“If we can’t hear them, I’m sure they can’t hear us,” I say and then crash my lips into hers again.

Her fingers make a searing path up my back and knot through my hair as I grab her thighs and pick her up, opening her legs and giving her hardly any warning before I sink deep inside her. We gasp as we move our bodies together, holding onto each other like nothing else exists, the sounds of the music drifting in and out of focus until I can’t concentrate on anything else but her and how she makes me feel. How just a few years ago, I’d gone out with Ethan to the same pub and came home with a girl who had been hitting on me all night. The sex was meaningless, the passion, heat, sweat, burning raw intensity that I feel with Ella nonexistent.

There was nothing and now there’s everything.

After we come down from the high, I gently pull out of her, carrying her weight when her weak legs give out on her. She laughs exhaustedly as I scoop her up in my arms and stumble over to the bed. I lay her down and then climb under the covers with her.

She places her head on my chest and draws heart patterns on my damp skin. “I love you,” she whispers.

I shut my eyes and hug her tighter against me. “I love you, too.”

We hold onto each other, floating toward sleep, just like we did so many times when we were younger. We actually started sleeping together when we were about thirteen, after we’d been hanging out in my room and Ella didn’t want to go home because she was avoiding her family. I let her sleep in my bed with me, not because I was being a pervert but because I liked having her around and didn’t want her to go home. My mom worked nightshifts so I knew we wouldn’t get caught. It was the best night of sleep I’d had in a long time and after that it started becoming a habit. We alternated nights between our rooms and sometimes at other peoples’ houses, on park benches, and sometimes even in my car.

The car was actually my favorite place, because it gave me an excuse to lie closer to her. Yes, a lot of amazing things happened in that car. All Ella and I needed was each other and my car and we were good, no matter what life threw at us, even if she was mad at me. We raced in it. We kissed in it. We held each other in it, just like we’re holding each other now.