He laughed and tugged back at her hand, grabbed his wallet, and they headed toward the stairs.
She went down the first step first, released his hand, turned around, rested her hand on the rail and looked up at him.
“What?” he asked.
She glanced back down the stairs, and said, “Never mind.”
At a safe distance apart, they headed downstairs and shouted quick goodbyes to Jeremy and Ellen, who very kindly did not come out for more odd pep talks.
Trace handed him her keys. “You drive there, I’ll drive back so you can have a few drinks and relax.”
He opened her door first—the keyless entry wasn’t working—then hopped in the driver’s side. “No offense, but in your quest to feel… updated, have you considered getting a new car?”
She snorted as she buckled, tugging at the seatbelt twice before it cooperated. “He may be boring, but Floyd still runs reliably, and there are times where practicality must win.”
He turned the key, and the engine engaged without much of a fuss. The odometer was creeping toward three hundred thousand miles. “I’ll say. How is this thing still running?”
“This car is so boring it won’t even die on me. It won’t do anything to give me an excuse to get something new.”
As he pushed on the gas pedal, it moved, but sluggishly. “I really can’t argue with that. All the clothes I owned before coming home were for work, my furniture was ancient, and I haven’t owned a car in years.”
“It took you two months to even get a haircut.”
He backed around and turned toward the road. The rain had let up some and was now one of those gentle mists that warmed what would otherwise be a crisp evening. “What were you going to say? On the stairs?”
“Oh,” she said as she scooted the hem of her skirt down, then reached across to crank the heat on full blast. “I wondered if you would be freaking out right now. I know you weren’t looking forward to going. Is it the crowd, or the company, or what?”
“Chaos. Unpredictability. Noise. All of it. I’m completely freaking out. You can’t tell?” he asked, glancing over at her and winking playfully.
She stared at him like he was a ghost, shaking her head vaguely.
There was no way to explain it, that he’d trained until he didn’t even recognize his name as his own. That he had been through so much worse, time and again. If even Trace couldn’t see through it, he knew he’d nailed it.
In a thick, slow as syrup southern accent, expression lax and dopey grin engaged, he said, “Naw, come-on darlin’, ya can’t be worryun’ lahk this awl thuh tahm.”
She leaned back in her seat, and her amused bewilderment egged him on.
Quickly switching to a ripe cockney, posture adjusted, he said, “‘Ere’s a lump of ice. S’all bout fittin’ in.” Again, he switched, this time to a nasal Boston, all fast and all attitude. “Can’t fuckin’ fall apaht if you get stawpped by a statie.”
“I’d forgotten about your knack for accents. The drama club begged you to join them. So you just, what, have multiple personas?” she teased.
“Pretty much. That’s, uh, a big part of how I landed my job.”
“Being good at accents?”
“Well, that helped. I was about to come home from a deployment, ready to say fuck-off to the Army, when the FOB got hit. Shitstorm from hell. I did my thing, got the job done, only bent the rules a little, but my squad made it out unscathed, and I grabbed this contractor on the way out.” He left out the gruesome bits, how cold he’d been, how the guy had been impressed by his skills, of course, but it had been Cole’s ruthlessness that had sealed it.
“And he offered you the job?”
“He offered me an interview that went pretty well.”
He expected Trace to gush, impressed and all that. Maybe to ask about his job, about the crazy shit he’d done. Or even to ask for another of his disguises.
Nope. Brow low, she folded her arms over her chest and looked straight ahead. “Foothills is going to bore you within six months.”
He flicked on the blinker that clicked at twice the speed it was supposed to, the light not fully illuminating. “I like Foothills. I lived here longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere.” Without slowing like he should, he gripped his hands firm on the wheel and took the corner too fast, his calm slipping as her words hit him like a sucker punch.
Tone sharp, she shook her head as she said, “You counted the days until you could leave. Even on the times you came to visit, you were itching to leave.”
