Page 167 of The Best Shot

“Hmm?”

“Your father.”

“He’s okay.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. Same as he was when you left.”

She exhaled. “Okay.”

“Nothing changed with him,” I said. “Something changed with me.”

She pushed up onto her elbow. Her eyes were red. Tired. Still the prettiest thing I’d seen in months.

“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me how you got here.”

“You sure?” I asked. “I don’t do short.”

She lay back. “I’m asking Hale Henry for a story. I have time.”

So I told her.

“I didn’t have a passport, so I drove to Dallas and convinced a woman behind bulletproof glass that I needed one faster than was reasonable.”

Her mouth curved. “Did you charm her?”

“Paid an extra fee.”

“So no.”

“I was charming while I paid it.”

She laughed and I felt it against my ribs.

“From there, Austin to Los Angeles,” I said. “Window seat.”

“On purpose?”

“Figured if I was going to do it, I ought to see it.”

The takeoff was something I still didn’t have words for. The acceleration pressing me back. The ground tilting away. The roads I’d spent my whole life driving shrinking into pencil marks beneath me.

“I’d never seen home small enough to hold in one look,” I said.

She listened.

“You trusted a machine you couldn’t fix?”

“Had somewhere to be.”

Her hand tightened over my chest.

“LAX was next,” I said. “Sat there a few hours watching people move through that airport like crossing oceans was regular, everyday behavior.”

“For some. If they’re lucky.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’ve spent my whole life in one place. That’s not a bad thing.”