// you could //

Tyra hates football, always has. Friday nights in the bleachers, her eyes slitted against the sodium glare and in her head, she’s a thousand other places that aren’t here, aren’t now. Sometimes she closes her eyes completely, lets the sounds wash over her—the swell and roar of the crowd, the calls from the sideline, the bright jangle of the cheerleaders tangling with everything else.

Tim is fresh sweat and warm skin when she’s pressed to his side after the game, a still-coiled spring of energy buzzing just under his skin, and she can feel it when she runs her fingers over his arm, smiling at something someone’s said. She’s not sure who, or what was even said, but everyone else is laughing and it’s easy enough for her to follow suit, even as she’s counting down the minutes in her head until every play’s been relived a half-dozen times or more.

It’s past midnight when everyone starts to drift away and Tim’s buzzed and loose-limbed as he climbs into the truck beside her. “Hey baby, “ he says, and there’s beer on his breath, but it’s okay, because he’s smiling big and bright, his face so open and honest that it almost breaks her heart.

“Hey yourself,” she says, soft and kind, shifting the truck into gear, and that’s all she does say until she pulls into the Riggins’ driveway, not even five minutes later. This town’s too small even for small talk, she thinks, and the hollow ache in her belly widens just a little more.

He leans over to kiss her and she turns her head at the last minute, his mouth coming to rest just below her ear. “Don’t be like that,” he breathes into her skin, and she shrugs. Like what?

“You could come inside,” he says.

Tyra’s nails press into her palm. “Let’s just do it right here,” she says, and Tim huffs out a laugh, because he knows she’s not serious, and she’s not, right up until she suddenly is, her fingers wrapped in the soft cotton of his tshirt to pull him closer, her teeth finding the swell of his lip.

“Jesus, Tyra—“, his hands curled around her hips, lifting her and then she’s straddling his lap, gearstick pressing into her thigh, the dashboard all unforgiving angles against her spine. It’s not gentle; it’s awkward and uncomfortable and she hisses into the wet heat of Tim’s mouth when he pinches a nipple, bucking her hips forward.

He shoves his hand between them and she can feel his wrist skate over her belly, his fingers tugging open her jeans. No underwear, and the low moan Tim makes when he finds that out for himself sends a rush of heat straight through her.

She lifts herself up on her knees just far enough for him to slide his finger inside: one, then another, and she’s so wet, tiny obscene sounds with every slow glide. She comes with her eyes closed and her palm pressed flat against the truck window, cool glass against her skin and Tim buried knuckle-deep, because he knows, has always known just how to get to her.

He’s kissing her throat, the soft hollow of her neck as she shudders against him and for a moment, another future stretches out ahead of her. Of them.

It’s gone again when she opens her eyes, nothing but the space between them, and just beyond, a light left burning on the front porch. She takes Tim’s wrist and moves his hand away, kissing his fingertips softly before she climbs back behind the wheel.

“Don’t do this,” Tim says, and it’s the same old argument, always do not, never do. “Please,” he says, “I said I was sorry,” sounding flat and tired and she aches in whole new ways, watching his fingers wrap around the door handle of the truck, always searching for a way out.

“I forgive you,” she says, long after Tim’s door has closed again and the porch light’s switched off, over and over, until there’s nothing left in her mouth but the ghost of herself.

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