Chapter Text
The numbers on the spreadsheet in front of his eyes were starting to blur.
Colt had been staring at the computer for hours, checking and double checking his math. Like with any job, everything had to be perfect when the funds finally cleared – distributed evenly amongst the crew, broken down into inconspicuous amounts.
Unlike any other job, the payday he was waiting on would be enough for them all to retire with, to buy a remote private island somewhere no one would bother them…
He lifted his hand to his face, pressing his fingers into his eyes. As soon as the money dropped he needed to get some fucking sleep.
The door to the office, which had been left cracked, swung open suddenly. A long, slender leg popped into view, with red-painted toenails peeping out of a towering black shoe striding forward confidently, until the rest of his girlfriend followed suit and walked into view.
Ellie shut the door and leaned back against it. Colt blinked, then rubbed at his eyes again, taking care to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating from being awake for so long. “What are you wearing?”
His eyes slid from the shoes up to the miniskirt Ellie had on and, finally, the corset top, where her arms were folded across her chest. When he met her eyes, he saw that Ellie already had an eyebrow arched delicately. “What do you mean?”
Colt shook his head, feeling vaguely like he was having an out-of-body experience. “Is that a wig?”
The bracelets on her wrist jingled together as Ellie lifted a hand to touch the short black bob framing her face. “Yeah,” she answered, “Is it obvious?”
“No, it looks good.” It did. But that didn’t bring him any closer to understanding the reason for her ensemble.
As if she was reading his mind, Ellie pulled out a pair of gold sunglasses, slipping them onto her nose. “What about now? Do you recognize me?”
“Only because you’re you, and I’m me.” He was pretty sure he’d recognize her anytime, anywhere. He could pick her out of a crowd of thousands. He’d spent years memorizing every last inch of her. “What’s this all for?”
“Raven’s taking me scouting tonight,” she answered, pulling the glasses off and hooking them onto the strap of her top, “I just wanted to be careful in case there’s some people hanging around we’ve pissed off before.”
It seemed like an elaborate disguise to put together for something so silly, but that was hardly out of the ordinary for Ellie. Changing her entire look on the off chance she’d run into someone they’d stolen from seemed perfectly in line with how prepared she usually was. Still, the part of him that couldn’t help but worry about her whenever he thought she might be in even the slightest amount of danger flared to life. “Are there going to be people hanging around who’re pissed off at us?”
Ellie shrugged nonchalantly. “I have no idea where we’re going. Better safe than sorry, though. Plus, Raven heard rumors there might be a ‘41 Torpedo onsite. There’s no way we’re passing that up if it’s true.”
“Wait,” he said, knuckling sleep out of his eyes again, “She heard what? From who?”
“You know how she is,” Ellie answered, which was fair. Raven was constantly feeding them any number of random leads she’d picked up around town that always seemed to pan out, even though neither of them had any understanding of where they came from in the first place. “Anyway, if it is there, I’ll be the distraction while she and Jamie lift it.”
Colt sighed. His head tipped back over his desk chair as he stared up at the lights in the ceiling until they strained his eyes. “That’s a big get. I should come with you guys.”
“Well, you’re always welcome, but it might be a bust. If it’s not there we’re just going to walk around and talk to people. Which is, like, your least favorite part of pretty much everything.” When he looked back up, Ellie was smirking at him. Annoyingly, she was right. It was why he always sent Ellie out to the shows, nowadays – she was the face, and she was damn good at it.
But today she’d covered up that face, and anything that stopped her from throwing the weight of their notoriety around seemed too sticky for her to brave alone.
With one last glance at his laptop, he stood and stretched, shaking his head to clear out the cobwebs. “Just let me get a hat.”
“Okay,” Ellie smiled. She looked down at his computer screen, too, then laughed, suddenly, her eyebrows lifting high on her face. “Holy shit. Is that from the Valley job?”
Colt followed her gaze back down to his desk and saw that the balance in his bank account had increased by a few zeroes. And then a few more. “Yeah. Whaddya want me to buy you?”
