“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said. Her eyebrows were stitched in an expression of supreme contempt, her arms folded tightly across her chest. Harlan bitterly fanned the curtain of smoke between them with his hand and dropped the cigarette into her mug of tepid coffee; it extinguished with a hiss.
“There. Better?”
Her eyes narrowed, her lips curled into a distorted smile. “You always were the careless one.”
“I always wore gloves.”
“I told you -- it’s not the prints.”
He shook his head in exasperation. “Sure, Kat. No prints. What then?”
“The security cameras…”
“But we never took the masks off.” He glanced distractedly around the outdoor patio, then at their surprisingly modest cabin. Katherine followed his gaze and sighed.
“We should have stopped after Portland,” she said, unfolding her arms dejectedly.
“Yeah.” They both sat in silence for a moment.
“Remember Twin Falls?”
“Yeah,” he said, unable to suppress the nostalgic smile.
“Nothing compares to the first job, though.”
Harlan laughed softly, his smile expanding. “You looked great in that pink balaclava.” Silence settled around them again, weighing heavily on discouraged shoulders and downcast eyes.
“I think I took my gloves off,” she confessed quietly.
“Yeah, me too.” They shared a defeated smile.
Birds chirped to celebrate the sunlight that had started to peek from behind the tall pines trees. For a moment, they sounded like sirens.
“It was fun,” she said.
In the distance, a billow of smoke on the gravel path to their remote cabin signaled an approaching car.
Harlan nodded slowly. “While it lasted.”
