21
‘Put on something warm,’ Mat said, tossing Ava one of his beanies. ‘It’s freezing out there. And before you ask, yes, I hired Brutus a Bark Bud.’
They rode up I-278 in the backseat of a Swyft. The financial district towered above them, skyscrapers intermittently blocking the sunlight, until eventually the city became a maze of gridded neighborhoods, empty except for small clusters of men on their stoops. They were somewhere deep within Queens that Ava had never been.
The low multifamily homes thinned, making way for warehouses, and through the long service alleys Ava could make out that they were near water. Mat held her hand in the backseat. An entire day away from work: it was exhilarating. It was delinquent. The time off was a gift she didn’t know what to do with, a check she wasn
