There were twelve inches between them, give or take. She was curled in the passenger seat of his Audi, facing his way and just looking at him. Tyler didn’t know how long he could take it. He looked at everything except her. The streetlights lit up the dust on the dashboard. He’d switched off the car but the digital clock still glowed in the dark. He watched it until he had to blink. He swallowed hard. He shifted in his seat and leaned his elbow on the space where the window met the door. He looked at the blinding white streetlights. Snow drifted in the orbs of light.

“D’you like snow?” he asked and it was a genuine question but probably the wrong time to ask it. He didn’t know all that much about her. In some ways they were almost strangers.

“Sometimes,” Sofia said and her voice was soft and almost wistful like she wished he’d ask her something different. Something more.

His hand was still resting on the gearstick and she touched it unexpectedly, her fingers skimming his. He turned his hand over and caught hers. Their fingers fit together instantly, hers feeling slender and warm against his. He wanted to tighten his grip but didn’t quite dare. Sofia looked down at their hands and she smiled the kind of smile that people save only for themselves. He didn’t know whether he could feel her pulse through her hand but it felt like it and his own heart hurried to keep pace.

She breathed out a sigh, the kind of sigh that invited any question in the world. Tyler exhaled.

“What?” he asked, finally. “What is it, Sofia?”

“I don’t know,” she said, with all the nonchalance of a forest fire. “I just – you know.”

He looked at her then and her eyes flicked up to meet his, wide and innocent and more beautiful than he could ever hope to put into words. He hated himself. He hated himself for being so hungry, so desperate, so destructive. Everything he wanted from her felt like it was bound tight somewhere deep inside but every time he looked at her, the whole knot of control felt as though it’d explode like dynamite.

Those eyes. Dark and liquid. The streetlight caught the colour of her irises, turning them gold. He wondered if anyone would ever know the edge before insanity and if it felt anything like he did. Some part of him wanted to take his hand out of hers but it was too late now. There was just something too quiet about the whole thing. Touching. Bare skin. How could something so clean and innocent feel so dangerous?

“What do you want?” he asked and the question came out too hard, too closed, too harsh and she looked away fast. Her hand slipped out of his and everything became cold. He always did it. He was always too short with her, too rough and impossible, only because being soft would invite destruction.

“I don’t know,” she said after a long while and the silence ensued until he felt like it could deafen him.

She hadn’t looked at him again. She was still sitting his way but her face was turned towards the windscreen and he could see her profile; her nose, her mouth, her eyelashes. Eyelashes. She blinked. Her bare arms were folded across her chest. Her hair was pulled up into a neat braid and her earring sparkled with the lightest movement. It wasn’t real but on a girl like Sofia it didn’t need to be.

He didn’t think he’d ever wanted to kiss her so bad. It didn’t even have to be a real kiss. It could just be the feel of her neck against his mouth. He wanted to be closer, to feel her heat and smell her skin. His mouth had gone dry. He wondered exactly what the hell he was doing. The party was one block away. They should have been there by now. People would miss her. But she was the one who’d made him stop. He shouldn’t have listened but Sofia had the kind of voice that could have talked him into driving over a cliff.

Tyler thought about starting the car. He didn’t know why he’d turned it off to begin with. Maybe that sub-conscious decision said more about his lack of self-control than he cared to admit. The key was still in the ignition. He could reach out and turn it. It wouldn’t take much effort at all but his hand suddenly felt like it was made of lead.

“They’ll be missing you,” he said finally.

Sofia didn’t look at him.

“I don’t care about them.”

“So what do you care about?”

She opened her mouth and all the words he was craving seemed to hover at her lips but then she swallowed them. She lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

“I don’t know.”

It wasn’t enough. Nothing was ever enough and he could only blame himself but instead he blamed her.

“You’re fucking impossible,” he said.

She laughed. It wasn’t her real laugh. But she did look at him then, so hard that he couldn’t even think of looking away.

“I’m impossible? Don’t even, Tyler.”

