[ v . i ]
The windows of Sandy's Buick were rolled down, letting the lingering smell of In-N-Out drift away from the leather seats. As the sun set behind the shadowed palm trees, she gave a pointless albeit quick glance around the car before shooting Freddy a devious smile. She pulled a carton of Marlboros from her pocket, flicking it open and holding it out to him. He looked down and stared at the one filter that was not quite like the others.
"I wanna level up," she said to herself, tapping the steering wheel rhythmically.
"You sure we're not gonna get caught like this?" His fingers strayed over it hesitantly.
"Positive," she swore, slowing to turn a narrow corner. "I do it all the time, nobody really notices. If a cop drives by, I just roll my window up and pray to God they think it's a cigarette. Stupid, I know, but it never fails."
Freddy chuckled and pulled the end of the joint out, folding the top of the carton over. "Do you always keep one in here?"
"Sometimes," Sandy shrugged and slipped the cigarettes back in her pocket as he held the filter in his teeth. "You ever smoked Thai before?"
"Can't say I have."
She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, buddy. You're about to go to Paris."
"What?" Freddy squinted as she held out her lighter, letting him guard it against the wind with his hand.
"Have you ever been to Paris?" He shook his head as she continued regardless. "Have you ever been to fucking Paris, Freddy? Have you ever been to the fucking moon?! I have. This is the shit, dude."
Freddy laughed, blowing out half his first hit before taking another.
"Is this the side of town you live on?" he asked, relaxing in his seat and propping his arm on the open window.
"Used to."
"You live in the city now?"
"Yeah." She took the spliff between her fingers as smoke billowed from Freddy's mouth. "We actually drove by my old high school a while back."
"Really?" The car slowed to a stop, red light flooding the windshield.
"Yeah. You know there are kids getting pregnant at, like, fifteen now?"
"It's always been that way," Freddy remarked, receiving an eye roll in response.
"I know, but it's bad now, dude." She sucked in another breath of smoke and passed him the joint. "It's crazy to me. You know what I was doing at fifteen?"
"What?"
"Working at fucking Claire's Accessories." He chuckled as a black truck pulled up next to them at the intersection, blaring music behind the closed windows. "Not getting plowed by the gimp captain of the football team."
The light flashed green and Sandy's boot pulled away from the brake.
"Watch it," Freddy defended, tapping the ash off the end of the reefer and putting it back between his teeth. "I was captain of my football team."
Sandy puffed out a short cackle. "Bullshit."
He held his hand over his chest in feigned offense. "What are you insinuating, Sandra? That someone as jacked as me couldn't easily make captain?"
This made her giggle as she switched lanes, passing a slow-moving sedan that idled in the middle of the road. "Shut the fuck up. You were a baseball kid."
"How'd you know that?" He tilted his head at her, slightly impressed before he gestured at the upcoming stoplight. "Turn left up here."
"I dunno, you just look like one."
"I look like a baseball kid," he repeated, nodding as he tried to understand.
"No," she said flatly. "You look like a baseball."
Freddy chuckled and blew a thick line of smoke at her face in retaliation, prompting her to snatch the joint from his hand. She turned the corner swiftly, not bothering to look across the intersection first.
"Seriously though, dude. God just, like, came down from wherever the fuck he's hiding and whispered it to me."
This earned her a comical squint from Freddy as she took a brief hit.
"Do you know God?" she asked earnestly. "You should talk to him, he's a good friend of mine." She slowed as the car approached a neighborhood stop sign.
"Did God make you work at Claire's when you were fifteen?"
Sandy shrugged dramatically. "I don't know, let's ask him." She knocked on the frame of the driver's side window and looked up; his eyes soon followed hers.
"God?" Freddy called. "You there?"
They both waited in silence momentarily with no answer. "Shit!" she laughed, throwing her hands up in disappointment, "no one's home!"
She pointed to the sky--or the roof of the car, rather--as Freddy cackled. "Catch you later, big man," she concluded to herself, smiling contently before ashing the joint and handing it over the console.
It was now that she became aware of the ring on his finger, the metallic glint of it flashing under the street lights.
"Ah. See you're a married man." She eased on the gas again, driving her front tire through a puddle.
"Oh, this thing?" Freddy paused to take a hit and fiddled with the band on his finger. "Nah, it was my grandpa's. It's from Belgium."
She raised an eyebrow in suspicion as he exhaled. "Really?"
"I'm serious. This thing's been through the second world war. Hey," he nodded towards the windshield and she looked up from his hand. "Eyes on the road."
Sandy smirked and took the last of the spliff from between his fingers as she turned to face forward. She sucked in hard and started to roll down the window, the roach crackling as she did. Freddy stared as she flicked the empty filter out the window and milky smoke rolled endlessly from her mouth.
"Jesus Christ," he chuckled and rolled his own window down, the clouds of smoke from inside the car dispersing into the night air. "You have lungs of fucking steel."
Sandy gave a short cough and smiled. "That's funny, Eddie calls me Iron Lung."
"Iron Lung?" She gave a nod as he continued staring at her. "And what do you call him?"
"Faggot."
Freddy snickered and shook his head before gesturing to the road. "It's on the right."
She slowed at the corner, glancing over at him as she turned. Her hair fell from its place at her shoulder and she moved to tuck it behind her ear, the movement catching Freddy's attention. She looked away before their eyes could meet.
