Money Crazy by Matt Mitchell

“What do you want to do?” she asked, lamplight flickering across her profile.

He looked at her sideways, “Whatever you want. That’s what I’ll do. I can’t deny it any more.” They were surrounded by whippoorwills in a humid Alabama night, amongst a din of crickets and frogs, sitting on a blanket an arm’s length apart. There was a lantern on the ground between them and an almost perfectly round pond.

“You’d leave them?”

He skipped a rock across the pond, watched moonlight ripple on its disturbed surface, and then he looked straight into her eyes, “I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m yours.”

She held his eyes for a few moments, but had to break away. There was something shockingly serious in them at that moment, and she didn’t want to ponder on their severity. “Those are serious words,” she said as the pond returned slowly to its placid state, with one big fat moon right in the middle of it, like a bowl of milk.

“Which ones?”

“‘I’m Yours.’”

He nodded. Damn right they are, he thought inwardly, but only said, “I mean them.”

“And all that they imply?”

“What more do you want me to say? I’m yours. They mean what they mean. I’ll do whatever I have to do. I don’t want this to end.”

She could have said, I said those words to you months ago, but she didn’t. She let the words trickle down through her consciousness and warm her like a tot of rum. They implied mighty things, for two simple words. Even more than “I love you,” which has a power all its own, but is singularly expressive. I’m yours is much more far reaching, expansive. He’d told her he loved her many times over the past few months, but he hadn’t yet told her that he was hers.

“If you’re serious, then run away with me.”

“Where to?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Anywhere. Somewhere warm.”

He sat in silence for a few moments, long enough for her to think he was changing his mind. Her lips thinned and she squeezed her eyes shut and her fists into balls waiting for him to respond.

Finally, he said, “Anguilla. I’ve never been to Anguilla.”

She nodded, her tension ebbing away like the ripples on the pond. Could there be a happy ending in all this? Could there really be? It was difficult to contain her excitement. Butterflies were churning in her stomach and a brand new, but different, form of tension began to spread through her body and mind. This was only the beginning.

He was looking at her, shaking his head and smiling a sly little grin. “What?” she asked.

“I’m kidding. I’m not moving to Anguilla.”

Her breath caught and held fast, and she felt an amazing pressure constricting her chest. But his smile was still there. “I don’t want to leave the country,” he said.

She relaxed, breathed, said, “Where then?”

“How about Mississippi?” He tossed another rock across the pond.

“Ugh. Why don’t you just buy me a moo moo and some curlers and then, while you’re at it, let me shoot myself.”

“Ha.”

She was grinning when she said, “Ha yourself. I’m not moving to Mississippi.”

“Where then? Where do you want to go?”

She nodded a few times, weighing her answer. “Actually, Anguilla doesn’t sound so bad to me. Or maybe even Mexico. So long as it’s coastal.”

“You’re serious?”

“Hell yes.”

His eyebrows raised and he put his hand over his mouth, resting his chin on his thumb. “Fuck it. Why not? When do we leave?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m leaving in the morning” she said.

“‘Summer in Anguilla,’” he intoned, nodding. “It makes sense. But how exactly are we going to pay for this?”

Summer looked at him. “Why don’t we just steal it?”

Max stared blankly for a few seconds, and then tipped his head back and laughed a full, deep belly laugh for minutes on end. Summer crawled over to him, smiling, put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back onto the grass. She straddled him, with her hands on his chest, and was still smiling down at him when he finally stopped laughing.

“So,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “We’re thieves now?”

She shrugged, in that adorable way she had.

His heart thudded insanely in his chest. He knew without a doubt that he would do anything for her, anything at all.

She leaned forward and kissed him, parting with a heavy smack at the end and smiling steadily. He realized he must have had an odd expression, because she threw her head back and chuckled softly. Again, in that beautiful, adorable way she had.

“So what are we stealing?” Max asked.

“Money, crazy.”

“Well,” he said, knowing he was at the cusp of a great adventure. “We’d better steal a lot of it.”