Oscar was barely bobbing to the music, his expression distant but intent, like he was taking the beat seriously. Then he caught me staring, eyes bright, and leaned in to explain. “There’s something. I don’t know. There’s something good about this.”

“What?”

“I’m still looking for it!”

His arm tightened around my waist as the crowd closed in behind me, some drunk twenty-something girls jumping up and down, scattering the other dancers. My hips hit Oscar’s, flush, practically connected. He looked at me as if asking if this was okay. I didn’t know how to dance with someone else—or, um, at all—but I let my arms drape over his shoulders.

We were one unit now, protected against the crowd, a bubble all our own. And yet this felt more dangerous than a million drunk jumping girls in spiky stilettos.

“Grind up on meeeee” went the music, and then the beat overlaid and shifted, the DJ segueing into another track.

Oscar’s warmth fell over me as he started to move us—not a dance so much as a sway with a downbeat. This I could understand. The lights hit his face in scattered time, turning him from brown to blue, then fuchsia, then yellow, then himself, as sweaty bodies moved around us in a humming blur.

His fingers shifted along my lower back, traveling up my spine. My pulse went staccato and part of me wanted to run—this was insane. This was inevitable, and that was the craziest part.

I stood on my tiptoes instead, drawing him closer, as we shifted with the music. The beat, drop, beat-beat, the treble horns, closer, closer, the space between us getting smaller and smaller until the gaps between us felt physically painful.

His thumb traced my jawline, drawing my head up. His eyes asked permission. Mine gave it. And his mouth slid down onto mine.

Our lips barely grazed at first, light and warm, but in the next gasping breath, they opened and we gave in.

It didn’t feel like a free fall so much as a landing, being caught, exhilaration and relief mixing in one heady rush. He tasted sweet, like cherries laced with something new, salty and intoxicating. Someone bumped us from the side and we broke apart, foreheads touching while we breathed, and then I craned my head up again, thirsty for more. Finally, finally.

This kiss was deeper, faster, the taste of him even stranger. I clutched the back of his shirt with one hand, my other grazing his cloud of hair. His mouth, those full lips roved to kiss my jawline, my neck, my collarbone with a low groan that ricocheted through me.

Then he laughed, his exhalation warm on my shoulder. “I can’t believe this is happening.”