My joints creaked as I melted into the sheets, making my breath touch the ceiling. Purple started blotting my vision. What was I doing? This wasn’t right, it couldn’t be. Yet my mind was drifting, bouncing off the walls like bubbles. “How was that?” Tiffany flashed a blinding grin, making me squint in the dark. Her warm, comforting hand scooped up my waist. The touch alone set my nerves ablaze. Good God, Tiffany, I shouldn’t feel this good when I’m around you. Gibberish fell from my lips, tripping over the numb pair. “Cutie.” Her lips touched mine, dripping life into me, and I took a handful of her hair, counting every strand in my fingertips. Her legs moved, slipping against mine like water. An airy moan reached my ears and I had trouble wondering if it was me or Tiffany.

“Happy birthday.” My voice didn’t even sound like mine, it was closer to being Matt’s with the honey undertones. The girl beamed at me and a slight sense of panic shook through me as my heart stopped.

“Thank you.” A kiss for my words. I my lips.

“Does the countdown start now?” I wondered, turning my head to find a clock. I expected her to lose the morning light from her eyes, but it seemed to only intensify. For the first time, I realized Tiffany was pretty serious about this deal.

“Yes. From now on for 24 hours, you’re sticking to me like glue.”

“That’s not fair, you’re tacking on like one and a half hours to that,” I grumbled and her giggle went straight to my brain.

“You’re not complaining,” she sang. “I’m going to take a shower. Do you want to come with me?” I was already holding the sheets.

“We’re supposed to meet your family for lunch in a few hours,” I croaked as Tiffany sat up, stretching her arms and popping some joints. I couldn’t stop watching the muscles flex under the smooth skin. The tingle lingered in my shoulders.

“We have time for two showers.” Oh, the look in her eyes was enough to open up my ribs. I blinked and suddenly I was kissing all along her neck, sighing as warm fingers spread across my scalp. Pleasure rang down to the soles of my feet and my toes curled.

“ you.” Water was streaming down our bare skin before I could even feel the rush.

She was holding my hand. Our hands were on the table. We were having lunch with her family. It wasn’t just her father and brother either, her mother, step-father, and step-sister were there too. And Tiffany was holding my hand for everyone to see. “How’s life out of state, Taeyeon?” And everyone was acting like it was normal. I could feel the new groove in my brain.

“It’s pretty good, I like the professors and the campus is stunning.” I wondered if Tiffany told her parents about her feelings. Maybe that’s why they’re so calm. I looked at the girl to my left as she slurped up her chowder. Coming out to family is so much harder than coming out to friends. She looked back at me and I hoped my eyes read ‘you’re awesome’, because that’s what I wanted to tell her. “But I do miss home. I made friends there but, nothing can beat the ones here.” A squeeze for my honesty.

“Well, we know Tiffany missed you a lot.” I smiled a little when Tiffany whined.

“Don’t, Mom,” she insisted, embarrassment dripping from her tone. She’s so cute.

“What do you plan to do with your degree?” I barely knew what to do with this hand enveloping mine.

“I’m not sure about my career path yet, there are a lot of options for me and I don’t really know what to do,” I confessed, my anxiety pushing out a chuckle.

“Let’s not talk about school, it’s still summer,” Leo whined, easing the tension. Or maybe I was the only one feeling tense.

“What are you kids gonna do tonight then?” Mr. Hwang tilted his head. Why is no one else looking like they’re going to thrash around in their chair?!

“Kim’s throwing a party for Tiffany at her place, that’ll probably live past midnight and then a few of us are gonna go for a drive.” Tiffany was the kind of girl who craved forehead kisses and adventures in the dead of night. Looking back on our relationship, we spent time together in the night, yet I never did the things we could’ve done. I didn’t want to deprive her of the experiences she wanted to have.

“Past midnight? Why are you still having fun then? It won’t even be your birthday anymore.” Because my 24-hour deal was still active. I held back a squeal. Did Mr. Hwang hear us last night? If I wasn’t stiff before, I was now. The burn went straight to my chest.

“Daddy, it’ll be fine. It’s not just Taeyeon and I, there’ll be some other people too,” Tiffany assured, slightly squeezing my hand. I swallowed but it didn’t really help.

