“Fuck,” I said, switching the song like it was porn I didn’t want to get caught with.
Lake looked out the back window. “The police?”
“Yeah.” He had no reason to pull over, but he might. We looked damn suspicious, sitting on the side of the road in the dark.
“Can we get in trouble?” she asked.
“I can.”
She vaulted herself over the back of the bench, her long limbs nearly knocking me in the face. There was no backseat, just a narrow space behind the front one where I’d found the towels.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
“Hiding.” She looked up at me, eyes wide with fear. She was still just a kid.
I had about ten seconds to make a decision. I respected law enforcement, but I wasn’t naïve. I knew not all cops were good. But what kind of trouble could I get in just for sitting in the car with her? Would he believe we hadn’t been doing anything?
“I think you should come back up here,” I said.
The cop flashed his lights once, a shock of red and blue. He wasn’t going to pass.
“I can’t.” Her voice broke. “I don’t want you to get in trouble. He’ll tell Gary. Maybe even my—my dad . . .”
If the cop wanted to see her ID and she didn’t have one, he wouldn’t just let that go. She didn’t look eighteen, not yet. I was with a minor who’d taken off her bra. We were both wet from swimming. I really doubted he’d just let us go, which meant taking us back to camp, telling Gary. Gary and I were cool, but he’d never let me get away with this. These kids meant everything to him.
He’d tell Charles Kaplan. Lake’s dad would obliterate me, no doubt, but what about her? He was her world. If he thought she’d snuck off with me in the middle of the night, how would that change their relationship?
“You’re right, he might escort us back, probably will,” I said, checking the rearview mirror. The officer had parked behind us. “But we’ll get in worse trouble if he finds you.”
“He won’t. I can be quiet.”
The black-and-white driver’s side door opened. We were out of time. “I’ll handle it,” I promised her. What else could I do? “Just stay still. Don’t make a sound.” I wiped my upper lip on my sleeve. “I’ll handle it.”
He took his sweet time walking up to the window, checking my plates, looking over the truck. I turned off the heater and stereo. Crickets chirped. I’d been pulled over before. The window was already down, so I put my hands on the wheel where he could see them. My palms sweat around the leather. Thank fuck we’d been interrupted, not that I would’ve taken it any further. Would I have?
Boots shuffled in the dirt. A uniformed man not much older than me appeared at the window. He aimed his flashlight into the truck, barely skimming the back. “Evening,” he said. “Car trouble?”
“Yes, sir. It won’t start.”
“Why’d you turn it off in the first place?” He looked around. “Not going to find much help in the middle of nowhere.”
“I almost hit a coyote, pulled off, and the car just died on me.”
“I see.” He squinted at me. Or past me. I couldn’t tell. If he were to lean in, really get inside the window, I doubted he’d miss Lake’s blonde hair. “License and registration.”
I considered arguing. He had no reason to suspect me of anything. It might’ve made things worse, though, and he was just doing his job. I pulled out my wallet and gave him my ID before leaning over to the glove compartment. “I’m sorry, Officer. It’s a friend’s truck.” Fortunately, the paperwork was right where I needed it to be. “He was drinking, so I offered to do a beer run.”
He read my license. “What about you, Mr. Sutter? Been drinking?”
“No, sir. That’s why they sent me to get alcohol. I’m just on my way back.”
“Oh, yeah? Where you headed?”
“Next exit. Young Cubs camp.”
“You a counselor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Pretty sure you guys aren’t supposed to be drinking, but . . . I would be if I were in your shoes. All those damn kids.” He nodded at me. “Where’s the alcohol then?”
Fuck. It was in the backseat. I blanched, a deer in cop lights. I had to come up with something. If I didn’t, he’d have reason to doubt me and who knows where I’d end up. Probably at the station, a deer in the spotlight . . . of an interrogation room. I stuck an arm over the back of the seat. My hand brush against something soft. Lake. She pressed a bottle into my hand, and I handed it to him. He stuck his notepad under his arm and tried the top. “It’s sealed, so there’s no problem.”