Then she follows out after him.

TWENTY-FIVE

Storefront Psychic

The entire meatball goes into her mouth.

"I'm still amazed," Louis says, watching her with a look on his face like he's watching a boa constrictor eat the neighbor's cat.

Around bulging hamster cheeks, Miriam asks, "Whuh?"

"The way you eat. I've seen it every day now, but every time, it's a unique experience."

"Mm," she mumbles, forcing the knot of meatball goodness down her throat. "Nothing wrong with a girl who enjoys eating a bad-ass plate of spaghetti, sir."

Louis blinks. "Except it's ten o'clock in the morning."

"Not my fault this diner serves the whole menu all day."

"How do you stay so thin?"

She smirks, reaching across and taking his hand. "Looking for beauty tips?"

He doesn't pull away, but he doesn't look comfortable, either. Ever since that night in the motor lodge, he's been unsure. Hovering at her edges. He wants her. But he's afraid of something. Or maybe, she wonders, is she the one who's afraid? And he just senses it?

They haven't done it yet. The deed. The horizontal mambo. The King Kong climbing the Empire State Building. Miriam's not sure why. She almost banged his brains out before. Why not now? It's her way. It's what she does.

Louis is different. Or maybe she's different. Any time it crosses her mind, she pushes it back out. She's afraid that examining the experiment will somehow ruin it. As if that makes any sense.

"I have the metabolism of a coked-up jackrabbit," she explains. "Always have. I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want, and my body burns through it like tinder."

"Some women would kill to be you."

"Some women are stupid donkeys."

He laughs. "Okay, then."

That right there is a moment she enjoys, a moment worth embracing. Most men in her life – hell, most anybody in her life – would take a combative sentiment like that and throw their own right back at her. And thus, a spiteful badminton match would ensue, each sharply phrased comment whipping back and forth like a shuttlecock aimed at someone's eye. Louis, he just takes it. He smiles. He laughs. He doesn't feed her energy. He's got some kind of placating Tai Chi, some Zen master redirection of her aggro spirit – and as a result, that spirit does not grow into a meaner beast but dissipates into naught but steam.

Miriam resists the urge to burp, quashing it behind a fist. She pushes the plate aside and grins. "So, where we headed to next, Big Poppa? And, actually, where the hell are we even at? I haven't exactly been paying attention."

They have been on the road now for a week and a day. A haul from North Carolina to Maryland (shipping paint cans), a haul from Maryland to Delaware (hoity-toity furniture), and now a haul from Delaware (paint again) to somewhere in… Ohio? This has to be Ohio. Flat. Blah. Trees. Highway. Meh.