His girlfriend tilted her head to the side, the strands of short black hair from the wig tipping away from her cheek. The crooked tilt of her smirk reminded him that he knew exactly what Ellie wanted and what she’d been wanting for so long.
Just as she opened her mouth, he said, “We’re not putting in a pool.”
Ellie stomped her foot, the bracelets on her wrists jangling again as she folded her arms back across her chest. “Come on! Why not?”
“Do you know how much work it is to open a pool? Then you have to clean it and shit. All so you can sit next to it for a few days out of the year. We don’t have the time to keep up with it.”
“Okay, I would totally swim in it,” she insisted, outright pouting when he just scoffed back at her. “I would.”
“Yeah, right.” He shut the lid on his laptop and stepped up beside Ellie, guiding her out of the office with a hand at the small of her back, “Delaney’s got a pool. You never swim in it.”
“Delaney’s parents have a pool,” Ellie muttered as they made their way through the hall and back into the garage, “I don’t like going over there.”
Colt rolled his eyes at her, reaching for the baseball hat hanging on the wall beside his jacket. Both were on in a moment, and then Raven had found them, too, looking the pair of them up and down before remarking, “Not that I ever think you two go together, but in that outfit it’s unbelievably obvious how out of your league she is.”
His eyes narrowed. Before he could bite back at her, Ellie leaned over, draping herself across his shoulder. “Awww, I think we’re totally in the same league.”
Jamie laughed as he caught up to them by the door, catching the keys Colt tossed into his hands. “In that outfit, you two are a middle school basketball team and the ‘96 Bulls. Am I driving?”
“The Honda,” Colt smirked at him, shoving them both out the door just as soon as Jamie groaned emphatically, “We’re undercover.”
“Which means we all have to split up once we get there,” Raven said, slipping her own sunglasses on. Colt noticed she’d done her hair differently from the way she normally wore it, too, and had on an oversized shirt and jacket, her usual jewelry absent, for once. “We’ll be less recognizable, that way.”
She had a point. In his experience, he and Ellie tended to be remarkably plain when they went somewhere alone, and a unit that always attracted a second or third glance whenever they showed up together.
But that didn’t mean he had to like it. “Remind me again what the plan is?”
Ellie slid into the backseat beside him and shimmied over to his side of the car just as soon as their doors slammed shut. “How sure are we the car’s going to be there?”
“Very,” Raven answered firmly, visibly wincing when Jamie changed gears and accelerated jerkily onto the freeway. “We need to get in and out as quickly and quietly as possible. Ellie’s going to distract, I’m going to unlock, Jamie’s going to hotwire. I guess Colt can be the muscle, now that he’s here.”
He was far too tired to be the muscle. “Let’s not let it get to that point.”
“You can be the lookout,” Ellie said reassuringly, her thumb drawing soothing circles through a tear in the knee of his jeans.
“As long as you don’t go into a tailspin while Ellie’s doing her distracting,” Jamie grinned, swerving in the lane when Raven reached over and smacked his arm. “What sucker’s she sweet talking this time, anyway?”
The car got very quiet. Raven had her eyes fixed on the windshield and the road ahead of them. After a too-long and too-tense moment, she said, “It’s Tristan Knight.”
Colt felt Ellie go stiff beside him, and when he turned to look at her he saw the expression on her face matched the exact way he felt, shock knitted into each dimple and line. “Tristan Knight?” Colt repeatedly incredulously, “Jesus Christ, Raven. Wouldn’t it be easier to just drive over to the police station and fingerprint ourselves?”
“Oh, whatever,” she said, waving her hand dismissively into the backseat without turning around, “Like you’d pass up the chance to take apart a fucking Torpedo. Last I checked there were only two left in the country, and one of them is going to be thirty minutes from the shop tonight, so, excuse me for seizing an opportunity.”
