"What did you get me for my birthday?" Micah asks his hands on the steering wheel of his Ford truck. We are on our way back to his house for the summer holiday. Two things: we just finished our first year of university and it's Micah's twenty-first birthday party.
I have my feet up on the dashboard. Olivia Rodrigo's 'All I Want' plays on the car radio from the 'For Road Trips' playlist saved on my Spotify. "What do you mean? I organised an entire surprise party for your birthday. I invited all our friends (who we hadn't seen since our last winter holiday) and I made sure we ordered all of your favourites. What more do you need, dude?"
"You're right," he says to me then. "You're right. I don't know what's the matter with me. I'm sorry for saying that. Okay?"
I turn to face him. He parks the car in his driveway, turning off the engine. His adorable birthday boy face has guilt written over it in confetti-coloured marker. "Okay," I say. I take his hand in mine. Micah's plan is almost twice the size of mine. Like, he's some kind of walking giant. That made sense in my head.
"Okay," his voice is a whisper. He leans into me, his doe green eyes on my lips. "Can I have a kiss?"
"Yes."
"You don't have to say yes," he tells me. "I mean. I really want to be close to you right now, but I understand that I messed up and that you probably don't want to. It's okay. Really."
I thread my fingers through his dark blonde hair, pulling his body into mine. I should probably have said something before kissing him, but I also really wanted to be close to him. Kissing him instead made more sense. I mean, what he said was stupid and it made me feel really insecure about my decision to have a party inside of buying him an actual gift. But Micah loves our friends and his family. What is better than that, right?
Micah's hand falls to my waist. The kiss feels different from the millions of times we've kissed before. We kiss a lot, but we've never kissed to the point where it feels like something is going to happen. Sitting in his truck with his hands on my waist made me feel like something was going to happen. Everything inside me is sticky toffee warm and want to be close to him.
"Do you want to sit on my lap?" he asks, pulling away from the kiss. I stare at him for a long time. Okay. Yeah, maybe something is really happening and I'm too slow to understand what is being communicated.
"Yes," I say. I climb over the partition and into his lap. He pushes me down onto him and it feels breathlessly tingly in all of the right places. I fall forward. Beneath his Naruto t-shirt, his skin is sliding molten.
It's like I'm not even the one talking. "Do that again, please."
He does it again, hissing into my neck. "Fuck."
I can feel the heat of him pressing into me through his Nike shorts. His body is warm and waiting beneath mine and we've never done this before and that apparently means something because we are grabbing at each other like we hate the idea of clothes ever existing. My his jerk forward.
"Can I take off your shirt?" I ask him. He pulls it over his head. His skin was caramel.
"This is a really great start to my birthday," he tells me, kissing up my neck. Lips pillow soft and seeking. "I want more of this."
"Micah!" We jump apart. His dada leans into the car window, popping open the passenger seat door. I locked that. I'm pretty sure I had the passenger door locked, but, now That I think about it, I really can't remember.
"Would the two of you mind joining the rest of us in the house?" Mr. Williams asks. Am I supposed to feel this embarrassed? I mean, Micah is my boyfriend, but a part of me wants to maintain the idea that we all try and sell our parents. The idea that we never do anything, like, r-rated with our boyfriends when we are alone together. We watch movies and leave room for Jesus.
Micah turns me away from his dad. I scramble to find his t-shirt that I have convinced myself he left on the dashboard while we were kissing. I can't find it. So we just sit there with him looking like he was about to pass on his father's genes---which are great genes by the way. Really wonderful.
"I feel deeply violated right now, Dad," Micah says to Mr Williams.
"Seriously. Why would you embarrass us like this?"
''Hi, Mr Williams," I say to him. "Sorry about, like, your son. He's being weird. We weren't doing anything. I promise."
"Would you mind coming inside?" his dad asks, pushing away from the car.
I help Micah pull his shirt over his head in the tiny tight space that is his truck. Aren't trucks supposed to be luxurious mansion spacious? "Right, yes."
"What was that?" he asks me. He sounds disappointed. We watch his dad disappear into the house. "We were not not doing anything. Why'd you say that to him?"
"I mean, we weren't really doing anything. Right?" I ask him.
He pushes open the driver's side door. "Yeah, no. You're right. I guess we weren't really doing anything."
I follow Micah inside. Mr Williams asks us to help him with bringing the rest of the stuff for the party into the sitting room.
"Whose all the food for?" Ashlae asks. She watches her dad and Micah carry the cake into the kitchen. Shay gets the rest of the stuff from the boot of Micah's truck. She's Micah's older sister and also my best friend. I'm the girl who is brave enough to date her little brother. I'm not entirely convinced she hasn't mapped out my murder yet. Another reason not to have things escalate with Micah. I can't let her know we actually do stuff other than leaving room for, like, Jesus or whatever.
She leans in the kitchen doorway, arm crossed over her chest. "Is it a birthday party or an event? You've really outdone yourself, Landon. I'm impressed."
I hug her and stand by her in the doorway. We watch the boys: Shay following Micah and their dad outside to bring in the rest of the things. He's Ashlae's boyfriend. They're stated dating back when we were in high school.
"Do you think so?" I ask her. "The part where you said you were impressed by me?"
She laughs, looking at me with the same green eyes Micah inherited from their dad. "You're really ridiculous. I hope he'll go out of his way like this for you when it's your birthday."
"What do you mean?" He would. Right? I mean, he has. And I wanted to do this for him. It's not like this should be the gold standard for our relationship because I decided to do it for him. Micah would do the same for me if I asked him to.
"Nothing," she insists. "It's really special---what you planned for Micah. You're a good girlfriend to him. You know that right? Like, he's actually said it to you? Thanked you for organising all of this for him?"
"Yeah," I say to her. It's an automatic response. A response that doesn't give me the time to think about what she's actually saying to me. "Of course."
"Good. Now let's get some of that cake you bought," she says. "They're starting the party without us."