Ride or Die

Two years earlier —

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

3:17 a.m.

The diner was dead quiet except for the hum of the neon sign flickering through the foggy window. Layla Monroe stood behind the counter, picking at her chipped nail polish. Her apron was stained with coffee and cheap syrup, and the only customers left were two drunk truckers passed out in their booths.

She didn’t hear the bell over the door — just felt the chill when it opened. That’s how Clyde Kingston entered her life. Silent, like a storm rolling in slow.

He was tall, worn denim jacket clinging to his frame like armor. His boots left muddy prints on the tile floor, and his knuckles were bruised. One eye was a little swollen. He looked like a man who’d won a fight he didn’t want to be in.

Layla raised an eyebrow as he slid into the booth closest to the exit. “Coffee?”

“Black.”

She poured it without asking for payment. Something about his eyes said he didn’t carry much besides trouble.

He sipped slow, eyes locked on the window. “You always work nights?”

“Only when I don’t want to be found,” she said, wiping down the counter.

That made him turn his head. Just slightly. Enough to notice the scar on her collarbone and the tiny pistol tucked just behind the counter. His mouth quirked upward.

“I get that.”

They didn’t say much else. He left a hundred-dollar bill on the table and walked out like a ghost.

Layla followed.

The parking lot was empty except for a black Camaro with Louisiana plates. She leaned against the driver’s side door before he could open it.

“You runnin’ from something?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Clyde replied. “But I will be.”

Layla tilted her head. “That why your hands look like they went a few rounds with somebody’s face?”

He didn’t smile, but his eyes did. “A man has a right to defend himself.”

“You kill him?”

“No.”

“Pity.”

She looked at him a long moment. He looked back. Two people who had seen too much, said too little, and lived on instinct.

“I’m Layla,” she said, offering a hand.

“Clyde.”

She didn’t let go. “You want company?”

He hesitated just a second. Then unlocked the door.

“Get in.”

By sunrise, they were fifty miles down I-10, eating powdered donuts and listening to old soul music on a static-filled radio. He told her about time in juvie. About how he learned to fix cars, crack locks, and never trust a man in a suit.

She told him about her daddy's fists, her mama's tears, and how she left home at sixteen with a bus ticket and a pocket knife.

They didn’t say the word love.

Not that night.

Not for a while.

But they both knew.

When the sun lit up the dashboard, she reached into the glove box and pulled out an old map. Circled a small town in Arkansas.

“You ever rob a bank?” she asked.

Clyde looked at her, stunned.

She smiled, wide and fearless. “Wanna try?”