by Kay Marie
“Yeah, food.” He turned toward her, confused. As soon as he looked at her face, he understood his mistake. For a moment, he’d forgotten who she was, who he was. He’d forgotten that normal people, good people, didn’t talk about stolen cars as though they were nothing, didn’t act as though disabling a GPS or evading the police were an average, everyday occurrence. Now, he remembered. One glance at her shocked, scared face and he remembered exactly who he was.
The bad guy.
“I’m, uh, starving,” he continued, softer this time, staring straight ahead as he pulled the car back onto the street. To remind himself a little more, to dig his grave a little deeper, he added, “Besides, this might be our last chance at a hot meal for a while. Once your face hits the newsreel, we won’t be able to risk being seen.”
Addison didn’t respond. She pressed her fingers to her lips and turned toward the window, silent. The absence of her smile left a hollow feeling in his chest.
Good, he thought, returning his attention to the road. You don’t deserve anything else.
- 12 -
Addison
It was as though he were two different people—one was kind and charming, the other cunning and hard. One was someone she could grow fond of, and the other was someone she feared. Addy didn’t understand him or his life.
Despite herself, she wanted to.
So she studied him, as they drove aimlessly around Atlanta, as he pulled into a diner, as they got out of the car and sat down. She silently observed the way his lips shifted from tight to relaxed, how his gray eyes oscillated between a dark summer storm and a soft downy wool, the way the muscles in his cheek ticked, how he curled his fingers into fists as though trying to squeeze some inner demon out. Sometimes, being quiet had its advantages. She’d never been the life of the party growing up, more of an outsider looking in, but that had taught her the power of observation. Sometimes, silence spoke far louder than words. Right now, his silence had told her that he was a man at war with himself, and she was dying to know why.
“What can I get you?” A cheery waitress interrupted the quiet and put two glasses of water on the table. Attention jumping between the two of them, she waited for someone to go first.
Thad’s head was tilted down, buried behind the rim of a baseball cap as he studied the menu. Addy looked up, meeting the woman’s eyes. Thad kneed her beneath the table. Shoot, right. No eye contact. She jerked her head down, but wasn’t that more noticeable? So she glanced up, staring straight ahead, torn in a sort of in-between.
“I can come back…” The waitress trailed off.
“No, I’ll have the, um, grilled cheese, please, with a tomato soup. Oh, and a lemonade.” Addy pointed at the picture of grilled cheese on the menu just to be able to look at something, and then turned toward Thad.
“Bacon cheeseburger with fries and an iced tea, please,” he grumbled and lifted the menu, not bothering to look up.
“Coming right up,” the waitress replied in that same jovial tone, far more gracious than Addy and Thad deserved.
After she left, the silence returned, but this time Addy didn’t have a menu to hide behind. Neither did Thad. He drummed his fingers on the counter. Addy watched, trying to pick out a pattern in the haphazard movements, until finally, she broke.
“Thad—”
“No names,” he cut in, tossing her a wry look from beneath his cap.
“Right.” Addy nodded, hazarding a moment to glance around. But they were seated in the farthest corner of the classic American diner, at a booth by themselves with no one nearby. “Well then…you. Can I ask—”
“No.” He stopped drumming and grabbed a pencil and napkin from the condiment holder on the side of the table.
“But you didn’t even—”
“No,” he cut in again, absently drawing as he spoke. “Because I can tell by your tone I won’t like it. People get soft, hesitant, and their voice drops a little when they’re about to ask something personal. And we shouldn’t do personal.”
“But.” Addy paused, jaw bobbing for a moment while she searched for the right words. “But it might help me, to get to know you a bit. It might make me feel more comfortable.”
He stopped drawing and sighed. Then he pushed through the momentary hesitation and continued to etch graphite marks into the napkin, not meeting her eyes. “I know, and I’m sorry about that. But when this is over, the Feds will probably come question you, and the less you know, the better. For both of us. For one, I don’t want to incriminate myself. And two, I don’t want to incriminate you. If they think we were friendly, they might think you were aiding and abetting a fugitive, instead of being kidnapped by one.”
