Page 97 of Trigger Happy

“Told you that ibuprofen/ice pack combo would help.”

He’s been playing doctor this entire drive, tossing out keep it there longer commands every fifteen minutes. I pretend to be annoyed, but really, I like that he cares. I like it enough to let him control the playlist. I don’t even wince when he absolutely butchers some obscure country song.

His phone vibrates, and Ma flashes on the dashboard screen. “Hey, Ma, how’s—”

“We can’t invite that girl to Thanksgiving,” she hisses on speaker. “I only have three place settings of Meemaw’s floral dinnerware set, so it’s out of the question.”

Thanksgiving?

Lawton grinds his teeth. “That’s worse than yesterday’s excuse when you said the ‘pigs don’t like strangers.’ If you’re gonna pull something out of your ass, at least make sure it doesn’t smell like shit.”

“Why are we talking about Thanksgiving?” I say, switching ice packs.

“Is that—”

Lawton speaks up loud and clear over his mom. “ ’Cause I told my mom yesterday that she might have a Chastain as a ‘fake’ daughter-in-law, but this thing between us is the real deal so she better pull out the fancy plates for Thanksgiving ’cause you’re getting an invite.” He pauses, looks a little sheepish. “If you want.”

There’s this shimmery warmth beating in my chest that makes my heart feel like it’s glowing, or maybe growing, if I let it. “I don’t need an invite to Thanksgiving. I don’t even like turkey that much, and there’s this place in Tribeca that makes a great to-go porchetta.”

“Did you hear that, Ma? Sabrina’s going to eat some to-go dish I can’t pronounce because you’re too stubborn to admit that Meemaw has a sixteen-piece English floral dinnerware set, so there’s enough for all of us.”

“Lawton Trevino Montoya, I pushed you out of my—”

He hangs up on her.

My jaw drops. “I can’t believe you just did a hard hang-up on your mom. She’s going to murder you, and then she’s going to come after me and poison my energy bites.”

All he does is squeeze my hand over the console. “Nah, she’s been out of the game too long. If she wanted me dead, she’d outsource it. I don’t think she even knows where I keep the cyanide anymore.”

“She hates me,” I say, lips still parted.

“She said she hated jalapeño poppers too, but then I made her try one,” he says. “Now we can’t do a Sunday night dinner without them.”

“Are you comparing me to a jalapeño popper?”

“Damn right I am,” he says. “I’m starting to think your DNA’s the same. You’re both hot and spicy, and I can’t seem to get enough of you.”

I can’t stop myself from smiling, despite the stab of guilt. I shove it down.

Somewhere past the elk reserve, we start playing License Plate Bingo, then switch to I Spy, and eventually end on Would You Rather. Here, playing road-trip games, I can almost forget that we have a duffel bag full of ammunition stashed beneath the spare tire.

We’re having a heated argument over whether we would rather use a butter knife or kindergarten scissors to saw off a person’s leg, when we pull up to Ella’s Trinkets.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Lawton says, opening the passenger door for me. “It looks like someone’s old house.”

I glance down the leaf-riddled side street lined with tiny cottages. Each one is painted a different color—red, butter yellow, petal pink—with signs hanging above the doors. Jack’s Bar-B-Q. Baker Law Associates. And there, over a mint-green door is Ella’s Trinkets: Jewelry & Antiques

Lawton watches me staring, staring, staring at the tiny house. “What is it? You see something I don’t?”

“No, it’s not that…”

He searches the area for anything off, and I can’t help but notice he never would have done that before we started working together. “All right, no guns in the flower beds, and I don’t see any scratch marks on the paneling. Looks normal. They’ve even got a doormat that reads Gourd Vibes Only, so what’s with the face?”

I shake my head, still staring. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“That’s your something voice. Tell me.”

“It’s just… this is the kind of house I used to dream about. Not this one exactly, but close. I wanted lots of natural light. Flower boxes. Green paneling, but sage, not olive. When I played with dolls, they didn’t shoot criminals. They baked muffins in a house like this.”