—didn’t matter what anybody said. I took her in my arms and held her close. “So ask me.”
“I just wanted to know if you’d like to help me. Next week. With . . . the thing. At . . . the place.”
Boom. There it was. In that moment, she wasn’t a badass. She wasn’t a superhero. She wasn’t the head of a super-secret heist crew. She was just a beautiful woman, stumbling over her words and doing me the huge honor of asking for my help.
One last time, I asked myself if the risks were worth it. If she was worth it. If the feeling in my gut was worth it.
But the answer was clear. Looking at her made me feel like I was looking at a pair of sixes, a winning horse, a royal flush. Fuck yeah, she was worth it. I’d have bet on her no matter the odds.
I thought of all the things I wanted to say, but none of it was enough. It was all just words, and words were just talk. The way she made me feel wasn’t just talk, so instead of saying anything, I took her face in my hands, got lost in that deep blue lagoon . . .
And kissed her. I kissed her to say yes, I kissed her to say of course, and I kissed her to say yeah, this was fucking nuts, and yeah, I was her man. The kiss started out serious, but by the time I had her flat on her back on the countertop, she was giggling as we kissed.
When I came up for air, the edges of her lips were red from my stubble scratching her, and her cheeks were flushed too. I knew I’d thought it before, and I knew I’d think it again. But she really was the most beautiful woman I’d ever met, and getting more so every minute. With her in my arms, I felt hope. And I wanted to protect that. No matter what. “If it goes to shit, I take the fall.”
Her eyes searched my face. She pressed her hand against my chest—more like she was supporting me than pushing me away. “No. If we go down, we go down together.”
There was no fucking way I would let that happen. But she was too full of heat and fire for me to douse her flames right then. “We’ll see.”
“So,” she said, “is that a yes?”
“Yeah. That’s a resounding fucking yes.”
In reply, she let out a delighted little, “Yaaaaaaay!” and pulled me in to shower me with a battery of fast, sweet kisses. It was so fucking nice, so goddamned sweet, I almost didn’t know how to handle it. I turned my face away, laughing. She just kept on kissing me. “I say we go in as a couple. Newlyweds. I’ll get back down on my knee if you want.”
Her eyes were shining, and her face was glowing. I wanted her so much, it made my bones ache. “As newlyweds, we could stay there. Like cuckoos in the nest. Fancy.”
I held her hair back from her face with my palm and let her bangs slip through my fingers. “Yeah. We go in disguised—we do some recon, but otherwise stay away from the cameras.”
Her eyes flashed. “Room service.”
“Every meal in bed.”
“What about this?” She gripped my left forearm and my left biceps. “And this?” Then did the same to the other side. “You’re not exactly part of the wallpaper.”
“And you are? With that face and that body? They won’t even see me standing next to you.”
She let out a wonderful laugh, an embarrassed back-of-her-throat giggle. “You know what I mean.”
I got serious again. She was right, of course. “I do. We’ll figure it out. First, though . . .” I reached into the takeout and pulled out the only fortune cookie they’d given us. Last night, I’d been ticked off that there weren’t two, but now I wasn’t. We only needed one. Because from that moment on, our luck was linked together. And together, we cracked the cookie open, wishbone-style.
The fortune came out on her side, and she read it first. Her eyes flashed, and she tucked the half cookie into her mouth as she held the fortune out for me to read.
Fortune cookies are like palm readers. When they’re wrong, it doesn’t matter. But when they’re right . . .
The one you love is closer than you think.
. . . they’re on the motherfucking money.