sexytrashraccoon
In the early 2000s, Cortland Beck lives out of her sun-faded hippie van, Betty, chasing highways like they might lead her somewhere kinder. She's twenty-one, broke in the poetic way, surviving on gas-station snacks, burned CDs, and the belief that if she keeps moving, the past can't catch her.
Mateo Romano was born into rules he never wrote. The eldest son of a single mother in Detroit, he stepped into his father's marijuana business after gang violence took him out. Protect the family. Don't sell to kids. Don't make mistakes. Mateo follows the rules because someone has to-but when a deal in Vancouver turns into a police setup, everything unravels. He runs. No plan, no backup, just adrenaline and fear. And in a moment of pure desperation, he steals the first running vehicle he sees: a battered van parked on the roadside.
He doesn't know someone's sleeping in the back.
Cortland wakes up to a stranger driving her van across a Canadian highway, and the night explodes-screaming, threats, swerving headlights, hearts pounding out of rhythm. An uneasy truce is struck over a shared joint and a mutual hatred of cops. Mateo needs to get back to Detroit to save his family. Cortland refuses to give up Betty. The compromise? A reluctant road trip neither of them asked for.
And somewhere between miles and moments, they fall in love. Not loudly. Not easily. But honestly-like two people who recognize each other's scars in the dark.
Detroit is waiting. Reality always is. And loving Mateo may cost Cortland the one thing she's spent her whole life protecting.
Her freedom.