Shasta’s eyes turned back to stare at her spot in the sky. “I wish my father had been in an accident.”

Jay puffed at the remains of the cigarette and dropped the butt in a water-filled cup next to the plastic sign reading “No Smoking” on the bedside table. “He was a real asshole?”

“Yeah,” Shasta said as if dazed, her eyes still far away. “The only thing he cared about was the Cadillac.”

“And now you’ve got it.”

Shasta’s head turned again, her eyes searching his. “I dreamed about that car ever since I was a little girl,” she said in a voice little more than a whisper. “All I ever wanted was to just get in that car and drive.”

“To Omaha?” Jay asked.

A smile crept across Shasta’s lips. “Not exactly,” she said. “Not then, anyway. I just wanted to drive. To get away from California. To get away from my father.”

Jay leaned in to her and draped an arm across her naked back while his other hand reached for her chin. His fingers played across the crook of her left jaw, coming to rest on a small scar hiding beneath the curve of her bottom lip.

“Is this your dream come true?” he asked.

Her breath grew heavy, then caught in her throat as she closed her eyes and was pulled forward. Their lips touched barely, Jay gliding his over hers.

“This is better than my dream,” she said.

* * *

The desert’s morning sun glared down as if emperor of the sky, sending vassals of light to blaze from the chrome of the Cadillac.

The door to room number eight opened and Jay stepped into the brightness, his eyes squinting before he reached up to remove the sunglasses hanging from his shirt collar.

Shasta followed, her dress more rumpled than the day before but still dancing in the wind, and she locked the door behind them, leaving the key in the knob.

Jay’s sunglasses slid from his hands and onto his eyes while his other hand snagged the Cadillac’s keys from his jean pocket.

“I’m driving,” he said, looking at Shasta with a smile that melted part of her.

“I’ve got shotgun, then,” she said, returning his grin with one of her own.

The top was soon down on the classic and they were squealing out of the hotel’s gravel parking lot, sending dust and sand to drift away lazily.

“Omaha,” he said.