“Oh, no, trust me, I’mlovingthis. You look beautiful. You look alive.”
I laugh because I feel beautiful and alive.
We drive for a few hours. At some point, Luca has to check his phone’s GPS to figure out where the hell we are. Somewhere north of the city, out in some little place called Doylestown. I roll along a cute main street, pass the county courthouse, and end up at a crappy little greasy spoon diner set back in the middle of absolute nowhere. I whip into a spot behind the building and smash on the brakes.
“Let’s eat,” I say, killing the engine and kicking the door open. “I’mstarving.”
It’s around three in the afternoon. We’re seated toward the back. There are only a couple of old locals sitting at the counter, and the waitress is a sleepy younger girl with dyed black hair and thick eyeliner. I ask for a burger and fries. Luca wants pancakes and coffee.
“Slow down, I don’t want you to choke.”
I shove bits of burger and fries into my mouth and suck it all down with Diet Coke. “Driving makes me hungry.”
“I can see that.” He looks amused as he watches me go to town. “You really love it, don’t you?”
“I really, really do.” I clear my plate, barely taking a break to breathe or speak. When I’m done, I sit back with a deep, contented sigh. “Fuck, that’s good.”
“You’re a simple girl to please, Fio.”
“Take that back. I’m complex and full of mystery.”
“All you need is a burger and an expensive car to keep you happy.”
I tilt my head from side to side with a frown. “Well, yeah, when you put it that way.”
He laughs, eyes shining and happy, and I can’t help but grin back. I can’t remember the last time he looked like this. Like he was having fun without any hesitations or reservations. No worries, no problems, no murder weighing him down.
I have to admit, I like it.
He looks good, smiling at me like I’m the greatest thing he’s ever seen before.
It makes my belly feel warm.
“I have to ask, how’d you get into all this stuff?”
I shrug a little and lean back into the booth. “You know my family’s main thing is cars.”
“Right, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to love them the way you do. My family’s main thing is drugs. I don’t lose my shit over heroin.”
“Fair point.” I glance away toward the window and consider telling him everything. But that would involve reliving those awful few days, and I don’t want to ruin what’s been an incredibly good afternoon. “Something bad happened to me when I was younger. It was pretty terrible, and for a while after that, I was all kinds of messed up.”
His smile fades slightly. “You want to tell me what happened?”
I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter. That’s not really important. But like six months after it happened, my brother brought me to one of my family’s garages, and he showed me this car.” I smile again, almost smelling the interior all over again.
Leather, dirt, sweat, old flooring.
Perfection.
“What’d it look like?”
“Red, like the Spider. But it was something else. I don’t even remember the make and model anymore. That was back before I knew anything about cars. It was red and little though, probably a Jaguar or maybe a Mercedes. Raf gave me the keys and was like, ‘Want to drive it?’”
Luca’s smile is back. “How old were you?”
“Fourteen. Never driven a car before. I had no clue how. But I was so fucked up and depressed, and I just figured, why the hell not? I got behind the wheel, Raf showed me how to start it up, he explained the pedals, the steering, all that stuff, and then…” I mime the action in the air. “I put it in gear and went.”
“How’d that feel?” he asks, leaning forward.
