When she looked at him in alarm, Eli shrugged. As he drove down the streets, she stared at him. He had on a T-shirt that clung to his muscular body. His dark hair curled about the back of his neck. This is not what she’d thought Eli would grow up to look like—or that he’d know the things he did. Dancing, car chases, firearms. When they were kids and they’d talked of their futures, she’d imagined him emaciatedly thin, living alone on delivered pizza, and sitting in front of eight computer screens.
“There,” Eli said and slowed the car. They saw Orin pull into a driveway of one of the worst weed-infested houses. The windows were dirty and two of them were cracked. The old car fit perfectly with the shoddy house.
Eli parked across the road under a big tree that looked to have been struck by lightning. A heavy branch hung dangerously low over the crumbling sidewalk, but it hid Eli’s car.
They saw Orin get out of the car and go into the house.
“Wow!” Chelsea said. “If that’s where he lives, he was telling the truth about being broke. Think his invalid wife is in there?”
“Only one way to find out. Stay here while I—”
“Like hell I will!” She had her hand on the door handle when he stopped her.
“If you so much as step out of this car, you’ll create a crowd. Look at you! Hair, clothes, all that makeup. You look ready to be on the cover of Vogue.”
“Thanks. Maybe. You have a baseball cap?”
“In the bag in the back.”
Chelsea got onto her knees and bent over to reach through the bucket seats to the back. She knew that doing so put her derriere close to Eli and she couldn’t resist checking to see if he was looking. He was.
Smiling, she unzipped his duffel bag, rummaged inside, and pulled out a dirty T-shirt, an old baseball cap, and a package of wet wipes. She’d had a lot of experience in quickly making up for photo shoots so she could just as quickly unmake herself.
She sat back in the seat and quickly removed all her carefully applied cosmetics.
Eli was watching her. “Why did you go to all that trouble when it’s just you and me?”
&nbs
p; “To make you see that I’ve grown up. To impress you. To show you that I’m no longer a girl with skinned knees.” As she spoke she pulled her designer shirt over her head, exposing her breasts in a lacy bra, and slipped on the big T-shirt. She wrapped her long hair in her hands and stowed it under the cap. “So?” she asked, turning to him. “How do I look?”
“Like an actual woman. I am impressed, and by the way, I liked your skinned knees.” Bending, he kissed her cheek. “Right now I can see a bit of my Chelsea in you. Didn’t think that was possible.” He stepped outside.
Smiling, she got out of the other side and hurried after Eli as he crossed the street. “You know, if you had a tattoo or two, you could fit right in with these guys around here.”
Without pausing, Eli lifted his shirtsleeve and twisted his arm about. On the underside of his upper arm was a tattoo of a symbol for infinity with some words in another language under it.
“What does it say?”
“ ‘Time has no meaning,’ ” he said. “I think. That was on a case and . . .” He shrugged, then began to run.
Chelsea was nearly as tall as he was so she could keep up with him. They went to an adjoining house and stopped behind a fence with missing boards. She started to pull off a board so they could get through.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t you want to go to the other house?”
“Yes, but not at the destruction of other people’s property. We need to go over the fence.” He put his hands together and cupped them. “Put your foot here.”
“I like this better than sliding through splintered wood.” She put her foot in his hand and he hoisted her up.
“Thought you would,” he said, then gave such a thrust upward that she almost went flying over the top. She caught on to the board ridge and tried to throw her leg over. Eli put one hand firmly on her round behind and pushed her up and over. “Too bad your polo-player boyfriend isn’t here to give you a boost up.”
She started to protest what he was saying but changed her mind. “Yeah, it is a shame, isn’t it? A sleek, black pony to—oh!” She lost her grip and fell over the side.
Eli caught her.
In his arms, she looked at him. “How did you get over here so fast? I didn’t see you climb.”