“Go where?”

“Your place? Mine? I don’t care. Let’s go fuck.”

I laugh, more at the casual way she throws out the words than the concept itself. “You’re funny, Hollywood. I’ll give you that.”

“See, I don’t believe you. I think you don’t want to say I was a bad lay because you’re worried it will affect our professional relationship.” She leans toward me, her eyes huge and crazed. “Tell the truth, you coward.”

She wants to call my bluff. Fine. I’ll call hers.

Between the brick wall of another building on one side and her unnecessarily off-roading vehicle on the other, we’re cocooned. Even her voice sounds muted in my car. I pull the lever and send my seat back. “Heck, why not right here, Hollywood?” I hold my arms open, like have at it, girl.

She accuses me of being a bulldozer and pushing through all my own ideas, but Sophie’s been the one bulldozing this conversation, until now. She looks like she’s hit a wall.

“Here?” She peers out the hatchback window. “It’s...it’s daytime.”

I nod. “Guess what? It’d be daytime if I took you back to my place, too.”

She huffs. “You know what I mean.”

I reach for the lever to bring my seat back up.

“Wait.” She reaches around me, her hand on my wrist, squeezing softly. “I didn’t say no.”

She crawls onto her knees on the passenger seat, plants her hand on the seat beside my thigh. “Are you saying no?”

“No.” I shake my head. “I mean, I’m not saying no. To you.”

“Say it, Amy,” she whispers. “Ask me to fuck you.”

I catch her mouth in a kiss, but she pulls away, leaving me with only a taste. “Say. It.”

Her hand lands on my thigh and all the blood in my body pumps toward her. I want to feel her palm on my skin like I want my next breath. She throws her leg over the gearshift. The horn blasts from the pressure of her butt and we both jump. She collapses on top of me in a fit of giggles. Her body is warm and soft pressed to mine, and I hold her, let her shake with uncontrollable laughter, her hair falling over my face. As she pushes back, I let go.

“Get up,” I say. She can’t hide the disappointment on her face as she moves back into her seat. I pop my seat back up. “Get in the back.”

She grins, looking from the back seat of my hatchback to her SUV. “Why don’t we use my car? The windows are tinted.”

I follow her gaze to the big blacked out truck. “It is stupidly big.”

She rolls her eyes but pulls her keys from her coat. The locks beep and we jump from my car to hers. I slide into the back seat, a king-sized bed compared to my tiny old car. Sophie closes the door behind us. Between the tint and the overcast sky it’s like nighttime in here. That time of night when we can whisper whatever we want to each other. It’s easier, here, to believe my own lies when I tell myself that this is for her, and to take her face in my hands and say against her mouth, “I want you to fuck me.”