Ellie sighed. She frowned down at her outfit, pointing her toes inward in her high heels. “I just would have worn something different if I’d known I had to hit on an actual racecar driver tonight. Let alone the most famous one in the world.”
“What’s Tristan Knight doing dragging his Torpedo out to some small town meetup, anyway?” Jamie asked. Colt glanced down and saw Ellie’s brain working, her eyes vacant for a moment before recognition leapt into them.
The realization hit him at the same time. “He’s not,” Colt said grimly, “Raven’s dragging us to the fucking San Bernardino car show.”
“Oh, shit,” Jamie laughed, “That’s this weekend?”
“Raven, how could you not tell us we’re stealing the most expensive car in the country from one of the most famous people in the world at the literal biggest event of the year in –” Ellie paused, reaching over for Colt’s arm and yanking it forward so she could look at the face of his watch. “– Twenty minutes?! Oh my god.”
“Would you relax?” Raven asked, “I didn’t want you to get in your head about it. The two of you would have had us looking at the blueprints of this place until my eyes bled.”
“It’s important to be prepared,” Colt interjected calmly – a little more calmly than he felt. Adrenaline was starting to rush through him, making him fidget in his seat. She was right; this was a job they normally would have worked on for weeks before the show. “So don’t ever do this again.”
“Okay, what?” Jamie demanded, before Raven could answer, “Last week you screamed at me for ordering from the Thai place by the library instead of the Thai place by the liquor store. All she gets is a don’t ever do this again?”
“How mad I am depends on how tonight goes,” Colt explained. “This is Raven’s plan, and if it gets fucked up it’ll be Raven’s fault. Also, the Thai place by the library fucking sucks.”
“Agreed,” Ellie said, sitting up to touch up her lipstick in the car’s rearview mirror, “But you still should’ve told us, Raven.”
“Sorry, mom,” she deadpanned from the front seat, though before Ellie could even pout too much about it, Raven passed her a pack of gum as a peace offering, and Ellie slipped back into the space at his side in the backseat to open it, angling in close as soon as she saw there were only two pieces left so Colt could grab the other.
It wasn’t long before the lights of the stadium started to come into view. Jamie pulled the car into the parking lot, weaving around dozens of expensive cars with their hoods propped until he found a secluded corner to stop in, far enough away from the action that they’d be able to walk into the show casually.
“Okay,” Raven said, stepping out of the car with a grin, “See you back at the shop.”
She strode away confidently and, after one last wave, Jamie followed her. Within moments they were lost in the crowd.
“You okay?” Colt asked, sensing Ellie’s nerves.
“Yeah,” she lied obviously, “It’s fine. I just have to distract the guy.”
“Trust me, you’re the best distraction in the state,” he said, sliding his eyes back down her body again. His lips quirked up at the corners when Ellie laughed. “But I’ll obviously bail you out if you need me.”
“I know,” Ellie smiled, tugging on her earlobe – her tell if she ever needed his help. “Make sure you get the keys from Jamie before they take off. We’ve gotta take this thing back to the shop.”
Colt nodded, reaching out to catch her hand in his. Ellie squeezed his fingers tightly, then slipped away to weave through the crowd, too, letting his eyes linger on the sway of her hips until she was gone.
With a deep breath, he followed her into the show.
He found Tristan Knight easily; even at a show with thousands of people it was clear who the main attraction was. The torpedo caught his eye just as soon as the light reflected off of it, cherry red and gleaming with the driver himself standing beside it, shaking hands and posing for pictures. Colt lingered at the edge of the crowd of onlookers formed around the car, surveying the room.
Jamie and Raven were going to have their work cut out for them, getting in and out unseen. Quickly and quietly was starting to seem more and more like a pipe dream.
At the side of the car was a group of beautiful women talking excitedly amongst themselves. Every so often, Tristan would glance their way and smile warmly at them, and the group would dissolve into giggles. It was ridiculous, and all the more impressive when Ellie blended seamlessly into the bunch.
