“Probably not,” I said. “Not without speeding, anyway.”
Parvati furrowed her brow. “Maybe I can just leave my phone off. When I don’t come home from school, my parents will freak, but by that time we’ll have found Pres, or Violet at least. I’ll just tell them you forced me to go along with you.”
“Great.” I mentally added kidnapping to my list of alleged crimes. “With or without you, I’m definitely going to Vegas tomorrow.” It wasn’t like there was anything I could do hanging out around the cabin. The longer I stayed, the greater the chances were that McGhee and Gonzalez would find me.
Me, Max Cantrell, fugitive.
“You can go with me if you can figure out how to get away from your parents,” I continued. Part of me wanted Parvati by my side the whole way. She knew all this stuff about spying and the legal system that I had no clue about. Plus, I wanted her because I wanted her. Not just for the sex, but because she had this gift for making terrible stuff seem okay. Almost fun. And with Parvati, it’d feel like we were two kids searching for our friend. Without her, I’d be one criminal running from the FBI.
But I didn’t want her messed up in anything illegal. Not only because she could get shipped off to military school, but also because every day Preston didn’t come home this whole thing felt more dangerous.
Parvati nodded. “That reminds me.” She pulled a cheap plastic-looking phone out of her purse. “I got us both prepaids so you can call me and no one will be able to trace it. My new number is the only one programmed in.”
“A burner phone and a gun made for dropping people. Whose life is this again?” I tried to keep my voice light because I didn’t want to lose it in front of her, but inside I was starting to crack. I just wanted Preston to come home and everything to go back to being normal. I wanted to spend my birthday like I’d planned, with Amanda and my parents, putting up the Christmas tree while Ji and Jo tried to eat the ornaments. I didn’t want to be hiding from feds or thinking about whether my friend was dead.
“It’s our life, until we figure things out.”
“Good thing I have a master spy on my side.” I forced myself to smile. “Your parents would be so proud.”
“Hah. My mom would be horrified. She still wants me to be a lawyer. My dad would probably ask me if I’d been reading his SERE manuals.”
“What’s seer?”
“S-E-R-E. Survival, evasion, resistance, escape,” she said. “That’s what he does now. Teaches new recruits to be badass. He used to be a combat controller before he got old.”
I didn’t know what a combat controller did, but anything with “control” in the title seemed like it would fit the Colonel.
Parvati looked sad for a moment, snuggling close to me on the vinyl sofa. “I have to leave in an hour. I called my mom to tell her my newspaper meeting was running late, but I need to be home by eight for some big dinner with my grandparents or I’ll be the one needing to survive, evade, resist, and escape.”
“Okay.” I touched my cheek to her forehead. “Hey, can I hang on to your laptop until tomorrow? Maybe go through some more stuff on Preston’s hard drive?”
“Sure. I’m going to leave his phone here, too, so I don’t accidentally get caught with it.” She laid her head back in my lap and looked up at me with her soft, dark eyes. “Poor Max,” she said. “This isn’t how I wanted you to spend your birthday.”
I brushed her hair back from her face. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
“But you only turn eighteen once. I wanted it to be unforgettable for you.”
“Unforgettable, huh?” I bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips. “I can think of a few things that might make today unforgettable.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” she whispered. She pulled me down to her level. “Max time. My—”
I cut her off. “Yeah, yeah, your favorite time.” Our mouths met. I forgot the feel of cracked vinyl and the rumbling in my stomach.
A folded gray blanket sat on the top of the sofa. Parvati yanked it down with one hand and shook it out so it unfolded over us. For the next half an hour, I quit worrying about Preston and FBI agents and thirty-five-year-old chicks from Vegas. I just let Parvati wish me a happy birthday.
Afterward, we both lay back, looking up at the light fixture with the burned-out bulbs.
“I don’t know what I would do without you,” I told Parvati. “I don’t think I’d make it through everything that’s happening.”
“You’d be fine, Max.” She slid out from beneath the blanket and started getting dressed. “Your past made you resilient so you don’t fall apart in a crisis. I like that.”
I thought about her words as I watched her get dressed. She wasn’t very tall, but her legs seemed to go for miles. My eyes worked their way up her naked back. Just the slightest hint of tan line lingered at her shoulders. I had never considered myself resilient. I wondered if it was true, or if she was just seeing what she wanted to see.
“But I’m glad I can help,” she continued. Skipping her bra, she slid her T-shirt over her head and then came to lie next to me again. She rested her cheek against my chest.
Warmth radiated through her skin into mine. I angled my neck to look down at her. “You know I didn’t do anything, right?”
“Of course.” She squeezed my hand. “We don’t know that anyone did anything yet.”
“Yeah, but you said they’re searching the water.” I wasn’t sure how I would react if someone pulled Preston’s body out of the ocean. I wasn’t ready to accept that he might really be gone.
“They’re grasping,” she said. “Because they don’t have anything else.”
We lay there in silence, our inhalations and exhalations slowly coming to match up. I felt whole, like I could breathe, like I could figure this thing out. Together, we could find Preston.
When it was time for Parvati to leave, I walked her out to her car. The sky had gone gray; the thick billowy clouds were weighted down with rain. We stood there a few minutes, pressed up against the door of the Grape, kissing. I didn’t want her to go. Ever.
“If I don’t hear from you tomorrow morning—”
“Then it means I can’t get away,” she said. “And that you should go to Vegas without me.” She tossed her hair back from her face. “Where’s your car? We can trade license plates. If you have to go alone, it might keep you from getting busted on the way.”
“God, sometimes I think you’re a spy already, and just undercover as a high school girl,” I muttered. But it was a good plan, and I had the tools in my trunk to make it happen.