“What happened back there?”

“Ah, shit.” I pinched a section of my bleached hair between two fingers and inspected the singed, uneven ends. “Burned my hair.”

“Louisa,” Andrew said.

He hit the wheel for emphasis, and the BMW honked in response. A laugh almost burst from my chest. Instead, I twirled the ruined hair around a finger and dragged my gaze from my frazzled reflection in the visor mirror, across the dashboard lit up with the details of a trashy pop song, then, to him.

The lighting in the country club’s bar had done Andrew justice. I met him in the rise and swell of shadows and sweeping neon lights that sharpened the lines of his face, the veins of his exposed forearms, and I could not resist his hands around the sweating glass, the easy way he leaned forward on his elbows to speak to the bartender, or the whiskey that shined on his stubbled lips. All I had to do was ask him to dance.

Behind the wheel, and in the sober, flashing glare of headlights that surged down the highway, Andrew looked worn. His unshaven face aged him; forlorn and shadowed with exhaustion, it was a softer shape than I remembered from hours before. The messy sleeve cuffs and loosened tie around his neck had warped into something disheveled, almost unappealing, despite being part of the enticing visage that drew me to the barstool next to him in the first place.

When he raised a shaggy eyebrow at me in the car, I could not hold in my laughter any longer. “Call me Lou,” I said. I flicked on the interior light and reached down the front of my dress. I pulled out a tube of lipstick, then looked back in the mirror to smear the bright red across my lips and rub the excess off my wine-stained teeth.

Andrew croaked in disbelief. He tore his eyes away from me and focused on the highway again. “Lou,” he echoed. “Thanks for clarifying.”

“No problem, Drew.”

“Andrew.”

I frowned at the sight of my hair, which had fallen victim to the thick, Floridian night—limp against the sides of my face like a shaggy, platinum rag. Andrew reached out, punched off the light with one finger, and flipped the mirror back up. It hit the roof of the car with a hollow thud.

“I need you to answer my question,” he said. A spark flashed underneath the tired mahogany of his eyes. “Tell me what happened.”

What happened. Well, I’d been running, stilettos clattering down the uneven sidewalk, the smell of gasoline spilling from the scene, terrified screams rising over the whoosh of flames and the shrieking alarm of Julien’s—my ex’s—car. I fumbled the lighter with one hand and caught it before I could drop it; with the other hand, I swung a golf club while I fought to catch my balance. Cabernet sloshed in the space behind my eyes, and the nighttime wobbled in front of me. A shout ripped from my chest—Go, go, go!—as I tumbled into Andrew’s cool, leather passenger seat. The country club shrunk behind us, the shadow of flames dancing on its ivory facade. It was almost too easy, escaping a crime I never planned to commit.

“It was an accident.”

Andrew snorted, his eyebrows teasing his hairline. “You accidentally set a car on fire?”

“Yes,” I responded. “An accident.”

Somehow, coming up with an answer was harder than stuffing my favorite pair of underwear halfway into the gas tank and holding a lighter up to the pink lace. It was not as easy as turning my back on Julien and working the words I need a favor around Andrew’s heated lips while we danced. A hint of lavender peeked from underneath the stench of sweat and booze on his skin. He lowered his head to hear me, nodded when I told him to take me home.

Before I slipped out of the country club to meet Andrew, I swiped a golf club from the pro shop, then stumbled through the parking lot until I found Julien’s car. The Audi’s alarm blasted through the humid night once I swung the club at the windshield, rear view mirrors, and passenger window until the glass bent, fractured, then shattered. I took my time to climb into the car, dig a lighter out of the center console, and slip out of my panties.

No, the fire was not an accident, but how do you tell your getaway driver what you did moments before he rounded the corner smoothly, unknowingly?

You don’t tell him.

Not yet.

The road unraveled underneath Andrew’s car in ribbons of tar-black uncertainty, leading us headfirst down a winding exit. I recognized another song’s catchy tune, reached out, and turned up the volume, humming the lyrics while watching the streetlights and empty gas stations hurl in and out of sight. Andrew drummed his fingers on the steering wheel with his lips pressed together. His chilly demeanor froze over what was once a smooth confidence glowing from underneath his skin. I tasted it on his tongue, too, and felt it in his body when we danced between other drunk bodies pulsing with bass-ridden electricity.

A few miles later, Andrew pulled in front of a stately apartment complex tucked behind lines of palm trees. He cleared his throat. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Of course, I do.”

