RISK & REWARD

69 | 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘴𝘸𝘢𝘯

"WHAT do you think about Vegas?" My question comes while Slade and I are eating breakfast. It's been a week since she decided to kick my ass for being late with Sasha; the remark the woman had made has been sticking in my head, and I finally decided to bring it up.

Over a bowl of warm eggs — she's been a fiend for rather hearty amounts of them since she's started swimming daily — Slade wrinkles her brow and glances at me. "Huh?"

"Vegas." I tear off a mouthful of buttered bagel. "Going to Vegas."

If possible, she looks even more confused; she rakes a hand through slightly-shiny black-and-white hair. "Why would we go to Vegas? When? How?"

"I dunno." I shrug. "Sasha mentioned it when we went shopping. That it works good for hiding."

Slade chews on her eggs and it reminds me vaguely of a camel. She wrinkles her brow; looks down, forks another mouthful of eggs. "Mm. So's here."

"Yeah, but it's boring. And we've been here awhile." I polish off my bagel, ball up my napkin, and flounce onto my stomach, looking up at Slade. "And it's cold."

She raises a brow. "An' we're just jettin' across the country on who's bill?"

"We can hitchhike trains again. Like before."

"Before, we went from Chicago to ass-fuck Iowa. That's," and Slade has to think for a second, "one state line. Not twelve."

"Vegas is twelve lines away?"

Slade shrugs. "S' across the country. Not an easy trip from Iowa."

"I guess not. I think we could manage, though." I roll onto my back. "There's gotta be trains across the country. We could just jump on and off and figure the rest out."

"Figurin' the rest out is the hard part." Slade's voice is muffled by a mouthful of eggs. "S'not easy to get across the country."

"But it could be worth it." I fold my arms over my chest, squeezing my balled-up napkin. "We'd be in a big, big city, lots of people and things going on. We could hide no problem."

"Or get found out. Immediately." After what feels like hours, she polishes off the last of her bowl; I'm too deep in thought to fight her as she looks over and peels my hand open, taking away my wrought-up garbage and getting up to dispose of it. "S'risky, an' I don't need either of us gettin' caught."

"I thought we're supposed to be on the run. Not staving away in some tiny hotel in Iowa."

Slade blinks at me. "On the run, yeah. Not on vacation."

"You don't get bored?" I flop over. "Ever? You don't get tired of this day in, day out?"

"No." Her nostrils flare. "It's safe."

"But it's boring."

"An' it's safe." Her eyes harden. "S'not supposed to be fun. S'posed to be safe."

I groan as I close my eyes. She's right, obviously; laying low is a luxury I'm starting to learn to enjoy, but god, if it doesn't get boring. Even with Slade. Wake up, get breakfast from downstairs; come back up, eat, laze around for half an hour or so before Slade abandons me in favor of the pool. Sometimes I go with; she's fun to watch. Or, she was. Not that anything's changed about her — no, no, she's still as alluring as ever — but despite her rippling muscle and what looks to me like a very sleek swimming style, watching her do a million laps day in and day out gets boring after awhile.

Anyways. She comes back up, jumps in the shower; sometimes we go in together, though this past week she's seemed a bit more reluctant to do that. She's stopped initiating anything; we'll stay close to each other, cuddle, and we do all that more than before, but as for anything dealing with below-the-belt action, she's giving null.