Page 59 of Deliver Me

She looked at him quizzically, reaching for his hand as she turned out of the parking lot and onto the open highway. It was rural and there wasn’t much to see, but he found himself watching the window at the sights of passing fields and cows as much as he did her perfectly freckled nose as she answered him.

“Unless there’s somewhere else you’d rather go?” she asked, her brows drawing together with sudden uncertainty.

“No,” he said quickly. “We hadn’t talked about it, and I didn’t want to assume. I wasn’t sure how your dad would feel about me going there.”

She frowned, mouth twisting on a grimace and cheeks pinking. “He’s not going to be thrilled with every decision I make but if you want to be with me then I want you there.”

He caught the hesitation, the quick uncertain glance. “Mia,” he said quietly, pressing her knuckles to his lips for a kiss that lingered. “There is nowhere I would rather be than with you.”

“Good.” She smiled, setting back in her seat, and relaxing just a bit. “We’ll have to hide you just a bit for a while since you aren’t on my lease but if I pick up some overtime shifts before the lease expires, I’ll have enough saved up for us to move when it runs out.”

“Is your apartment not big enough?”

She pulled up to a stop sign, making a show of looking both ways as she subtly avoided his question.

“Mia?”

“It’s big enough,” she said. “But we need a place where we can put you on the lease. You’re not really supposed to have people there that aren’t because most places don’t want anyone living there who hasn’t passed a background check. For the safety of the other residents, you know?”

“Background check,” he repeated slowly. “So, they won’t put me on the lease at your apartment, even if I have a job by then, because …”

“Because you have a felony on your record,” she said when his question went unfinished. “It doesn’t matter which kind.”

“I see.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, her smile overbright. “There are places that let people with felonies move in and we’ll find one.”

“You’re going to move into an apartment complex where all the people who just got out of prison live because they can’t live anywhere else?”

“Yes,” she said. “And, yes, it’s probably slightly more dangerous than my current complex because most of the people that run them look the other way on pretty much anything if you can afford the ridiculous amount that they charge for rent but eventually we’ll buy a house and then it’ll be fine.”

“It’s okay,” he agreed. “We can buy a house.”

“Exactly,” she said, giving him a vigorous and determined nod. “It may take some time on what I make, probably not until after I finish school and get a better job, actually, but it’s not impossible.”

“Why would we be doing it only on the money you make?” he asked, forgetting momentarily what he had been about to tell her.

She swallowed and squeezed his hand. “Probably not entirely but … Well, it’s just that it can be hard to get a job with a felony on your record, that’s all. I don’t want you to feel pressured or think I’m going to be mad if it takes a while for you to find something. You should take some time to adjust, anyway. Watch some movies. Eat some ice cream, cookies, and McDonald’s.”

He sat up straighter in his seat, distracted by the endless possibilities. “Can we?”

“Can we what?”

“Eat McDonald’s? Or whatever? Just something that’s not prison food?”

“Sure, there’s a bunch of places that we can stop between here and my … our … apartment.”

Twenty minutes later he was peeling the wrapper off a cheeseburger and sipping Coke through a cheap plastic straw. She’d gone through the drive through, deciding not to go in because she didn’t want the first place he went as a free man to be the inside of a greasy fast-food restaurant. Instead, she’d set the bag in his lap and handed him his cup and the straws as she’d driven down the street to a small green park where she’d kissed him again, more softly, in the shade of a big tree at the edge of the parking lot before they’d settled in at a concrete picnic table. The air smelled of French fry grease, summer heat and freshly cut grass, simple luxuries that he’d thought he’d never experience again. It took all of his restraint to not lie down on the ground at their feet and stay there all day as the sun crept over his body.

“I can’t believe you’re actually here,” she said. She was nibbling on her food but she hadn’t taken her eyes off his face. “It doesn’t seem possible.”

“I’m here because you gave me hope and a reason to fight for my life when I got the chance. I’m going to take care of you,” he promised. “I’m going to give you every single thing you’ve ever wanted and love you for the rest of your life.”

“I know.”

“I mean it,” he insisted. “I’m going to buy you a house and pay for your school and anything else you need. I don’t ever want you to have to worry about anything.”

Her brows creased and she stared down at a line of ants parading across the tabletop, collecting what they could from a spilled drop of red liquid from someone else’s lunch. “Don’t put that kind of pressure on yourself. Our future isn’t going to be easy and we’ll probably spend more time eating ramen than McDonald’s, but we’ll figure it out together.”

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