The look he gave her all but stole the air from her lungs and she suddenly remembered the way he kissed, slow and thorough and deep. “Okay, I’ll message you.”

“Good.”

A Tesla pulled up in front of them and Willow stepped to the curb.

“Is that your car?”

He pulled open the passenger door. “Nope, it’s your ride. Give the guy your address and DM me when you get home.”

She blinked. “I... Thank you?”

“Anytime.” He kissed her cheek, making the skin burn. “Seriously, pretty girl. Just me know how you want it.”

He guided her into the car, closing the door and sealing her in safety.

7

Willow’s motto was ‘things tend to work out if you let them.’ When he climbed onto the school roof, put twenty chickens in the mess hall, or ‘borrowed’ his dad’s Mercedes for a beach trip, everything ended well enough. Some people got mad, some people laughed, life went on.

His football career was a shining example of the theory. He’d never worked hard at footy. He wasn’t a lazy kid, but he didn’t push. Not when there was beer to drink and GTA to play and fishing trips to take with his old man. At eighteen, he got shitfaced pretty much every weekend and unlike his mates, including the ones who never touched beer, he got drafted. And once he got drafted, he was signed to The Blues. And unlike Byron Thomas and countless other potential superstars, he never got injured, flamed out or dropped to the semi-pros. He wasn’t Derek Hardiman, but he’d won premierships, kicked goals and had his face on TV more times than he could count.

Things tended to work out if he let them.

Yet Eden walking in front of that car was driving him nuts. It was already over, he didn’t even need to worry, but whenever he closed his eyes, he saw her stepping onto the pedestrian crossing. She hadn’t been trying to get his attention. She just walked in front of a speeding car, seeing what would happen next. At night he dreamed about her standing in front of the Maserati. It never hit her, but she always disappeared into the bright tunnel of the headlights. Vanishing without a trace.

Six days after they had tacos, Willow was in the club weights room when one of her songs came through his headphones. It was ‘Vivid’, one of her earliest tracks. He paused, taking in the lyrics like they were a text she hadn’t sent.

Don’t get it twisted,

I want to survive.

I’m just not fussed

about staying alive.