“Don’t even?” he stalled. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

She looked away again. He wondered how she could do it so easily and felt more destructive than ever. He found himself thinking about the cigarettes in the glove box. The snow was coming down faster now but it didn’t settle on the car though the street was dusted white like a cake.

“Look, it’s just crazy,” she said unexpectedly. “I don’t understand you. You give me like one word to make me think you care and then you just blank me so hard it hurts. You know, it really makes me feel crap. Nobody else makes me feel like this. It’s just you. It’s like you lead me on and I don’t even know why.”

Tyler didn’t move. He waited until he was sure she’d stopped talking and then said, “I’m sorry,” only because it seemed like the given thing to say.

“No, you’re not,” Sofia almost laughed. “You always say that but you’re not sorry ‘cause you do it all over again. And now what? You’re gonna leave before the party’s over and then blank me for another six months. Don’t you know how bad it kills me?”

He shifted. “Well, I mean, you’re not dead, so -”

“Shut up,” she said and she sounded so close to tears that his heart sank. It took a minute before she spoke again. Her eyes were fixed on a house in the distance; the warm yellow glow of windows shone in her eyes.

“You don’t care,” she said it quite calmly. “This isn’t how people who care act. I guess it just gives you some sort of power kick, thinking of how easy it is for you to hurt me. You probably do it to everyone and we’re all stupid enough to care. I don’t want to care, you know. I wish I didn’t. I wish we’d never even met.”

“I’m really glad we did,” he said quietly and wondered whether she’d ever believe him.

She scoffed. “What is it, Ty? Why don’t you just tell me the truth? You fill me with this golden hope and then when it’s just about to run dry, you come back and do it all over again.” She turned suddenly to look at him. “Why? I don’t understand why!”

He wasn’t sure he could explain.

Instead, he said, “I missed you like crazy.”

She shook her head. “No. No. You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to ignore every call and goddamn message and then have the nerve to lie like that. If you missed me, you’d have made an effort. Don’t give me these lies only because I want them so bad. I wish I could hate you. God, you so deserve to be hated.”

“So hate me.”

“It’s not that simple,” she said. “Not that you’d know.”

“Okay.” He wanted to turn the car on but his hand didn’t move. “Okay. So let’s finish it. Let’s just stop. I won’t see you again. Happy?”

“What?”

She watched him reach for the key and panic crossed her face.

“Don’t, don’t.” She turned her face away like she couldn’t bear for him to look at her.

“Why not?”

“Just – as soon as we go into that stupid party, this doesn’t come back and I don’t want it to be over.”

He frowned. “This?”

“Just us,” she gestured desperately between them, still not looking at him. “It’s like my life and your life don’t even exist right now and it’s just us and I can’t bear for it to end even though it’s nothing.”

“Don’t cry,” he said. “Please don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying,” she said, even as a tear streaked down her cheek. “I just – it keeps me up every night. I feel so angry at you and then you show up and it melts away and I hate how time trivialises everything. You don’t know how hard I feel. You can’t understand how much you hurt me.”

“God, please don’t cry.”

“Like I can fucking help it!”

They looked at each other desperately.

“I mean, do you even like me?” She reached out and grasped his hand, liquid eyes searching his. “I mean, just say, please. Please just tell me the truth, Ty. Tell me you hate me or that I’m not your type. Just do it. Hurt me and be a fucking asshole and then I can start hating you. I can’t deal with the uncertainty. Just tell me the truth. That’s all I want.”

Tyler looked at her helplessly. The anxious edge of truth. Of confession. Everything was always lies. Concealed feelings and hesitation and uncertainty.

Not his type. Beyond her he didn’t have a type, truth told. Anyone would do. He felt the seep of half-memories; overflowing ashtrays and lipstick stained cigarette butts and the choking edge of too-much perfume. Anyone, almost. Would she hate him if she knew? All those women. Night after night. He didn’t remember names, faces even; all he ever did was close his eyes and imagine her.

“Just give me something,” Sofia said and she sounded tired. “Anything.”

He tried to think of something to say. His voice felt like it was stuck in his throat.

“It’s just – like a dream,” he said, too late and too vague.

