I don’t realize how late it’s gotten until we’re sitting in my truck in her driveway. The clock on the dash reads 2:18., and neither of us has made a move to get out. Maybe she feels the same way I do… that the night feels unfinished. The problem? I don’t think either of us knows how we want to end it.

“I have a question,” she says finally.

“I don’t know if I have the answers, Red.”

“Did you… I mean, when you kissed me… were you thinking about Joy?”

“Fuck no.” When I turn to her, she’s shaking her head.

“I don’t mean kissing Joy instead of me, but… was it, like, revenge?”

“Double fuck no. Honestly? I haven’t thought about Joy once since we got to my place and you rode on the back of the four-wheeler.”

Her smile is slow, real. As real as she is.

“Was it revenge for you? To get back at your ex or something?”

“No,” she says with a giggle. “I’ve already had my revenge.”

“You slept with some—”

“No,” she cuts in. “I went to his house in the middle of the night and keyed his car.”

I scoff. “Amateur.”

“No!” She giggles harder, louder. “I didn’t key it for keying’s sake. I actually wrote something.”

“Yeah? What’d you write?”

“Pathetic Dick.”

I bust out a laugh, let it fill the space between us. “You must’ve been there for hours.”

Her laughter joins mine. “No shit. The Cs were the hardest… getting that curve right was tough.” I shake my head, grip the steering wheel to stop myself from reaching out, gripping her hair and pulling her mouth to mine. “I have another question,” she says, and I lean back against the door, get comfortable.

“Sure, but after this one, I get to ask you some things.”

“Do you…” She bites down on her lip, her cheeks blooming the same shade as her hair.

“Do I what, Red?” Please, please, please ask me to come in.

“Do you um… do you talk dirty… like you did before, during umm… when you…”

“When I’m sexing?”

“Yeah,” she says, refusing to meet my eyes.

I shrug. “Sometimes.”

She nods. “My boyfriend—”

“Ex,” I interrupt.

The corner of her lip tilts, but she doesn’t give in all the way. “Right. Ex. One time, he asked me to do that… to spice things up, I guess. And um…”

“Oh no…” I chuckle. “What did you say?”

“I don’t…” She’s giggling again. “I don’t want to say it.”

“Say it, Red!”

“I said…” We’re both laughing, the silent, unconfined type that makes you lose your breath, hold your stomach. “I said…”

“Red! You’re killing me!”

“I said…” And with her teeth clenched, she grunts, “I’m going to fuck your dick off!”

I laugh so hard, the loudness scares even me. I’m slapping at the dash, trying to catch my breath, while she sits up on her knees, grasping my arm, trying to get me to quit laughing at her. But she’s cackling, too, the same way I am, and my cheeks hurt, my eyes are watering, and goddamn, this girl is something else.

“Quit laughing at me!”

“I can’t,” I wheeze.

“I mean it, Lo.”

“So do I!”

And then, maybe to get me to shut up or maybe because she wants to, she kisses me. Rough and hard at first, then it switches… slow, soft, purposeful. Her hands are in my hair, and my hand’s on her waist, the other on her jaw, and she’s so imperfectly wild but perfect for now.

“Red,” I say against her lips, “I have two questions.”

“Mmm,” she responds. Kisses me again.

I tug on a strand of her hair. “What shade of red is this?”

“Scarlet. Next question?”

Without moving, I mumble, “What do you want to happen next?”

Her smile widens against mine, and I think I have the answer. Her lips move across my jaw and toward my ear. She whispers, the warmth of her breath causing a shiver up my spine, “I want to fuck your dick off.”

I wonder if I should tell him that I saw him first.

The very first night he hooked up with Joy, I saw him first.

We were at a party.

I pointed him out to her.

He caught us watching him.

And he saw her first.