Page 139 of Gave Proof Through the Night

“Erica, you can’t just.” I stop. “Wait, what?”

“The Zesty Job. I’ve got my target in sight. I just need to hack into a vault.” She reaches up and pops the top button of my shirt open.

I laugh, because there’s nothing else to do with the way my pulse is behaving. “Okay. Okay, promise me this is the last one.”

“Thief’s honor.”

“Is there such a thing?”

“There is when you love someone.”

Everything in the room goes quiet. “Love?”

She nods, and it isn’t a joke this time.

“For the record,” I say, “I fell first.”

“You never said the words. Doesn’t count.”

“I texted it.”

“Burner phone.” She spreads her hands. “Never got it.”

“I’m buying you a real phone.”

“Good, because I’m broke and can’t afford one. Speaking of.” She peers past me toward the kitchen. “You got food? I had a pretzel at the airport that cost a small fortune, then the Uber cleaned out what was left. I’m starving.”

She’s already moving, trailing her fingers along the cabinets, and it takes her a full minute to figure out the fridge is disguised as one of them.

“Nice house,” she says, still hunting.

“You spent your last dollars to get here.” I say it slower this time, watching her. “To see me.”

She blinks, like the question doesn’t need thinking about. “Yes. I love you.” Flat. Plain. Like it’s the easiest fact she’s ever handed anyone.

“What if I’d turned you away?”

“That was a chance I was willing to take.”

I open the fridge for her before she embarrasses either of us further searching for the handle. She peers inside, makes a small satisfied noise, and pulls out a tub of hummus and a carton of organic orange juice.

“Someone made a Costco run,” she says, delighted.

“They’ve got the best eggs.”

“Tru dat. You got pita chips?”

“Do you think I’m a monster?”

I go into the pantry and come back with a bag big enough to feed a locker room, setting it on the kitchen island next to her. She climbs onto a barstool, cracks the hummus lid, and starts eating like a raccoon. I pour two glasses of orange juice and slide one across to her, then just watch her dig in. I am unreasonably attracted to her.

“Oh my word,” she says with her mouth full. “This is some yummy hummus.”

“I like the pine nuts on top,” I say.

She keeps eating, and I finally work up the nerve to ask the question that’s been sitting in my chest for three months.

“The necklace. Did you ever get it?”