Courtney wakes up with a whiskey buzz. She stumbles into her ripped dress and brews some coffee, then grabs the keys to Duncan's stolen vehicle of the week and goes out to find the car. It's hidden in the trees behind the house, out of sight from the road. She unlocks it, gets in the driver's seat, and violently turns the key as Heather had done. The car rumbles to life.
Smiling, Courtney taps the gas pedal, but the car doesn't move. She grasps the gear shift and tugs it down little by little until it lands in the next position. When she taps the gas again, she almost backs into the tree behind her. Courtney slams the brakes, jerking herself and the car to a stop. Irritated and sweating in the stagnant air, she swears, puts the gear back where she found it, and glances around the dashboard.
She presses one of the buttons near the fuel gauge and jumps when Duncan knocks on her window, looking amused. Courtney glowers as he climbs in beside her, looking fresh as a daisy. He grabs the gear shift and moves it two settings.
"That's how ya put it in Drive."
"I knew that," she says. "I was just trying out the other functions until you woke up."
"Of course ya were," he says, easing back into his seat with a grin. "Get on the road."
Half an hour later, in ninety five degree heat, Courtney hasn't made it further than a mile. Between the many car controls and shifting gears and Duncan's teaching methods, she's ready to wreck the car on purpose.
"Alright, now switch the clutch and hit the gas," Duncan says. Courtney switches the gear and wipes the sweat off the back of her neck before putting her foot back on the gas pedal. The car jerks forward and she slams her foot back down on the breaks.
"Stop being such a pussy and keep yer foot on the goddamn gas!" Duncan snaps.
"Maybe if you stopped screaming at me I wouldn't be so scared!" she snaps back. "I've told you three times now that I've never done this before!"
"And I've told ya twice to stop giving me bullshit excuses and drive! One more time ya touch the fucking brakes and I swear I'll clock ya over the head."
Courtney glares before pressing the gas pedal again, letting the car inch forward, ever so slowly.
"Great, now that ya've learned how to drive like my grandpappy, let's move forward," Duncan snaps, sweat bleeding through his wifebeater and button down. "Press the gas harder, and when ya get to the edge of that road, touch the brakes and turn the wheel all the way to yer left."
"We have a driver now, I hardly see why this is necessary," she mutters, letting the car drift at a snail's pace down the road.
"Yer the one that got up early for lessons, peaches."
"Which I'm sorely regretting right now."
"Too bad. Turn here."
Courtney presses the brakes and the car stops all together with a jolt that hurts her neck.
"I said touch the brakes not stomp them! Shit, Courtney! Ya tryin' to break our necks?"
She puts the car in park and glares at him. "You're acting like it's my fault I don't know this!"
"It is yer fault!"
"Justin never taught me!"
Duncan looks away from her and starts yanking open the top few buttons of his shirt. "Well ya clearly never asked to learn, doll."
She stares at his fingers for a moment before looking back at the road.
Duncan smirks, reaching over and putting the car back into drive. "You can't fuck me if ya get me killed, darling."
"I already told you I'm not sleeping with you anytime soon," Courtney repeats as she takes her foot off the brake.
He chuckles. "Keep telling yerself that. Turn left at the crossroads. This road runs parallel to the main road straight through to Arkansas."
With a hand pushing hair out of her face, Courtney taps the gas with her toe and makes the turn painstakingly slow. "How do you even know that?"
Duncan reaches over and turns the wheel more sharply. "What kind of a criminal would I be if I didn't know every back road in the south and midwest? Any day ya want to finish this turn would be great."
Courtney takes the turn even slower to spite him. In front of them is a long stretch of straight open road.
"Great," he says, leaning back. "Now here, I want you to floor the car."
Courtney turns to him. "Excuse me?"
"What? Do ya honestly think yer grandma speed is going to cut it in a getaway? Stomp the gas."
"I've been behind the wheel of a car for all of half an hour!" she says, gaping. "I'll kill us both!"
"Do it, because I said so," he demands. "Floor the car!"
Courtney takes her hands off the wheel. "Fuck y—!"
Duncan grabs her by the knee, throws her foot on the gas, and slams a hand down on her leg, shooting them forward.
"Duncan!" she screams.
"Keep yer eyes on the road and don't let up until I tell ya!" he orders, expertly shifting the car gears with his other hand as they speed.
"But—!"
"Trust me!"
