Page 44 of Stolen Goods
Addison stared at it with a frown. “Something that erases?”
“Confidence breeds success,” Thad retorted—an adage that his father had lived by. He himself was more of a fake-it-’til-you-make-it sort of man. Though, in a way, they were two sides of the same twisted coin.
Addison rolled her eyes. “Fine. Do you have an address?”
“Yes.”
She paused, waiting, then finally turned to him. “Are you going to give it to me?”
“No.”
She wrinkled her nose in frustration, a move he found rather endearing. “Are you going to attempt to be helpful at all?”
“Um…” Thad blew a slow exhale through his lips, considering. “Scottsdale is all I can tell you for now. We’ll fine-tune when we get closer.”
As he followed signs back to the highway, Addison sank her nose into the maps, bending over at the waist so her nose nearly touched the papers. The sharpie moved slowly but surely over the roads, tracing lines millimeter by careful millimeter, so painstakingly precise he couldn’t help but be amused. She was both a dreamer and a perfectionist—an odd combination to be sure. Though he had the feeling a dreamer was who she was, and the perfectionism was for self-preservation, a way to handle the fear and doubts and anxiety that came along with having big dreams. Wanting more out of life was inherently terrifying. Maybe that was why Thad had learned to settle for less—a small shack on the beach, all alone with his paints. When the hope was small, so was the disappointment if it never came true.
“Oh!” Addison suddenly exclaimed, then fell silent.
Thad turned curiously in her direction. “What?”
“Nothing,” she chirped, shaking her head.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
The edge of his lip quirked.Challenge accepted.“You know I won’t stop until you tell me.”
Addison remained silent.
“I’m annoyingly persistent.”
“It’s nothing, really.”
“Then tell me.” He shrugged.
She sighed. “It’s just…”
She’s starting to crack.“Come on,” he urged. “I know you want to tell me.”
“I…”
He leaned toward her, ear first, keeping his eyes on the road. “I can’t hear you…”
“Fine,” Addison said, speaking the word like a groan. “You said strike while the iron is hot?”
He met her eyes in the rearview mirror, enjoying the little sparkle firing to life, like the sun glinting off a cresting wave. “I did.”
“Well,” she said and tilted her head, not looking away. “Do you think, maybe, we could go to the Grand Canyon?”
“The Grand Canyon?” he repeated, mulling over the idea.
Addison plowed forward. “It’s only about seventy-five miles north of our exit off I-40, so it would probably be, I don’t know, maybe an hour and a half out of the way? We could camp there overnight and head toward Scottsdale in the morning, which would be about, hmm, maybe four or five hours south? Something like that. Unless you were planning to get to Scottsdale in the middle of the night, it wouldn’t be too far out of the way. And I’ve always wanted to go.”
“Okay.”
“Besides,” Addison continued, voice growing firmer as she wrung her hands in her lap and straightened her spine. She was so focused on convincing him to say yes, she didn’t realize he already had. But the road provided so few sources of entertainment, he kept his mouth shut. Watching her get all worked up over nothing was the definition of amusing. “You dragged me onto this little road trip. I deserve to get something out of it too. We’re going to be right there. It’s the least you can do, really. And, oh, can’t you just imagine it? The sun bouncing off those red rocks? The sliver of river snaking through? The vistas must be breathtaking. It’s been on my bucket list for ages, but I never— Wait a second.” Addison snapped her head in his direction, mind finally catching up. “Okay?”