“You know, I come up with excuses for you,” She laughed a little. “Just – I make up all these stories in my head about all the things that must have happened that stopped you from calling. You wouldn’t believe it. It’s like this blind hope. And even as I’m doing it, I can hardly keep myself together. It’s just lies. I’m making up lies and trying to believe them. It’s mad. My mind goes so fast sometimes, I think it’s gonna derail altogether. And here I am, trying to make you feel guilty about it when it’s all me. I blow your words out of proportion. Is that it, Ty? Am I obsessed with you? Am I making an entire world out of nothing?”

“No,” he said. “You’re not.”

But three words weren’t enough. She looked at him, desperate.

“Am I? It’s like I’m – insane, sometimes. Everything is so intense. It spins around my head and I just think of you so, so hard.”

He wondered if a woman could ever be any more attractive than she was. There was something so raw and fresh about her, something almost gracefully feral. Something deeper and more arresting. The kind of thing that just scared people away because it was so rare and unknown. Put her on a pedestal and don’t touch her just in case you break her. But she wasn’t glass. She was warm and alive and so full of emotion and beauty that it seemed impossible that it could all fit inside her.

He was looking at her mouth now, at how soft and pretty it was and thinking how a mouth like that could have made anyone beautiful. He didn’t seem to be able to stop looking, even as she was watching him. Her eyes were going all over his face and he could feel it like she was physically touching him. He wanted to touch her face but he felt faintly afraid to. There seemed to be more power in delicateness than there was in anything else in the world. She swallowed; he saw her mouth tighten.

“Just... why?” Her voice was like the blurry, beaten-up shadow of confrontation. “Why? Every single time.”

“It makes no sense,” he said, and it hurt to drag the words out from the boulder he’d pushed them under. “You know that. You deserve more.”

“What does anyone ever deserve? Just ‘cause of who your parents are or how many friends you have? Nobody deserves anything. You earn it.”

“I haven’t fucking earned you, then.”

“Don’t you want to?”

They looked at each other. The clock on the dash was nearing nine. Late. But her face was like a work of art and he felt like he was on the edge of something his soul craved. All in. Could he tell her? About all the endless empty nights where he fisted his hand around his throbbing cock and thought of her so hard that his head spun?

That kind of weight seemed too heavy to put on someone as delicate as her. It was selfish. Heavy and inescapable. He shouldn’t tell her. He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t be that unreasonable. But what was the alternative? To drive to the fucking party and have her meet some other guy whose neck he’d want to break because they’d never treat her right? It killed him, god, how it killed him. He wished he could steal back ten years of his life and rewind to a place where he could be halfway suitable for a girl like her.

“People will think you’re crazy,” he said. “Your father. Your family, friends, everyone you know.”

She looked perplexed. “So?”

“You don’t even know all the mess I made,” He was almost pleading now. “All the years. Don’t you wanna know?”

“I know more than you think,” she said. “People talk.”

“And – you don’t even care?”

“Why would I care about who you were a decade ago? This is you, right now.”

He looked at her mouth again. Then he went to find her eyes but they were on his lips and it was going to happen. For three years he’d known it was going to happen. Three years. Flashback to her eyes catching his at that god-awful wedding in the middle of a sweltering summer where his ex married her ex and his collar felt like it was choking him until her smile unwound everything like alcohol without the hangover. God. God. And wasn’t it a waste, those three years? If he kissed her now, all that time, all the clinical restraint meant nothing. But did it mean anything anyway, anything beyond hurt and heartbreak?

He leaned closer to her. He could feel the whisper of her breath. He began to forget all the reasons he’d held back. They seemed empty now; clouds with no substance, no rain, no storm, nothing but air and clichés and fucking stupidity.

“Ty – just,”

“What?”

So close. She wanted it. He didn’t know how she managed to make a tear-stained face look so flawless but she did. He swallowed hard and moved in to kiss her. Not hard but not soft. It was nothing special, just his mouth pressed against hers, his hand coming up to fit against the angle of her face. Her skin was warm. Damp. His other hand went to the back of her head.