He looked up, smoky eyes piercing, and then back down to his pencil and his napkin and something that clearly made him far more comfortable than this situation.
Addy gulped.
His excuse was solid. Everything he was saying made perfect sense. Yet she couldn’t help but feel he was lying, or at least hiding the real reason he didn’t want to talk. It ran deeper. She knew it did.
“Well, what about your art? Is that a safe topic?” she finally asked, watching the outline of an upside-down face gradually come to life as he worked. “Have you always drawn?”
“Yeah,” he murmured, peeking up for the briefest moment, glancing at something over her shoulder. “Art is probably the only thing in my life that’s ever made sense. Food’s here.”
He shoved the napkin to the side to make room and crumpled it in the process. Addy pulled it toward her as two plates with heaping portions were placed on the table. Thad immediately grabbed some fries, stuffing his face as though he hadn’t eaten a hot meal in days. Then again, maybe he hadn’t. Addy turned the napkin around, stomach dropping in a way that was both comfortable yet not when she recognized the face roughly sketched upon it. Her own. Hair short. Lips full. Eyes wide and somehow bright despite the use of only black-and-white tones. The girl in the drawing was peaceful and beautiful, two words she wasn’t sure she’d ever used to describe herself before.
Addy looked up.
Thad swallowed the bits of burger in his mouth, gaze dropping to the napkin and picking back up, inscrutable. “What about you? We can talk about you. Tell me about yourself.”
Oh, we can talk about me, can we? Addy thought. That’s not a double standard or anything. Yet she found herself shrugging and responding just the same, to fill the silence, to fight the warm feeling gathering beneath her skin. “Not much to know. I’m from a small town, lived there all my life. I bake cakes. I have two amazing parents, and a younger sister who’s kind of a brat, but I love her anyway. And that’s about it.”
Was that it?
Was that her entire life, so easily summed up in a few dozen words?
For some reason, the thought made her uneasy.
“A brat? Why?”
“I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean— She’s not—” Addy sighed. “We used to be really close when we were little, and then, I don’t know. Something happened. We drifted apart.”
Addy paused, thinking back to those long-ago days when she braided Gracie’s hair on the way to school and they performed skits for their parents at night. At one point, they’d been the best of friends. They’d done everything together, from jumping in the leaves when the weather got cold to building sandcastles at the beach all summer long. When had it changed? Addy was older. She got interested in boys and her friends, and had less time for her sister. Gracie started watching the news while Addy was stuck on the Food Network. Their interests diverged and they didn’t take the time to build a bridge across the rift. The fights were small at first, but after the tenth, twentieth, hundredth time having the same argument, they seemed insurmountable. Gracie went off to college, and maybe Addy was resentful. She stayed home, and maybe Gracie felt left out. There was so much, too much to explain.
Addy sighed. “It’s…complicated, I guess.”
But was it? Suddenly, it all seemed so
foolish. There were billions of people in the world, but there was only one Gracie. Only one person Addy could call sister. Shouldn’t it be as simple as that?
“Sibling relationships can be tough,” he said and took a bite, shutting the conversation down. Thank you, she wanted to say. Siblings, especially sisters, could be tough, and it was way more than she wanted to get into right now. He swallowed and looked back up. “Did you go to school?”
“Huh? Of course I went to school. Everyone goes to school…” Addy stared at him, confused, and then she got it. “Oh, you mean did I go to college?”
The edges of his lips quirked despite his full cheeks packed with food, and he nodded.