"How old are you again?" Sandy asked casually, trying to steer the small talk back on track.
"Twenty-nine."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive," he chuckled, rolling the window up as his apartment came into view. "Why?"
"Would've guessed younger."
"You calling me old?" Sandy gave him an exaggeratedly annoyed look and rolled her eyes. "What about you, then?"
"Turned twenty-two last week—this it up here?"
Freddy nodded. "I would've guessed older."
Her foot left the gas as she began to pull the car closer to the curb. The tires squeaked as the Buick eased to a stop at the corner of the street. She shifted into park and turned to him excitedly.
"Dude. You know I was born on the day Sharon Tate died?"
"Really?" He smirked skeptically while his hand moved to rest on the console.
"Yeah, the ninth of August, 1969," she nodded in confirmation and he raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Do you think I'm Sharon Tate reincarnated?"
Freddy stared for a second or two before his eyes widened. "Hey, wasn't she pregnant when she died?"
"Holy shit, I'm the baby," Sandy gasped. He mirrored her surprise with a whispered "what the fuck", which she echoed once more after him. He pressed his fingers against his temple and laughed before the light touch of her hand on his arm caught his attention.
"Please don't tell anybody, this is too much pressure." She smiled wide, giggling as she held her hand up to his face. "Pinky promise you won't tell anyone. Fuck."
She tore her hand away and folded it in her lap, her face still remaining inches from his own. "Not like you can keep a secret anyways."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Freddy smirked and watched her eyes flicker to his.
"Dude, you told me your name from day one."
"You told me yours!"
She scoffed. "Whatever." Sandy's eyes wandered over the windshield and across the street to his apartment building. Through the dim street lamps she could see windows lit stories above them, glowing yellow and white against the bricks.
"Wait, when did we get here?"
Freddy furrowed an eyebrow and looked over. "What, my apartment? Like a minute ago."
Sandy blinked twice, staring up in deep thought. "I barely remember driving here, dude." She snickered, "have I said or done anything I should regret?"
"Not yet, but I mean," he remarked suggestively. "If you want to right now, we're already at my place so..."
When she turned her head to him, her eyes flickered in genuine surprise until she noticed his amused smirk. She let out an almost relieved giggle and leaned in closer to him, her hair dangling over the gear shift.
"Are you coming onto me right now?" She whispered it as if they weren't alone.
"Wouldn't be the first today," he shrugged, making Sandy chuckle nervously.
"What do you think of the guys?" Freddy was not at all surprised by her response of a dramatic eye roll. "Pink givin' you a hard time, huh?"
"Yeah," she sighed, pulling the arm of her baggy jacket up as it started to slip off her shoulder. "I hate being the only girl. I may as well have a sign on my fuckin' forehead that says, 'I'm Inconvenient!' in glowing yellow letters."
"Maybe he likes you."
"I don't know. Is it better to feel like you'll never do your job as well as the men can or that they all want to get in your pants? Or what about both? Am I making any sense?" Freddy nodded while he flicked the black dice hanging from her rearview, watching them as they swayed under the dim lights. "I mean, Ed's been trying to get at this for like, three years now. He still doesn't get that it's not happening. It never will."
He turned to look at her suddenly, lowering his hand to his lap. "Wait, you and Nice Guy aren't a thing?" He hoped his voice did not portray the same mild enthusiasm that he felt.
"Oh, hell no," she said adamantly, shaking her head at the thought. "I mean, not to suck my own dick or anything, but like," she gestured to herself, "eight? Is nine a stretch? ...But Eddie? Five on a good day."
"You don't like him?" Freddy held back a smirk.
"Not like that." She ran her fingers through the ends of her hair before laying it over her shoulder. "He wants to, but I know if we did, we'd realize we can't fucking stand each other after like, two weeks."
Freddy chuckled in understanding. He leaned the tiniest amount closer to her, looking into her half-shut eyes. The harsh flickering light hovering over the car door didn't do them any harm as they still sparkled flecks amber and gold beneath her eyelashes.
"So you're not into any of them?" He tried not to give himself away with the question, leaning back casually against the leather seat. She did the same, her eyes briefly flickering to his lips before she smiled.
"I didn't say that."
Freddy hesitated, only scanning over her face momentarily before his eyes locked hers. He looked at her admiringly, losing the rest of her features as her eyes became the center of his focus. They remained like that for only a second before Sandy tilted her head.
"What?"
Without answering, his fingers combed through her hair as he swooped in and pressed his lips against hers. He pulled away quickly, unsure she would reciprocate. She looked at him through her fluttering lashes, her pupils dilating and the soft bating of her breath tickling his lips. Without breaking her gaze, she leaned into him, wrapping her hand around the back of his neck as she kissed him hard. Freddy slipped his tongue into her open mouth almost immediately while her hand slid down to the center of his chest. His own snaked up to cradle her face.
Taking a break from the sugary taste of her lips, he grazed his nose over her jawline and spoke between kisses, "You have...no idea...how much I think about you." He pulled away, his hand still touching her cheek. Freddy dropped the low, raspy voice he'd been panting and looked at her considerately. "I'm not being too forward, am I?"
Sandy's grip tightened on his shirt as she bit her lip and giggled.