“I’ll make sure she’s safe, Mr. Hwang, you don’t have to worry about us,” I said and the man looked into my eyes. He was going to kill me if I hurt Tiffany.

“Please do, you’re the one I trust most.” Even if he cared about me as well.

If Tiffany wanted me to think and mull over our relationship and why I should get back together with her, then it wasn’t working. Kim was blasting music until it was all I could think and somehow I was in the middle of it all, hands all over the birthday girl. The sweat, the skin, the moves, everything was clouding my eyes. My mind started drifting, saying Tiffany and I should probably talk about everything, but she snuck in a quick kiss and I temporarily lost sight. “What’s up?” she hummed against my neck, the vibration trailing down my spine. We stumbled out of the crowd, music suddenly a second thought.

“Should we be doing this?” I sighed as she dug her nose into my collar. I leaned against the counter, the coolness bringing some clarity to my thoughts and eyes. I wanted to pinch those red cheeks when Tiffany grinned.

“They know how I feel about you, they know you’re into girls, we can always pass it off as getting drunk,” she hummed, kissing up my neck with light touches.

“Why didn’t you say everything?” We still weren’t completely honest. If she wanted people to know about us, why not tell them about the whole story?

“Just in case, you decide against us.” She pulled the roots of my hair, sighing into my lips. The crown of my head buzzed. It was so easy to drift when it came to her. My fingers twitched, aching to feel, and then Matt jumped out of nowhere into the corner of my eye.

“Matt.” He wouldn’t hesitate to say something. Until we could sit down and talk clearly, it was probably best not to have other people’s opinions intruding. Tiffany seemed to understand and leaned back, hiding her face from Matt.

“Hey! Taeng did you bring your car?” he shouted over the bass.

“Yeah! I got my dad’s truck! Is Kim gonna shut it down soon?” I yelled back, letting Tiffany hold my hand.

“Maybe in an hour, it’s still loud as !” he grinned, snatching my arm. “Let’s dance!” I managed to see Tiffany laughing before the music came to the front of my brain.

“Are you too drunk to drive?” Tiffany’s voice was kind of loud in the quiet house. I counted the number of drinks I had on my hands until I ran out of hands. But the night was old, no one else was on the road, and my senses still felt normal.

“It’ll be okay, I promise,” I kissed her and she grinned, breaking away from me. Cold keys fell into my palm and I squeezed down on them, imprinting their shape into my skin. “They’re probably suspecting us.”

“Yeah…” she hummed against my lips. I whined a little. Her lips tugged on mine, making my heart press against my chest. “Let’s get going.” A smack for the alcohol.

“Ow!” I ran after her, slipping into the night as everyone else laughed. I could almost see the sound waves, wobbling in orange and black. “She slapped my !”

“To be fair, you have a nice .” Sooyoung’s hand for sure left a mark on my skin. I growled, shaking my head a little too much as I sat behind the wheel.

“Get in the car before I leave you kids here,” I called, prompting a slap fight between Matt and Tiffany to sit shotgun.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” Zack chanted, just as the girl kicked Matt onto the grass and shut the door. The athlete jumped up, wobbling on weak knees.

“!”

“You’re a little too much,” I mumbled, watching Tiffany’s skin prickle. I bit back a grin. I shouldn’t feel so good.

“Only I should sit next to you in the car, so I can do this.” My fingers gripped the wheel as my best friend’s hand flickered against my thigh. Best friend? Is that all we are now? Not exes, not girlfriends, but we’re not friends. A zip of adrenaline fogged up my brain, spinning around behind my eyes.

“Are you guys done staring into each other’s eyes?! Let’s get going!” My neck cracked as I turned away, but maybe it was slower than I thought because I could still feel how Tiffany’s hand slipped from my thigh to my knee.

I tilted the rearview mirror down, focusing on the way my friends in the back bounced on the mattress and screamed. I didn’t realize how fast I was going until I saw their hair whipping back. I laughed at them, rolling down my window to get a taste of the wind. It gripped my face and smacked me on the cheek a couple of times. “This is awesome!” Tiffany screamed out the window, throwing her arms around like rubber. I grinned hard. She was going to regret those bags under her eyes, and one day in the future her eye smiles would come back to bite her in the , but right now she was stunning.