“Um, sort of.” Addy shrugged. Thad furrowed his brows, not understanding, which propelled her into a long-winded and probably overly share-y response as she swirled her spoon through her tomato soup, not meeting his eyes. She hadn’t been on a date in a long time—not that this was a date. It wasn’t! But, well, her nerves were having a difficult time differentiating. “I mean, not in the traditional sense. I was never much for school. I loved English, but that was about it. Once I started working with Edie in her bakery, I knew that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to waste the money on school and I didn’t want to move too far from home because my grandpa was sick at the time, so I did a one-year program that specialized in pastries at a culinary institute in Charleston, and then Edie taught me everything else. She has a bachelor’s degree in baking, so learning from her was like a private education. And yeah…” She swallowed and broke off a corner of her grilled cheese. “That was school.”
And my life story… Why can’t I be more normal?
To her surprise, Thad didn’t laugh. Instead, he said, “Cool. I went to a fine arts college, so I get it. Why waste your life in classes you’re never going to use, when you can study something you love instead?”
Her head jerked up of its own accord. “Exactly. Most people don’t understand. My parents definitely didn’t when I first told them.”
“You want to know something?” Thad murmured, holding her gaze, confidence oozing in a way that made her want to reach out and snatch some for herself. “Most people are afraid. They either don’t know what it’s like to have a passion or they’re too scared to pursue it. They’re content to do what everybody else does because it’s safe. But taking a risk for something you love? That’s brave.” He shrugged. “You’re brave.”
Addy scoffed, shaking her head. “I’m not brave.”
She was probably the most frightened person she knew. There was no reason for it, far as she could tell. No deep dark secret. No broken past. Her parents had been loving. They’d raised her the very best way they could, and they made sure she had every opportunity. Addy’s life had always been full of possibility, of hope, of so many dreams. Too many dreams, if anything. She lived in the clouds, afraid that if she came down to earth, nothing would be as bright or happy or wonderful as the world alive inside her head.
“Sure you are,” Thad countered, an easy smile rising to his lips. “You’re here with me, aren’t you?”
“Here with you is the only place I’ve ever been,” Addy drawled. She didn’t realize how true the words were until they spilled from her lips, making her gut clench. “You know who’s brave? My sister. Lee.” And for the first time in a while, there was no snark when she said her name, no eye roll. There was honesty and love. Because her sister was everything she wasn’t, everything she’d always been too scared to be, and maybe that was why she’d pushed her away—good old-fashioned jealousy. “She’s brave. She’s been all over the world. She’s going to law school. She’s not afraid to fight for what she believes in. And if she were here with you, she sure as heck would’ve called the police by now. Or”—Addy paused, glancing around the tabletop—“I don’t know, stabbed this fork in your eye and run.”
Thad frowned and immediately reached across the table, sliding the silverware out of her reach. “Then thank God I got stuck with you.”
Addy rolled her eyes and released a heavy breath. “I’m touched.”
“And I’m serious,” Thad said, reaching back across the table, but this time it was for her hand. The moment their fingers touched, her heart skipped a beat, then ran in fast-forward, fluttering like a hummingbird inside her chest. “Sure, it’s brave to travel, to want to save the world and all that jazz. But that’s not the only sort of bravery there is. Trusting people? Taking a chance on people? That requires a special kind of bravery.” He squeezed her hand and then let go, slouching against his seat, mumbling, “The kind that’s always terrified me.”
Addy wanted to hear him. The tone of his voice made her confident there was some hidden message behind the words, something important, something he couldn’t say out loud. But in the back of her mind, the wheels were spinning, unhinged in a way they never had been before. Suddenly it hit her—really hit her—that she could have died last night. She could have died and her eulogy would’ve been a few dozen words. Because she’d never gone anywhere. Or done anything. Or taken any chances chasing after the things she wanted—a bakery of her own, a man who loved her, a family. All this time, she’d coasted through life, living in her imagination, afraid of what? Disappointment? Heartbreak? But last night two men busted into her shop with guns, shooting bullets at her head, and now those concepts didn’t seem as frightening. Looking death in the face, she finally understood she’d never truly lived.