She tasted like lip gloss and tears and the shadow of mint and she opened her mouth and let him catch her lip. He felt like he was learning to kiss, like by wasting the gesture so many times he’d lost the true way of doing it. His tongue moved instinctively but she pulled back, just before he could use it.

“Do you feel sorry for me?”

“What?” He felt breathless, already drunk on her.

“You’re doing this just because I made you feel bad or bec-”

“Will you shut up? You speak a lot of crap sometimes.”

His hand went down, grasping her leg and pulling her closer, across the space between them and on top of him. So close. The distance disappeared between them and they were so close, so close, so goddamn close. It suddenly seemed like the most dangerous thing in the world to be inching into her; her body heat, her smell, everything he’d ever wanted. Her fingers skimmed across his arm, like she wasn’t sure where they should land. He grasped her wrist, pulling her hand down to the front of his jeans so she pressed instinctively against the hard heat of his cock.

Her legs were between his and he shifted, pulling her knee to the outside of his. The car was too cramped, too small, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. Her fingers were at the zip of his jeans, trying to undo it but the way he sat meant it wasn’t easy. His hand curled around the back of her neck and he pulled her closer, his free hand skirting up her thigh and beneath her dress until his fingers pressed hard against damp lace.

She breathed out hard against his neck.

“Ty.”

“What?” He pressed harder, his voice tight. “Is this what you wanted?”

“It feels like all I’ve ever wanted,” she said and her voice was soft and rushed, beautiful and invasive, as it poured into him. Her hand finally manoeuvred the fastenings on his pants and her fingers went beneath, pressing against his hard cock through his boxers. He shifted beneath her and for a second he feared she’d drawn back but then her hand moved past the waistband of his shorts and touched him for real, skin against skin.

“Jesus,” His eyes were on her face.

“Do you ever think of this?” she asked.

“Only ten times a day,” he said and he kissed her before she could respond, his tongue forking into her mouth as his hand pushed inside her underwear and curled against her clean skin.

His hand fit against her smoothly and as though she couldn’t help herself, she pushed at it, almost as though she was trying to grind against the heel of his palm. He didn’t stop her. She felt warm, silky wet, like everything he’d ever dreamed of. He shifted his leg so her thighs were spread wider and she almost shuddered as she sighed. He wanted to sink his fingers inside her and make her cum quick and hard, again and again and again. But there was something addictively intimate about just being there in that moment, his cock desperate for release and her swollen snatch dripping all over his hand. He couldn’t even focus on all the things he wanted to do to her. Just – everything. All at once and over and over until he fucking passed out from it.

She managed to tug his cock free of his boxers. Her fingers were maddeningly gentle as they wrapped around his throbbing stalk and he exhaled a groan, pulling her closer still. So close. She was pressed tight to him, and he wondered if his heartbeat was interspersed with hers or whether the almost continuous throb was all him.

His middle finger sought out her entrance, the tip urging softly inside. She felt impossibly tight. Tight enough to make him stop everything and drive out of town and spend a lifetime dreaming about the velvet violence of her around his fingertip. He didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop, not when he’d come this close. It’d be like turning around a metre before the border line. Stupid. Senseless.

He pushed his finger, further, deeper, harder, and felt her muscles adjust to the intrusion. His thumb pressed hard to her clit and she shuddered against him, her breath hot against his ear. His free hand went down to grip her ass, holding her in place as his hand worked steadily against her.

“You know,” he said, his voice heavy, “You’ll want more than this.”

“More?” She was breathless, her hand unsteady around his cock.

“Yeah. More.” He knew he wasn’t making any sense to her but part of him didn’t want to.

“So give me more,” she said and her hand was moving up and down his cock so sublimely that his hips thrust desperately back at her. He groaned. His hand came up to find her breasts through her dress. She wasn’t wearing a bra and he groped her firm flesh hard, his cock aching. He could hear the throb of blood in his ears. He felt reckless, hungry, desperate. His hand dropped to join the other beneath her dress and went north to touch her skin for real, fingers closing around one nipple and tugging it until she gasped. She felt so human. Warm and clean and alive.

