“Buck’s waiting to be towed to the shop,” he says through the door as he walks around to the driver’s side. “Tomorrow, right? I could’ve gotten us a rideshare, obviously, but then I couldn’t drive you home, and I know that’s very traditional gender-role nonsense, except I wanted to. Drive you, I mean. Pick you up. Not?—”
He folds himself behind the wheel, knees almost hitting the dash, and gives me a helpless look.
“I couldn’t wait,” he says. “Kael, I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
Even if he takes me to some hoity-toity restaurant, this man is trying. Really trying.
“And I thought?—”
I lean over, all of two inches, and interrupt his jitters with a kiss.
His hands wrap around my head as he kisses back, turning my quick peck into something deeper. His tongue slides against mine, and even packed in with my knees nearly to my chest, this isn’t close enough.
“I was thinking about you too,” I say, which is true, but a little more forward than I intended.
“God. Fuck it,” he says, and tries crawling over the center console, only for his foot to get stuck.
“Wait. Fuck the date? I still want the date.”
“No. Fuck my stupid rule.” He jams his foot firmly back in his side. “I thought maybe we should try having an actual date first. Talk. See if this still works when we’re not actively surviving a disaster or naked.”
“A rule,” I repeat, so he can hear it. “You asked me on a date and thought adding a hands-to-ourselves rule would be fun?”
“It sounds worse out loud.”
“Let’s do it.” I sigh. “This is your date, and if you want rules, then I’m in.”
“But now that you kissed me out of a tailspin, I’m not sure I want them anymore.”
“Too bad. Your dick doesn’t get a vote right now.” I tap the top of his head. “The real Ash is in there somewhere, clutching a calculator and trying to determine whether making out in a clown car violates the terms of his own date.”
I check his face, ready for a comeback, but he’s just staring at me. Smiling. Gone.
“That was a joke,” I add. “In case your calculator needs an annotation.”
“Ha ha. But you’re wrong. I’m still calculating. My cost-benefit just hadn’t factored in you looking like that.”
He leans in again, and I flatten against the passenger door, teasing him in a way that’s so silly it must be the reason my stomach’s fluttering and nothing else.
“Your rules, mister.”
He harumphs.
“Let the talking commence,” I say. “Where are we off to?”
He smiles, straightening with what I can only assume is the confidence of a man safely back on script.
“It’s a surprise.”
Ash turns the key, and the car gives a teenywhirrr-clicksound accompanied by, of course, lime-green floor lights illuminating its entire foot-and-a-half of available floor space.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know Bay Bridge traffic is horrendous. It’s always hell, and tonight’s no different, except for the company. Ash keeps both hands on the wheel like thecar might buck him off, and we muddle straight into my least favorite part of dating: the dating.
Like talking about the sunset. It’s so criminally first date. Except, stuck on the bridge, it’s breathtaking, fiery red blending into gold, the clouds going pink and lavender the farther they drift from the sun.
“Beautiful,” he says, and that’s all it takes for something so obvious to make me smile.
“Uh-huh,” I say, sure we’re thinking the same thing.
