I grab her roughly and seal my lips onto hers as I back her up. She gasps against my mouth as her back slams into the wall and my knee bumps against the nightstand, knocking my lap onto the floor. The room goes dark, a small amount of light flowing in from the Christmas lights outside as I stroke her thighs, feeling her skin as I explore every inch of her mouth with my tongue until our lips are swollen and I need air.

As I pull away, she sucks my bottom lip into her mouth hard, tracing her tongue across my lip ring and driving me mad. I groan as she frees my lip and I grind up against her, sucking kisses down her jawline to her neck. I gently bite at her skin, tasting her, rolling my tongue along her flesh as my fingers hook the edge of her panties and she makes these sexy whimpering noises. I move back only to slide them down her legs, and then I yank my boxers off. As I lean into kiss her again, I hear voices from just outside the hall. My mom laughing and Thomas saying something really loud.

Ella and I pause, panting heavily, her chest colliding with mine every time she lets out a breath.

“Maybe we should slow down,” she whispers, blinking. “At least until they go to sleep. They might hear us.”

“No fucking way,” I tell her, seeking for a solution where we can be noisy without anyone hearing us. I reach for my iPod and click it on, cranking up the volume of “Change (In the House of Files),” by Deftones, and the music rises over the voices.

“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.

I smile at the memories flooding my head. I start to fall asleep, thinking about the night that started with a fight over a stolen kiss and ended with us falling asleep together, squished in the driver’s seat.

It started off as a really shitty night, but in the end it turned out to be one of the best nights of my life.

Two and a half years ago…

Micha

It’s about time to race and I’m nervous, even though I have Ella in the car with me, my little good luck charm. We’ve been off balance all night, partly because my growing feelings for her are making things awkward since every time I’m around her I keep hoping she’ll say she has feelings for me, knowing if I’m the one to tell her first she’ll freak out. But not tonight. She’s had a rough day and is in a bad mood and even though I want to scream out to her that I’m in love with her, I know I can’t. I’m hoping, though, that after the race, we can drive up to our spot and talk for a little while, sitting on the hood of my car, listening to music—it’s one of my favorite things to do.

But for now I have to concentrate on racing, so I focus on driving, winning, and making sure Ella has a fun time tonight, despite the fact that I can’t stop thinking about kissing her.

“So are you ready for this?” I ask, pumping the gas as she dazes off, staring out the passenger window. She’s been doing it most of the night and I wish she would just tell me what’s on her mind.

She turns and looks at me. “Ready for what?”

I pump the gas again. “To race. I know how turned on you get over it,” I pretend to tease, even though it’s true.

She rolls her eyes, for a fleeting second looking happy “Whatever.” Then her expression falls and she looks out the window again.

I hesitate. “So do you want to tell me why you’ve been so quiet all night?”

She shrugs and lets out a loud breath. It grows deafeningly quiet in the car as she breathes in and out. I swallow hard and start to return my attention to the front of me, when suddenly she says, “Micha, can I ask you something?” She sounds choked and nervous and it makes me wonder what the hell she’s going to say.

“You know you can ask me anything.” I grip the steering wheel, staring ahead at the trees, unable to look at her, praying to fucking God that she’ll finally say something, like “Micha, can you feel it, too? Micha, please fuck me now. Micha, I love you.”

I’m hoping for the last one, even though it’s not really a question, but after a long drawn out silence, all she ends up saying is, “What’s the bet for the race?” She sighs at the end, like she was going to say something else—maybe something important.

I have to take a deep breath before I speak, otherwise all the emotions on the brink of exploding inside me will show in my voice. “I think, like, a hundred bucks.”

“Who are you racing?”

“Danny and his Challenger.”

“You’re totally going to win it.” Her lips turn upward and I think it actually might be a real smile.

I relax as I line up to race. I’m nervous and Ella can tell because she turns up a little “The Distance,” by the Cake, because she knows it’ll settle me down. When the lyrics and beat bump through the speakers, I look at her.

“Only you know the way to my heart,” I say with a tense, nervous smile. “Thank you, pretty girl.”

“Of course,” she replies, relaxing back in the seat, looking comfortable there, like she belongs there, which she does. “What are best friends for?”

I force a smile, then push in the clutch and shove the shifter into first. Danny’s in his Challenger to the side of us and he throttles up his engine. I return it, pressing the gas down so hard the car vibrates from the rumble of the engine. Then Danny’s girlfriend comes strutting up between the cars. There’s a rule that the girlfriend of the instigator of the race has to start the race. When I do it, I always have to pick some random girl from out of the crowd, because I’ve never had a girlfriend—never wanted one. I’ve tried to get Ella to do it a few times, but she always rejects me, saying it’s a sexist rule, when really I think she’s worried people will start to think we’re dating, even though a lot of people do already.