He knew he’d be lying if he said he didn’t love watching Ellie work. Since the moment they met, she improved with every job; she’d taken to working a room so effortlessly Colt was amazed she’d ever considered any other career. Every day he thanked his good fortune that she’d actually chosen him.
He did his best to show her that, but he was aware that sometimes he fell short. Of course they fought – would they ever not fight? Long gone were the days where every little thing seemed to start an argument, but they both still loved to bicker with each other and, admittedly, they enjoyed both passionate disagreements and even more passionate resolutions on a semi-regular basis.
So things were pretty much perfect, or at least as perfect as he dared to acknowledge. Privately, he was aware that something going well in his life usually meant something tragic was to come, but Colt had been ignoring that feeling, too, for as long as he possibly could.
Ellie was always whining at him to live in the moment, and he was trying.
In this moment, at least, she was doing her best to be noticeable without trying, and she was awfully fucking good at it – heads started to turn to take her in as she shifted forward in the crowd, making it look so natural he forgot, for a second, that it was actually his girlfriend underneath the wig and sexy outfit.
Tristan Knight pointed at her and waved when she was just two feet from the car. Colt watched as Ellie glanced around like she wasn’t sure whether or not he was talking to her.
Sometime between that first moment he caught her trying to get a peek at the package in her trunk and now, she’d evidently become a masterful actress. Colt shook his head to himself, quietly both amused and impressed.
Ellie pretended like she couldn’t get through the crowd and Tristan Knight stepped down off the platform, walking away from the car to talk to her. Behind his back, so quickly anyone else might’ve missed it, Colt watched Raven’s arm slip in through the open window to unlock the doors.
There was no turning back now. His mental countdown started even as he kept his eyes locked on where Ellie was overtly flirting with one of the most famous people in the world, smiling dopily and twirling a lock of hair around her finger. It probably should have bruised his ego that the team was pulling this off so flawlessly – they obviously didn’t need him to tag along just so he could stand around and be bored – but it was satisfying to see all his hard work paying off, for once, instead of going wrong.
Ellie continued to smack the gum she’d stolen from Raven while the rest of the girls clustered around Tristan glared daggers at her. Colt took advantage of the distraction to take a few steps closer to the stage, finally catching sight of Jamie working on the other side of the car.
Raven hopped down from the platform and nodded at him. Two minutes she mouthed, then tossed the keys to the Honda at his head.
With one last glance at Ellie, he headed for the back of the crowd. He reached the outskirts and lingered, whistling with his hands in his pockets. A random girl who was leaning against an old pick-up truck smoking glared at him until he turned away.
The moments that ticked by felt like an eternity.
Just as soon as he shook the sleeve of his jacket back to look at his watch, Colt heard the crowd start to murmur and then shriek. Tons of people were starting to rush towards his end of the lot, and as they shifted out of the way he saw the torpedo tear through the other end of the show, heading for the road.
He let the crowd corral him back towards the Honda, eyes sweeping the hoard of people for a nondescript black bob of hair and gold sunglasses. Right when he started to panic, Ellie appeared beside him, tossing a wink his way before ducking into the passenger seat of the car.
“So much for quickly and quietly,” he remarked, smirking as he maneuvered the car calmly around the now-deserted back of the show.
“Hey, whatever it takes,” Ellie laughed, kicking her feet up onto the dash. She was clearly taking advantage of the fact that they were in the Honda; he never let her do that in any of the other cars. “Raven was right, that was actually pretty seamless.”
“I told you you’re the best distraction in the state.” He slung his arm across the back of Ellie’s seat, using one hand to merge them back onto the freeway. “You make it look easy.”
“It is kind of easy,” Ellie shrugged, leaning carelessly against the center console to dip into his personal space, “No offense, but men are really simple.”
“None taken,” Colt grinned, “We are.” Especially when Ellie had on a top as low cut as the one she was wearing. “Though I am kind of pissed at Raven for pulling that off so smoothly.”
