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The night wind runs warm, tossing Lumine’s hair into her face as her car races down the empty highway. Overhead, the moon pins itself against the clear sky, lighting up the panorama of mountains. Full and bright, it’s the kind of moon that wolves howl to—a fact that’s not actually true. The wolves, she means. The fact turns real if you swap the animals out for her.
With the car’s top down and her phone connected to the stereo, she belts out her rendition of her playlist’s shuffled song of choice.
“This one again?” Aether takes a hand off the steering wheel to turn the volume down.
“Hey!” Lumine snaps, flicking him on the wrist. “It’s my turn to DJ.”
“There’s no way it’s your turn still. It was your turn yesterday and the day before. It can’t be your turn again; but somehow, it’s always your turn.”
“I hear a whole lot of complaining, but zero proof of any foul play.”
“The proof is the number of times we’ve heard this same song. Shouldn’t the driver get to choose?”
Shrugging, she pulls a single fry out of the bag of fast food picked up at their last rest stop. “Not my fault you’re too slow to call dibs on it.”
“What are you? Five?” he says flatly.
“Actually,” she says around a mouthful of half-chewed fry, “I am, in fact, ten. A ten out of ten!”
“You’re delusional.” His eyes pan over to her, mouth open and ready to continue berating her, but her posture sends him into a panic. Hysterically, he adds, “And what did I say about feet on the dash!”
Lumine wiggles her toes, letting the breeze run between the valleys of her painted nails. “Chill out. They’re feet. Two feet, ten toes. You scared of feet?” She shuffles one foot closer to his side of the car. “Huh? Huh? Scared of some toes?”
“Stop!”
She wiggles her pinky toe at him.
“Stop, stop, stop! What’s wrong with you?”
Her laughter—a witch’s cackle according to Aether—rings out. “Everything! But at least I’m not scared of a foot.”
“If you saw what I saw on that one post, you’d understand why no feet on the dash.”
“It’s literally my car,” she says. “You do know you can wipe down a dashboard, right?”
“It’s not about the dirt. And it’s our car. It’s literally our car.” He pauses, then mumbles, “Or, really, it’s more my car since I paid for the entire thing.”
“Well, what’s yours is mine. So, it’s mine. But I guess I can call it ours just to make you feel a little better.”
He drops the lost cause of an argument with a shake of his head. “By the way, I have to ask. And I know I’m going to regret asking… But how can you see anything?”
“Oh, these?” she asks, flipping her sunglasses up and down on her face. “Dry eye’s a real thing. It’s why I don’t drive with the top down much.” Picking up her milkshake from the cupholder, she pauses to take a sip. The vanilla tastes wonderfully sweet on her tongue. “Well, that and having to put the top back up when I park.” Another sip of the shake. “And the sun.” A slurp. “And the bugs.”
“What was the point in talking me into buying a convertible if you’ll never drive it like that because of everything you just named?”
“That’s not true. Those last two are daytime problems,” she says, turning her nose up. “Night driving’s where it’s at!”
A long sigh flows out of him. Resigned suffering, old and unchanging, laces his entire breath. “Right.”
“I know I am.” She drops the shake into the cupholder, swapping it out to hold the full carton of fries. “I am the great—”
She squeaks as the car bounces high when it hits a bump in the road. No harm, no foul for the car. Just a bump. The fries Lumine had in her hand? Not so lucky.
The cocky smile clears off her face. She mumbles a curse under her breath. It’s okay. Maybe he didn’t see that. She didn’t make it obvious that she spilled half of the—
“Lumine!”
Grimacing, she answers in the most innocent tone she can conjure. “Yes?”
“How much did you spill?”
“Whatever do you mean, dearest brother.”
“How. Much.”
She peers down at her lap where some fries sit. There are quite a few, and she knows that there are more scattered on the floor in the dark where she can’t see anything (thanks to her sunglasses). “So, hypothetically, if I say ‘not sure’, how would that make you feel?”
“You’re vacuuming that up,” Aether commands. “I better not find stray fries after.”
“Aye, aye, captain.”
“I’m serious.”
“Super serious.”
“Dead serious.”
“Super dead serious.”
“No fries.”
“No fries.” Her laughter echoes through the cab.
“I’m not joking. No fries,” he says, trying to stay firm and not laugh. “Do you understand?”
“Sir, yes, sir. No fries,” she says absently, busy scrolling through her music library for the right song.
She knows how this one ends. She’ll miss one—like she always does—then find it months later, long after they’ve returned home and to a reality of punch cards. The long-dead fry gets tossed, but the memory will bring a smile to her face when she resumes life seated behind a desk.
It’s happened before. It’ll happen again.
Leaning forward, she turns the volume up and presses play on her phone. The first beat of their favorite song blares from the car’s speakers. Aether shoots her a questioning look. Lumine wiggles her eyebrows and does a silly dance—a shimmy of her shoulders—in her seat.
Twin grins stretch across their faces. In sync, their mouths fall open to sing the chorus at the top of their lungs, letting the tune of their off-key happiness flow out into the summer air, audible taillights trailing in the night.