m

It reminds him of that pensive way she'd looked in the passenger seat when he'd dropped her off at JFK, eyes full of longing and then quiet resignation when neither of them had reached across the gearshift. And then she'd gotten out of the car and never come back.

Benny suddenly realizes he doesn't care about circumspect behavior in public or the two relative strangers in the front seat anymore. He's already made a thirty six hour poker run, dropped three grand and flown more than four thousand miles in order to be right here – the whole fucking world probably knows exactly how he feels, and yet Beth still doesn't seem to.

So he closes those last few inches between them definitively, and the way she whimpers with relief and kisses him back, burying her fingers in his hair and dragging him close – god, this was exactly the welcome he wanted.