Page 7 of Harbor

All that stared back at her, waiting.

“I’m going wherever you go,” she said.

Did he need her to keep saying that?

How many times would she say it before he finally believed it?

It was true—no matter what he thought, or how it made him feel, it was still going to be true. She didn’t doubt this would cause trouble. Mostly her taking off with him … everything else was just everything else. But couldn’t they climb that hill when it came? It wasn’t here yet, and so, Lucia didn’t want to deal with it yet.

Silly, yes.

Ignorant, sure.

What else could she do?

Lucia was where she wanted to be. Nothing was going to make that any less true.

“All right,” Renzo murmured. “We’ll stop on the other side of Iowa, grab some food, and switch some shit out.”

She didn’t know what that meant.

She didn’t care, either.

“You should still let me drive for a while,” Lucia said. “You could use some sleep, Ren.”

Renzo chuckled. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead, baby.”

Yeah, that’s what she was scared of the most.

• • •

Diego sat in the opened hatch of the back of the SUV eating a kid’s meal and chattering on in the afternoon light. Lucia opened the toy that came with his meal, and handed it over to the smiling four-year-old. It wasn’t like the toy was very much—a small writing pad and a pack of mini pencil crayons to draw with. She supposed that was better than a cheap piece of plastic that would either break before he could play with it, or would get thrown in the garbage when he had no interest in it anymore.

He took the pad and pencil crayons, happy with whatever.

“Thanks, Lucia,” Diego said around a half-full mouth of the cheeseburger.

She grinned. “You’re welcome. Draw me something pretty, okay?”

“Okay!”

Diego went back to his food—distracted and pleased. Like usual. Lucia took that chance to lean backward on her heels, and peer around the side of the SUV. She found Renzo kneeling against the back of a white car, and just removing the final screw for the license plate. He’d already taken the one off the SUV, too.

He hadn’t explained why he was switching license plates yet again. However, they were sitting in a fucking fast food restaurant’s parking lot, and while they were parked in the back where no one could see them, it still made her nervous.

“Are you almost done?” she asked.

“Almost. Diego just about finished?”

Lucia gave the boy a look, and found he was still working on his cheeseburger and had half of his fries left. “Almost, but not really.”

Renzo chuckled as he stood up, and came around the back of their SUV. He moved to the side of Lucia where he could bend down to the ground, put the license plate on, and still keep out of view with her mostly blocking what he was doing. Diego moved to the edge of the hatch, and watched his older brother with a curious eye.

“What are you doing, Ren?” Diego asked.

“Making us harder to find again, that’s all.”

“Oh, okay. Like Hide and Seek?”