Page 55 of Begin Again Again

She pretended not to see Byron’s look of surprise. “I ask, only because you never answered my question on your porch.”

“Right.” Byron scratched the side of his head. “You mean at work?”

“Yeah. The only other electrician I know is my friend from school, and he electrocuted himself twice in 2015. It was on the news and everything. Although making the news in New Zealand isn’t the biggest deal. The Herald’s social pages are just pictures of whatever blonde women wore a dress that weekend.”

The corner of Byron’s mouth quirked up. “I’ve never electrocuted myself. Got some zaps though. How’d your mate do it twice?”

“No idea. He’s a loose cannon. He called his business ‘Day and Night Electrical,’ after the Kid Cudi song, then he got annoyed because people kept asking if he could come over at night.”

Byron laughed. “He didn’t see that coming?”

“Not at all. His merch was cool though. I still have one of their t-shirts. Although why he had mer—”

“Horoscopes?” Byron tugged her hand, pulling her closer. “What are you doing?”

He smelled like clean skin and hot guy aftershave. Did men from different generations pick different colognes, the way they wore different styles of jeans? Or was she imagining he smelled younger than her?

“Bethany…?”

“I’m not doing anything,” she lied.

Byron slid a hand around her waist. “Pretty sure you bailed on our agreement not to pretend.”

“I have not!”

He raised his slashed eyebrow. “Really?”

Beth remembered what Lara said about guys not fucking girls who joked all the time. She sighed. “I can’t help it, okay? You’re sexy and I want you to like me.”

Byron moved forward, his hips locking with hers. “I already like you.”

“How can you say that so easily?”

“Because I like you.”

“We’ve been on, like, one and a half dates?”

“Yeah, and I like you.”

“But whyyyy?”

“Because I like you.” He paused. “I could do this all night, you know?”

“That won’t be necessary. I accept that you think that you know that you like me.”

Byron rolled his eyes. “Okay, so what if instead of arguing with you, I do this?”

He bent down and Beth barely had time to panic before he kissed her. She resisted for a second, then melted into his touch. Heat poured from his body to hers as he wrapped his arms around her, kissing her harder. She shivered as his tongue touched hers and could have sworn he smiled against her lips. There was something so cocky about the way he touched her, it made her head spin. She pictured his gigantic bed, the way he’d promised to go down on her until she was begging for his cock…

A sharp light burned Beth’s eyes and she and Byron jumped apart like criminals. The Uber, a black Prius, drove toward them with its high beams on. Byron flagged the car with his hand. When it stopped, he opened the passenger side door for Beth. “After you.”

Beth wanted to clutch her chest and say ‘oh my stars,’ but she didn’t. Take that, Lara.

They rode through the suburbs in silence, Taylor Swift’s “Delicate” on the radio. Beth wanted Byron to hold her hand again. She waited a couple of minutes then realised what she was doing. Byron didn’t say anything as she entwined their fingers, but he squeezed her palm just a little. Beth smiled as BLACKPINK’s “How You Like That” blared through the car’s speakers. Her heart was light, her fingers very warm.

Six pop songs later, the Prius pulled into an industrial estate. Beth might have worried the driver was planning to kill them, but she could already hear a throbbing bassline beneath Shaun Mendes’ “Wonder.” She looked around at the concrete buildings and saw one had its roller door pulled up, pink disco lights spilling onto the asphalt. As she watched, two people in heels and tight dresses stumbled out, unlit cigarettes between their teeth. Her heart lurched—she was going to a nightclub. Another lurch. Sober.

“Here?” the driver asked.

---