As our server clears our plates, the wind catches a loose cocktail napkin. You try to catch it, and I laugh - always showing off for me. I fan myself with my dessert menu.

It’s so hot during the day it feels like God hates you personally, and at night everyone is so delirious from the heat and so grateful for a recess from the sun they engage in immoral acts that are no doubt why God hates them so much.

I linger on the lip of my Negroni as I’m pulled into your eyes.

I’m thinking about leaving the restaurant with you. I’m thinking about a second location. I’m thinking about every iteration of every immoral act that could take place in a single room within a finiste period of time. I want to make tomorrow especially miserable for the both of us.

“I’m having a good time,” I say out loud. I’m having a better time than good, and I’m going to make sure it keeps getting gooder and gooder. But I like to keep a few cards to myself.

You laugh.

“I know you are,”

I blush so hard that I laugh and cover part of my face with my hand - the hand my cards were in, which are now useless.

You raise your bourbon to your lips, arrogantly. I’m annoyed and aroused. I hate that you know all my tricks, but I love that I’ve wanted to show off for you.

“We should get out of here,”

The recommendation of subtraction. Subtracting every person and material and word that comes between

us.

I nod softly as my hand reveals my face - I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.