I fluffed my bangs, ran my fingers through my hair, and stretched my neck until I felt a satisfying crack. He gripped the wheel with both hands, though the car was in park. The way he flexed his jaw reminded me of Julien, and I tried not to flinch when he looked at me. “Whatever it is you’re doing, why did you drag me into it?”

I adjusted my dress—a silver, satin piece that proved hard to run in, and opened the passenger door. “I need a place to stay for a few days. It’s too dangerous for me to go back to mine.”

“Stay?” he repeated.

“That’s what I said.”

I feared his face would get stuck in a permanent expression of shock if he kept raising his eyebrows like that. “Louisa, what the fuck are you hiding from?”

“It’ll only be for a week!” I blurted. He jumped back in his seat, eyes wide. I added, more quietly, “maybe two.”

“Two weeks? I don’t even know you!”

“Okay, I get that,” I said.

Andrew’s mouth strained to formulate words. He ran his hands through his hair, down his face, and sighed. I remembered how those hands felt against my waist as they guided my hips in a sultry dance. My stomach flipped.

“So, what do you expect me to do?” he asked.

We blinked at each other, both poised to get out of the car and yet unmoving. “Please,” I said. “I need help.”

He sunk back in the driver’s seat, not taking his eyes off me.

In the silent beat of hesitation, I heard the voice I so longed to forget already. Are you serious, Louisa? Julien cried over the noise of the crowd. You’re seriously gonna leave me because of some girl? His flushed face was so close to mine that he was almost out of focus. His grip crushed his glass, shards cutting into his calloused skin. Gasps erupted around us like weeds, or whatever it was that took root in the hairline cracks of our relationship. For a second, the bar tilted. The hand that held his drink was blood-spotted and soaked with fizzing bubbles of carbonation. Glittering smithereens of glass mocked us from the floor. In my shock I wondered, What grown man drinks vodka and Sprite? I could not force any retaliating words around the sob clawing its way from my throat, but I felt myself nod.

Back in the car, I leaned over and rubbed a thumb along the stubble on Andrew’s face. “If I go home, I’m afraid he will hurt me.”

“Who?”

“Julien.” The name took the shape of a curse on my tongue. “My boyfriend. Well, ex-boyfriend now.”

Andrew closed his eyes for a second, and I planted my lips on his cheek, jawline, and mouth until he leaned away from me. When I tried to get closer, he pushed me back. “Okay, okay,” he said. “You can stay, but only for a week.”

“Thank you,” I breathed.

“I’ll give you the spare key. Just take an Uber wherever you need to go, and don’t go snooping around when I’m not there.”

Andrew’s apartment was pristine. In the name of minimalism, its stark white walls hugged rooms of black, gray, and ivory. A plant and its wide, waxy leaves stood as the only splash of color near the window overlooking the city. After handing me the spare key, Andrew unfolded a stiff-looking couch into a bed. Like Julien, he was about a foot taller than me, though his frame was softer, narrower. “You can sleep here,” Andrew said, patting the futon. “I’ll get you a toothbrush and some pajamas. Do you like a lot of pillows?”

I noted his long fingers against the pale fabric and felt something stumble inside me. There was no band around his ring finger, no traces of a woman in such a bare apartment—that is, unless they shared a mutual dullness. “Yeah, please.”

“What about blankets?” he asked through an exhale. He felt something, too.

I tucked his spare key in my phone case while holding his nervous gaze. “Tell me, Drew—”

“Andrew.”

“—is there someone else I should know about?”

“What? No.” He stood straight, both arms at his side, then slackened again.

“So, no girlfriend out of town?”

Andrew’s throat bobbed before he said again, “No.”

I stepped closer to him and asked, “So, what if I slept in your bed?”

There was a beat of hesitation, a slight faltering in his eyes, during which I wondered if he was lying. In the master bathroom, there would be expensive shampoo and skin care products; in the drawers, overpriced activewear and tiny lace bras and thongs. I would be frozen in the crosshairs of my consequences, yet I was desperate for his acquiescence.

Finally, he exhaled and said, “Yeah, sure.”

I remembered Julien’s body, heavy and hot to the touch. I always felt his suffocating presence behind me, even as we walked into the country club moments after he pretended not to see the text from his coworker, which to me flashed on his phone screen like a strobe light: Just come over after she falls asleep. He steered me toward the bar with one hand at the back of my neck. I used to relish such a possessive touch until the doe-eyed bartender looked at me with such pity that I almost brushed Julien’s hand away. I couldn’t risk putting him in a bad mood, though. It was his birthday.