Her snatch was still slick around his hand and the more he touched her, the wetter she became. He didn’t know how much longer either of them could take it. She was stroking him faster now and the grace of her fingers felt like it could drive him insane. He pulled his hand away from her snatch and took advantage of her surprise to push her fingers away from his throbbing cock. He wrapped his silky wet hand around it and took a moment to push her legs wider, so her knees were either side of his.

“God.”

His free hand dropped to the small of her back, urging her forward so he could press the head of his cock into her tight passage. It felt like her body was almost challenging him; reluctantly adjusting to give him ground as he urged inside inch by painstaking inch. His entire body was clenched tight as they fit against each other, sighing and moaning as he pushed deeper until he’d finally entered her entirely. They looked at each other in the dark car but didn’t speak. Tyler’s hands moved to grip hard to her waist as he began stroking shallowly in and out of her. It took a minute for her to push back and as she did, his thrusts went deeper; his cock pulling further back with each movement.

“You don’t even know,” her voice was soft, uncertain, “How many times I thought of this.”

“Yeah?” He pushed in hard and ground there for a second until she moaned. “Did you make yourself come?”

She pressed her forehead against his.

“So many times, Ty. It always – always came back to you.”

“Did you say my name?”

He felt her mouth curve into a smile against his cheek.

“Maybe.”

He shifted his head to find her mouth with his and kissed her, hard and wet and hungry. He was holding so hard onto her waist, he felt faintly afraid of hurting her but as soon as he even thought about loosening his grip, she tensed.

“Don’t,” she said, her mouth against his. “It’s fine.”

She was moving as much as he was, so much so that she felt weightless above him as their bodies worked together. He’d never felt so close to another person. All he knew was her body; her mouth against his, and the heat of her core around his aching cock. Her grasping hands were holding onto his shoulders and he pushed harder, faster, forcing her to match the rhythm as his hand moved to grip the curve of her ass.

She bit his lip hard and he groaned, his butt lifting off the seat as he thrust urgently into her. His hand came around to push against her snatch, feeling the smooth way his cock drove inside her. His fingertip found her clit and he pressed against it hard enough to make her squirm.

“Ty, you’re gonna make me -” She sucked in a breath and reached down in a futile attempt to urge his hand away.

“Make you what?” he said. “Come? Is that it? You’re gonna come all over my cock, Sofia?”

She almost laughed but his finger was circling relentlessly and all she could do was grip harder to him, her body tensing against his. He didn’t stop fucking her even as she shuddered and ground against him, her core clenching hard around his thrusting cock. He didn’t think he could ever tire of the feel of her body against his. It made him feel more worthwhile than anything else ever had.

He came finally, unable to fight the gold rush any longer as he thrust erratically into her before spurting repeatedly into the depths of her body. The pleasure drained through him and yet he didn’t move, still craving the feel of her body as they pressed against each other, spent and sated. Her face was pressed into his neck and her hair smelled like vanilla. He thought of all the things he could say. About how she lit up his life the first day of an endless vacation. About how he didn’t really want to move in case he’d dreamt the entire thing. But he didn’t say anything. There didn’t seem to be a need for anything more than the sound of breathing.

She pulled back reluctantly and they looked at each other in the dark. The faintest of smiles crept across her face and she bit her lip.

“What’re you laughing at?” he said but he felt like laughing too. Maybe it was relief. Maybe it was something in the region of happiness. It’d been so long he wasn’t quite sure. He tried not to smile but she saw it anyway, and bit her lip even harder. They sat there a while, just looking at each other and maybe she was thinking of things to say too but in the end neither of them said anything until,

“We’re really late,” she said finally.

“Late?” he asked.

She eased away from him.

“The party.”

He caught her before she moved back into the passenger seat.

“Do we really have to go?”

“Yes. And this time, you really can’t leave without me.”

He looked at her. He straightened out his clothes and started the car. The conversation seemed like the kind they’d repeat countless times, in different places and lives and voices. With someone else the idea might have been oppressive and stale but with Sofia, he found he didn’t really mind at all. In fact, it seemed like all he could ever want.