"No shit?" she said, not sure if he was lying or not.

"No shit," he said. "Here, I kept a grand for you."

He reached down, fighting to get into his uniform trouser pocket and she watched, not sure how to react. His left hand jerked at the wheel and the front tires chafed at the edge of the roadway and she snatched a gasp of air and looked up and when she looked back he was laughing, both hands back on the wheel.

"You did not!" She grinned and slapped him on the arm. "You did not, liar," and she didn't catch herself until the word had already slipped out and she saw the bunched muscles in his jaw go tight and ripple against the skin of his cheek like marbles in a bag.

Shit, she thought, remembering the last time she called him a liar. She'd gotten backhanded that time, and maybe she'd even deserved it. She'd been a little drunk at the time and questioned one of his stories, doubted his description of a fight at dinner and had essentially called him a liar in front of other people. He'd slapped the wineglass out of her hand and his fingers had nipped the side of her face. He'd later apologized, and so had she, but after that night there had been a shift in their relationship.

Now she looked away and put her hands in her lap and snuck furtive looks at his hand, waiting for the whiteness to go out of the knuckles, which now clashed against the stain of blood, which had suddenly gone a deeper red.

They rode in silence while he swung the car off a main artery and up onto the ramp to the interstate going west. The jaw muscles relaxed. He took in a deep breath and she saw his cheek go concave against a row of teeth. He blew the air out.

"OK, maybe it was a bad joke," he said, and just those words flushed the tension out of the front seat.

"No, I'm sorry," she said, going with it, letting a grin pull at her mouth. "It was, you kinda had me going there."

They were still on the ramp when he slowed and pulled over in a spot in between the freeway lampposts, and she checked his face again.