Page 67 of Sin City Lights

Eve

Eve turned her face to the sun, hair whipping behind her as the Bug flew down Route 66, top down, toward midtown Seligman.

Everything Adam put his hands on seemed to fly. The man did love speed, but then, so did Eve, and she was having a blast.

“The Mother Road,” Adam quoted gravely,“the road of flight.”

Ah, he could quote Steinbeck too. Another box checked in Adam’s seemingly endless column of surprises.

“This looks like Radiator Springs.” She eyed the long row of kitschy buildings. Perhaps the creators of theCarsmovie had been inspired by this town. She felt as if she’d jumped back in time to when families routinely traveled Route 66 on family vacations.

“Yup. There’s Tow Mater.” Adam motioned toward a rusty, beat-up truck parked at the front of a store.

She arched a brow.“You’ve seen the movie?”

“Twice.”

There was so much she had assumed about him that was proving incorrect, and she found she wanted to discover more.

“Questions game?” she challenged.

“Sure.” He turned into a lot and eased into a parking space.

“What is your favorite movie?”

“Top Gun,” he fired back without hesitation.“Yours?”

“Gone with the Wind.”

His brows raised.

“Why does that surprise you?”

“It doesn’t have a happy ending.”

“It doesn’t,” she conceded,“but I do.”

He put the Volkswagen in neutral and turned the key to cut the engine.“You do?”

“Yeah. I turn it off before Rhett says the famous line and think of the ending I made up.”

He burst into a startled laugh.“A novel way of watching movies. OK, let’s go see some weird stuff. We have an hour before we need to head back.”

He came around, opened the door, and took her hand to help her out.

She looked up at him.

He smiled down at her.

Vegas seemed a world away.

•

They visited the stores along the road, each funkier and more eclectic than the last, cluttered with memorabilia, vinyl records, and local art. There were so many license plates that Eve could have spent the afternoon browsing those alone. One store owner seemed to have had an especially creepy sense of humor, installing motion-activated mannequin heads to follow patrons’ movements as they browsed.

Eve decided they should see The Rusty Bolt, where mannequins adorned the roof and porch.

Adam opened the door for her, and there sat Elvis, ankle on the opposite knee, wearing his signature TCB gold sunglasses and sporting the famous black leather Comeback Special suit.

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