“Wow.” Tippi winces sympathetically. “I bet your partners go wild for that.”
He shrugs. “I do OK.”
“So you like scars, huh?” the snarky one cuts in again.
She shrugs. “Sometimes. I like the stories behind them more.”
“Kinky,” he grins. “Tell you what,” he fishes a card from his back pocket and offers it to her, deliberately not looking at me, “if you ever want to see the massive scar on my back and hear that story, hit me up.”
There’s a tiny pause.
Old, all too familiar insignificance prickles under my skin. In certain male ecosystems, I’m furniture until proved otherwise. Always have been.
“Thanks,” Tippi says brightly, and slides her arm through mine. “But I’m here with mydate, so I’d pass that card to a woman who’ll actually use it. If I were you.”
The worddatefizzles through me like electricity, and the corners of my mouth skip upwards before I push them back down.
The rider doesn’t lift his hand to take the card back, so she lets it drop to the concrete by his boot with an unconcerned shrug.
Happiness tickles along my veins, light and shocking. She choseme. Out loud. In front of an audience that assumed she wouldn’t.
I have never, not once in my life, been the one chosen in a room like this.
It feels very much like winning.
On the drive back, she presses the accelerator far more confidently than I ever would and keeps up a running commentary of the night: the scoring system, the crashes, the guy with the ‘gnarly’ scar, and even thePulp Fiction ride-on music. She doesn’t seem to expect me to contribute anything beyond the occasional “Mmm” or mild answering question.
Almost like she understands that I’m not rude, just overstimulated and done for the day.
The relief is indescribable. I don’t relax like this even with my own family; there’s always some version of a mask on, some effort to match their pace. With Tippi, I can let the conversation flow past, listening, not scrambling to find my place in it every second.
That doesn’t mean I’m at ease. Not by a long shot. She’s far toocaptivating for that. Every time she laughs, something in my thorax does a painful little jump. Every time I catch her scent, sweet like brown sugar and something floral, I have to resist the urge to lean closer and take greedy inhales through my nose.
By the time she pulls up outside my house and turns off the ignition, it’s gone ten PM. I have work in the morning, but I know I’ll lie awake far past a sensible hour, replaying her face, her voice, and the way she yelled for strangers on bikes like she cared about them.
Part of me wants her to drive away so I can crawl back into my routine and repair whatever’s been shaken loose until I feel like I’m on solid ground again.
Part of me wants this night to refuse to end.
“Can I come in?” Tippi asks.
It’s as though she read my thoughts. My throat closes around nothing. No pretext, no flimsy excuse. Just a question.
“Uhhm. Sure?” It sounds like I’m asking her instead of answering.
She smiles, slow and sultry, like this dance is the easiest thing in the world. For her, it probably is. For me, it feels like stepping off a cliff and hoping physics took the night off.
My hands are unsteady as I unlock the front door. The hallway feels smaller when we’re both in it.
“Oh, wow.” She toes off her boots and shrugs out of her jacket, heading straight for the framed2001: A Space Odysseyposter at the foot of the stairs. “You’re a Kubrick nerd as well?”
As well.
How is everything about this woman straight from my wishlist?
“Er. Yes. I’m - yes. Huge fan.”
“Same.” Her grin is incandescent. “OK, I have to tell you this. I found the wildest theory about2001when I was doom scrolling the other morning. Are you ready?”