“She’s going to be insufferable.” Ellie’s legs dropped from the dash when she rolled over the center console further, as close as she could get without actually crawling into the driver’s seat with him. Colt glanced down just in time to see her blow a bubble with her gum that obscured the entire lower half of her face. “We’ll be hearing about this for weeks.”
“Months,” he corrected, dropping his free hand to her shoulder to slip his fingers under the strap of her top.
“Years, probably. These damn kids.”
The freeway in front of them was clear. Colt leaned back in his seat, head swimming with the adrenaline that always came after a job. Something in his chest was tight and he knew it was because of the incredible girl twisting herself into a pretzel in the passenger seat of his car, the girl who had been by his side for years, now, who knew him better than he knew himself and mirrored his thoughts and movements perfectly. The girl who was just as good at soothing his headaches as she was maneuvering some supercar around tight corners in the valley at any time of the day or night.
The girl who had stolen his heart a long time ago and upped the stakes every day since.
“Can we stop and get something to eat?” Ellie asked suddenly, startling him from his thoughts. “I’m starving.”
“Pfft,” he scoffed. His fingertips pressed into her shoulder, kneading at her skin. “After your performance tonight? I’ll buy out the taco truck.”
“Oh, a high roller,” she crowed, in that teasing way that never failed to make his lips twitch. He looked down at her to see the radiant expression on her face – pleased yet still challenging at the same time –
And that was all it took.
He’d pulled his eyes off the road plenty of times before. Sure, he always felt more at home on the bike, and usually when they went out together Ellie drove, but he hadn’t had any issues in years. He was the one who’d taught her defensive driving, who’d been on the road practically since he could talk.
But tonight he’d miscalculated.
The loud honk of a horn jerked him back to attention and Colt swerved blindly on instinct, weaving in the left lane of the freeway where he’d been so casually speeding home at 90 mph.
The Honda skidded out down the upcoming exit ramp, grinding against the side rail. He gripped the steering wheel to try to correct or turn into the spin but it was useless; the car careened down the path anyway while the drivers above them, back on the freeway, continued to blare their horns and shout while they sped by.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ellie fly back into her seat from where she’d been bothering him and winced as he realized she hadn’t been wearing her seatbelt. “El?”
She didn’t answer. He slammed on the brake as they neared the end of the exit ramp and the car jerked abruptly to a stop, straight into a lamppost. Colt turned his head just in time to hear Ellie yelp as she smacked against the passenger side door. The right side of the car screeched ominously against the curb as it smashed into the sidewalk.
The glass in the window was cracked under Ellie’s head. Carelessly, he threw the car into park, though it hardly mattered much. “Ellie?” Colt demanded again, leaning carefully over into her side of the car, “Ellie. Are you okay?”
She groaned, eyelashes fluttering. A cut on her forehead was bleeding slowly, synthetic black hair from the wig she was wearing sticking to her cheek. “Huh?”
“Shit,” he swore emphatically, gently tilting her over by her shoulder so he could get a better look at her head under the streetlamp that had stopped them. It was dark, and his hands shook as he felt around blindly for an open wound that wasn’t there.
“What happened?” Ellie asked, letting him move her around in the seat until he was satisfied she was mostly free from any visible wounds. Colt exhaled heavily, not daring to relax while her eyes were still closed. “Where are we?”
“Can you open your eyes?” He glanced around the nondescript street they were on desperately. It was deserted, but he was sure they weren’t too far from the shop. They’d been almost home, hadn’t they? They couldn’t have been more than two – five – ten minutes away. “Ellie. Open them.”
Ellie moaned again, slapping at his hand where Colt was shaking her shoulder. “But I’m tired.”
“I don’t care,” he snapped, voice taking on a frantic edge. “Open them.”
She did, slowly. He watched, holding his breath, as her eyes crossed and then came to focus on his face. Ellie blinked like she was surprised to see him, her brow furrowing before she said “Woah,” and passed out completely, slumping back against the seat.