We took our breaths back in the parking lot of our high school. I laid my head on Matt’s stomach, staring into the lamp bulb until my eyes could see it on the pavement. Tiffany’s head was on his leg, her arms holding me like I’d fall off.  “Remember our senior prank?” It was the best senior prank in history.

“How can I forget it? Zack made me do yard work at 2 in the morning,” I laughed in sync with my best friends. It was kind of uncomfortable though since Matt was fit and his body was taut. My fingers ran through Tiffany’s hair. She purred a cute little purr.

“Hey! Don’t complain if you were down with it! You know that prank put us on the map!”

“It was definitely creative, making a yard in front of the school.” Our entire class pooled in money to buy sod patches, pink flamingoes, gnomes, beach balls, and a kiddy pool. We even stuck a picket sign into the sod that read our class. Student body reps and others who were voted for the job went to the school and set everything up at 2 in the morning.

“That was so cool! I still have pictures,” Hailey said, scrolling through her phone, on a search. A hand rode up the back of my shirt and I arched my back, letting it wrap around me.

“I wasn’t even tired then,” Ji sighed, settling down on the other side of Matt.

“Too hocked up on coffee and adrenaline,” Zack nodded. His sigh became a mess of white in the air. I glanced at Tiffany, brushing her hair the way she liked. What am I going to do with you?

“I love you,” she mumbled like it was a secret.

“I love you too.” Everyone around us got stiff but I ignored them. They didn’t know what I meant. I barely knew.

Once we were alone in the safety of walls and doors, I got a hug. It wasn’t like those half-assed, three second hugs. It wasn’t like those lazy hugs with only one arm. Tiffany pulled me against her until I could only breathe in her scent. She cupped my neck with one hand and the other one traced my spine. It was like she wanted to know just how many little vertebrae were in my back. And she wanted to break me with how gently her fingers moved, each tip carrying the burden of a thousand words.

We weren’t in bed for 30 minutes when I woke up. Tiffany disappeared. My heart stopped. Wasn’t I the one that was supposed to leave? Did I have any intentions to leave? I stopped freaking out when I heard a squeak. I rubbed my eyes and crawled out of bed, following the sounds. “Sorry, Babe, did I wake you up?” Tiffany ditched her pants and pulled on a sweatshirt. She sat on the counters, so I buried my face in her lap.

“You left…” I grumbled.

“Couldn’t sleep.” She kissed my head and I hummed, holding her waist. “What have you been thinking about?”

“You and stuff,” I sighed. She smelled like a shower. As if my brain wasn’t already mushy.

“You and stuff.” She giggled. “Do you know why we spent today the way we did?” I looked up at her, squinting, but I could still see her. It was time to get serious. It was at least 4 in the morning.

“Why?” she played with my shoulders, brushing over them and making me let out little breaths.

“I wanted to show you what we could be.” She looked at me in the eyes before going back down. “My dad can glare at you over lunch, making silent death threats.” At least she knew her dad freaked me out a little. “We can go to parties and dance and get hopelessly flirty.” She gave me a small kiss and I ached for more. “We can hang out with our friends and get little butterflies when they say we’re too mushy.” The thought made my fingers curl into her skin, pulling her closer. “We can have talks in the middle of the night, when I’m half- and you’re too exhausted to know, about everything.” I tilted up and kissed her again. I sighed into . “We can make love all night long, until the sun comes up…” Tiffany made me quake just from the sound of her voice, the way she drew her syllables together and slurred when she got excited.

Red stains coated my neck, shoulders, stomach, legs. Every piece of skin Tiffany could get her lips on, she pressed them there. I couldn’t remember when she put on such a sinful coat of tint but it burned me whole. I glanced at the girl beside me, still wearing that old sweatshirt, still without pants. She needed to let off some steam. I stared back at the ceiling. It was my turn to.

My hand braced the front door, not letting a squeak get out. I couldn’t wake Tiffany. When I stepped back, I let out a breath and jumped into the truck. It took a lot, but I finally drove down the road, on a familiar path.