“I want to go to Paris,” Addy blurted.
Thad cocked his head, staring at her for a moment as though considering. “Now?”
“Not now.” Addy rolled her eyes, but then stopped, wondering for a moment what it must be like to live the way he did—to live a life where spontaneously traveling to a foreign country was not only doable, but dare she say it, blasé? This man before her was a wanted criminal, was being chased by the Russian mafia, had everything in the world to fear, and yet, not an ounce of him seemed afraid. Not one little ounce. Now? Now! What would he have done if I’d said yes? “I mean, after all of this is over, and I’m safe and free and my life is back to normal, I want to go to Paris.”
“You should.” He popped one last fry into his mouth, totally at ease. “It’s beautiful.”
“You’ve been?” Addy inhaled sharply, leaning forward as though if she moved close enough, his experience might ooze into her psyche through osmosis.
“What self-respecting art thief hasn’t?” he teased, dimple digging into his cheek. Then his lips smoothed and his face turned more serious. “But really, you should. Paris is… Well, there’s no place like it in the world. The art. The culture. The food. Everyone says to go to the Louvre, and you have to, but I prefer the Musée d'Orsay, speaks to the impressionist in me. And you’d love the pastries. Jo was obsessed. Every time I turned around she was stuffing something in her mouth, I don’t even remember what. But I do remember she wouldn’t shut up about the crepes. She just went on and on and on…” He rolled his eyes, but it was impossible to miss the affection in his voice, the love. “Typical Jo.”
“Yeah,” Addy murmured, trying to ignore the green-eyed monster scratching at her skin. Her unruly voice had other plans. “Why were you two there?”
“Oh.” Thad looked away with a cough, straightening his spine. “You know, business. Speaking of, I should go pay this. We should get on the road. I’m sort of amazed the story hasn’t broken yet, but we should take advantage of the extra time.”
Business! Relief flooded through her. Then she remembered what his business was—art theft—and she swallowed the feeling back down. But a little bit remained, burning at the corner of her thoughts like the devil on her shoulder, an annoying little beast she couldn’t push away.
“We should find a gas station,” Thad said once they were back in the car. “Pick up a map, refill the tank, and then get back on the highway and go.”
Addy nodded, turning toward the window, unable to talk because her thoughts w
ere still spinning, circling around and around the roads not taken. The first boy she’d been in love with was her childhood best friend, but she’d never told him how she felt for fear of ruining what they had. Then he got his first girlfriend, they stopped hanging out, and she lost him anyway. When she first decided to forgo college to pursue baking, she sent an application to her dream culinary school in New York, never expecting to get in. Then she did get in, but she never told anyone, because she was too afraid they would force her to actually go. What would she have done in a big city like New York all by herself? Get mugged? Killed? A city like that would eat her alive. So she stayed home, where it was comfortable, never expecting that her safe little hometown would be the place where she would be kidnapped and nearly killed.
The list went on. Boys she’d broken up with before they had a chance to break her. Men she’d turned away because they didn’t align with the perfect checklist she’d drawn up. Opportunities she’d missed out on because they were risky or didn’t match the image in her head. Addy could’ve gone to visit Gracie when she was studying abroad in France, but she’d been wrapped up in visions of romance that didn’t involve her sister. She stayed home and missed her chance and pushed her only sibling a little further away in the process.
“I’m going to run in and see if they have some cross-country maps. I’ll be right back. Can you fill the tank?”
“Huh?” Addy murmured, but he was already gone. They were stopped at a gas station and she didn’t even remember pulling in. Yet another thing I’ve missed!
Okay, that was a little dramatic. But still, she was tired of missing things, of letting her life fly by, of waiting for the perfect moment or the perfect man or the perfect opportunity. Twenty-five years had gone by, and so far, none of those perfects had shown up. Addy didn’t want to wait twenty-five more.
She wanted to live.
