She turns to go back to the eggs and I slap her ass. She laughs as I turn to the coffee pot, pouring myself a mug.
I sit down at the table and watch her cook. Even two years after everything happened in the compound, I still can’t get enough of her.
There’s just something I can’t describe about her. It makes me feel full, whole in ways I never thought was possible, not before her at least. I filled the emptiness inside of me with meaningless sex and dangerous work, but that could only do so much. It never made me feel complete.
But Riley gives that to me every single day. She doesn’t even have to do anything special to make me feel like I have a place. As I watch her, it comes to me suddenly, like a hot lightning flash in the sky: she’s home for me. That’s what this feeling means. It’s love and it’s home, all wrapped into one.
“What?” she asks and I realize I’m staring.
“Just looking at your hot ass,” I say, grinning again.
She cocks her head. “Didn’t look that way to me.”
My face softens. “Hey, I wanted to ask you something.”
“What?” She brings a plate of eggs and bacon over and places it down in front of me.
I hesitate, not sure where to begin. It’s been on my mind for a long time now, and she deserves it. Really, she deserves more, and I’ll give her more.
But it’s hard. We’ve been on the run since we left Mexico. We spent a few months in Brazil, another few months in Peru and Chile, before finally settling in southern Argentina. We’ve been living in this house for the past year.
It’s secluded, which is how we want it right now. We have a couple cows, a goat, some chickens, and a dog that roams around the hills and kills wild coyotes. She mostly tends to the animals while I go into town every day and work as a translator and tour guide for a local company. It’s not amazing work, but it pays the bills and there’s always a little leftover for some good wine and food.
We have a nice life, to be honest. I know her father is still looking for us, although my company has given up. They don’t want to spend the money trying to hunt us down. That, and the friends that I still have left helped convince the board to give up. They destroyed the compound with minimal losses and saved all those girls. To them, that was the bigger victory. Anton and his scumbags are all dead and gone, and those women will never be used and destroyed.
Her father might find us eventually, but that doesn’t really matter to me. I can handle whatever he throws at us. I’m just happy all those girls made it.
My bigger concern is what comes next. We’ve fallen into a beautiful, comforting rhythm, but neither of us wants to live here forever. I know she wants to go back to the States one day, and I want to give that to her. Maybe we have to wait until her father dies, or maybe I’ll have to travel up to him and threaten him or something.
But first, there are some changes we need to make.
She sits down across the table, looking flush and beautiful. “What did you want to ask me?”
“I’m not sure how to put it,” I say, stalling as I eat my bacon.
“Come on, Logan. Spit it out.”
“Your cooking isn’t that bad, I don’t want to waste it.”
She sighs. “Be serious. You brought this up.”
“Fine.” I put my fork down. “If you could go to any country, where would you go?”
She narrows her eyes. “Why are you asking?”
“Just answer.”
“I feel like this is a trick question.”
“Riley.”
She sighs. “Okay, fine. I guess I want to visit Australia.”
I laugh, surprised. “Australia? Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. What’s so funny?”
“I mean, there’s Paris. And Munich is beautiful. St. Petersburg, Rome, Copenhagen. And you want to go to Australia?”
“I want to see a kangaroo.”
I lean back and grin at her, shaking my head. “Kangaroos.”
“Kangaroos!” She laughs, looking at me. “What’s this about, anyway?”
“I got something for you. Well, a few things.”
“Oh, no,” she says. “Is this another sweater situation?”
I groan. She’s referring to a very ugly locally made sweater that I got her for last Christmas.
“Much better,” I say.
“Anything’s better,” she grumbles.
I stand up and head into the bedroom. “Don’t be ungrateful!” I call back.
I think she mumbles something about itchiness and fleas but I don’t catch it all. The sweater was fine, just a little scratchy, but she acted like it was the worst thing in the world.
I go into our room and open the closet. I pull out an old pair of boots and carefully open the sole, spreading it apart. I pull out what’s inside and head back into the kitchen.