Courtney grips the steering wheel so hard, her knuckles pop. The car jolts and jumps on every small bump and cranny in the road but they keep going, at least fifty miles over the speed limit, and nothing happens. No crash, no other cars, no animals on the road. Just her and Duncan and the car and the rush.
After a couple seconds, she laughs a little. Then a lot. She leans forward in her seat and doesn't notice when Duncan takes the hand off her knee.
"Okay, we've only got so much gas, ya can stop now," he says. Courtney takes her foot off the gas to let the car slow until it rolls to a stop.
"That was incredible," she says.
"Faster ya go, straighter the car goes, more control you have," he says, chuckling. "Toldja to trust me."
"I don't trust you further than I can throw you," she tells him.
"Sure ya do," he grins, unbuttoning his shirt further. "We're partners now, ain't we?"
"Partners?" Courtney repeats, turning to him. The heat must be getting to her.
He makes a 'so-so' gesture. "Well, not fifty fifty yet. Eighty twenty until you can get over this squeamishness ya have for killin' and driving faster than I can walk with my pants down."
She rolls her eyes. "So you trust me enough to put a gun in my hand and put me behind the wheel of a car but not enough to split your loot with me?"
He smirks. "Bottom line is, you gotta trust that I ain't gonna leave ya high and dry and I gotta trust you ain't gonna wake up one morning and change yer mind about all this."
Courtney sets her jaw. "I'm not going to change my—"
"Ya did it once already," he reminds her. "I turned ya down in Chicago and ya settled right back into yer old life without a backward glance. I got no guarantees ya won't do it again."
"Look who's talking about guarantees," she accuses. "You've left me out to pasture. Twice! First in Dallas, then in Chicago. How am I supposed to be your partner if you treat all this like a game?"
Duncan is quiet for a moment, looking her over. Then he says, "After Dallas, I was in the big house."
Courtney raises a brow at him. "I didn't hear about that in the papers."
Duncan stares at his thumb as he draws circles on the inside of his palm. "They didn't put it in the papers," he says. "They snatched me up outside our Dallas hideout after we left yer bank. Put me away in Eastham with a sentence of five years of which I did ten days exact. Heath paid off a guard to smuggle me a pistol and Al was ready with a getaway car when I made a break for it but, as ya probably figured, nothing's flawless."
He reaches down and pulls off one of his shoes and socks to show her his foot.
"Barbed wire," he says as Courtney covers her mouth. "Tricky devil."
She stares at the scarred flesh where three of his toes should be. Courtney takes a breath to keep herself steady, then says, slowly, "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I ain't going back, Courtney." He puts his shoe back on, deliberately tying the laces. "Ten days in Eastham was two weeks too many. I ain't never seeing the inside of a prison again long as I live, and you should know what yer signing up for."
He straightens up and looks at her seriously. "This life ain't all perfect heists and big scores, doll. There's pictures of me plastered in every clubhouse from here to Missouri. I'm in this all or nothing so ya better be too." Duncan looks away from her, out at the road.
A lizard crosses the road, painstakingly slow. He stops in the middle, looks both ways, and decides to stay right there, sunning on the road.
"I tried to warn ya," he says, "back in Chicago, that you'd be better off with yer dead fish hubby and yer steady job. I'm a dead end, darling. Only desperate people do what we do."
Courtney is quiet, watching the lizard on the road.
"I was dying back there, Duncan," she says. "I was drowning in my old life."
"I know," he says. "We have that in common."
"If you—" she starts, stops, begins again. "If you...wanted to keep me out of this, then why'd you come looking for me on the train?"
Duncan sighs. "I think you know why."
The lizard seems to finally notice the car and scampers off the road. "Are we having this conversation because Heather talked to you?" she says.
The amusement flickers back behind his eyes. "Al talked to me, on behalf of dear ole Heath. She seems to think yer being too reckless. Thinks you ain't taking what we do seriously enough."
Courtney leans back in her seat to look at him. "What do you think?"
"I think I've just about had it with all this second-guessing bullshit," he says. He turns to Courtney and offers his hand, sweaty with the heat and the adrenaline and the confidence he just exudes. "What do you think, partner?"
The corner of her mouth turns up a little as she considers. "I think you're just saying that because you want to get in my pants again."
Duncan smirks. "Maybe."
"Good," she says, and grabs his hand to pull herself across the bench seat and into his lap. She kisses him hard and pulls open the rest of his shirt. "Because I've been dying for an excuse to get in yours."