Before I confronted him, the wine rolled down my throat in two, three, four burning gulps. I tacked another glass on his open tab for good luck and mentioned his coworker’s text.

You’re overreacting! Julien cried. The whiskey on ice clung to his words and slid out as ghosts of his breath. Dramatic tears soaked his cheeks when I reeled back in my stool in response to all his slippery justifications: She wanted me first! It was just the one time! I thought relationships were all about forgiveness!

When he stormed off, I saw Andrew perched on the stool next to Julien’s.

Andrew led me to his king-sized bed without even touching me. I felt every fiber of his stiff, clumsy, lukewarm body as the white sheets scratched my bare skin. Afterward, Andrew placed a chaste kiss on my shoulder, then rolled off and stared at me like I was some sort of stranger, which was not far from the truth, I guess. I stared back.

“What?” I asked.

“What happens when the police find out I’m housing a criminal?” he blurted.

“A criminal?” I repeated. My heart sputtered at the word, but there was no use in pretending he was the crazy one.

“Yeah, you know how you blew up your ex’s car a few hours ago?”

“I know, I know.”

“You’re gonna get caught eventually, and so will I!”

I scooted closer to him and rubbed a hand on his chest. “We can figure that out later.”

“No, not later,” he said, scooting away from me. “What, you want to put me in danger or something?”

The appall on his face felt like a strike across mine. It made me realize how quickly my spontaneity became reckless. Andrew was right: I was endangering him. “No,” I responded. I lay on my back and spoke to the ceiling. “Of course not.”

“Then you need to leave.”

“But where would I go?”

Andrew shrugged. “Away.”

A pathetic noise came from my throat. I swiped away the tears and rolled on my side, facing away from him. “You’re an asshole,” I said into the pillow.

“And you’re not my responsibility!” Andrew cried. When I flinched in response, he softened a little, then added, “I need you to get out of my apartment before things get worse.”

I didn’t fight him. As a parting gift, he gave me an old t-shirt and a nice pair of sweatpants to wear instead of my skimpy dress. When I told him Julien was likely waiting for me back in our condo, he booked a room for me at a hotel about ten miles away. A hint of lavender detergent greeted me as I pulled his shirt over my head. Somehow, the sweatpants fit me perfectly.

The drive to the hotel was significantly quieter than the drive to Andrew’s apartment. In fact, it would have been silent if I did not point out to him that he missed his turn. He said, I know, with a coldness in his voice that shut me up the rest of the way there.

It was 2:48am when we pulled up to the hotel. Andrew didn’t even say goodbye as I folded my dress, grabbed my phone and wallet, and opened the car door. I wanted to thank him for helping me, maybe even saving me, but he reached over and closed the door before I could say anything. He didn’t even ask for his spare key, which I still had, nor did he wait to make sure I got into the hotel safely before peeling away into the stifling, summer night.

There was another woman in the lobby, and we shared tired smiles as she checked in. I couldn’t help but envy the sleek ponytail and pink, glossy lips she managed to maintain at such an hour. She wore a black, lace bodysuit and jeans that hugged endless curves. Her eyes paused for a second on my oversized-shirt-and-sweatpants-and-heels combo before her phone rang. She answered after three rings.

“I’m about to get on the plane, babe,” she said. She took another look at me, then at the front desk clerk who held her room key in his hand. His name tag read SAM. “Yeah, I have a minute to talk. What’s up?”

She mouthed sorry to Sam and took the room key. A familiar hint of lavender underneath her vanilla perfume hit me when she spun around and made her way toward the elevator. Sam and I couldn’t look away from her. Her hips swayed while she walked. Her black heels clacked on the porcelain tile floors. Her bubbly, flirtatious laugh echoed through the empty lobby.

“I haven’t even been gone a whole day and you already lost my spare key?” she giggled into her phone. She strutted into the elevator, then turned back around with slow, careful steps, like she could no longer balance in those heels. I thought she meant to look back at Sam, but her sharp eyes bore into me. She pressed the button to her floor at the same time she pressed her lips into a nauseating smile. Her voice hardened when the elevator doors started to close.

“Did you conveniently lose my favorite pair of sweatpants, too?”