London wanted Dahlia to keep talking about traffic, about the road, about her car back home, about anything, really. Dahlia could sing the ABCs and it would help. London wanted to tell her that she was helping. But words were still feeling hard.
So London didn’t say anything, and Dahlia stopped talking, and they drove for ten more minutes in silence. Until she pulled off the road randomly at an unmarked pull-off. She turned off the ignition and sat there for a second. Then she looked over at them.
“Hey, London?”
They unclicked their seat belt and met her gaze, raising an eyebrow.
“Fuck anyone who doesn’t see you.”
She got out of the car, slammed her door, and walked to the cliff’s edge.
London watched her for a minute, listening to their heart beat in their ears. They wanted to crystalize this moment, however bittersweet it felt: Dahlia Woodson at the ocean’s edge, wind blowing her hair, legs stretching for miles. Wanting to see them.
Feeling stranger than they had before, eventually London opened the car door and joined her.
They found a rickety set of stairs that led down to the beach. There was no one else there that they could see, which felt unbelievable after the chaotic mess of LA. Two majestic golden columns of rock jutted out of the waves.
“Look at this,” Dahlia breathed. “This is the prettiest place I’ve ever been.”
London agreed in silence. The water went on forever. The crash of the waves, the cry of the seagulls overhead. It forced the present on them. They couldn’t ignore any of this.
They looked over at Dahlia to say something. To thank her for bringing them here. To thank her for what she said in the car. To tell her how wonderful she was.
But when their eyes landed on her, they puffed out a half-frustrated, half-amused burst of air instead.
“For crying out loud, Dahlia.”
And before they could stop themself, they reached out and stuck both of their hands in her hair. The wind had made it wild, and it whipped around in every direction like a dust storm, obscuring her face. “Can you even see anything right now with this?” London tried to tame the dark locks with their hands, smoothing it away from her face, but the ends kept flying back, refusing to settle. “Seriously.”
When London finally got enough of it in their fists to get a good look at her, they found her looking up at them, smiling, and everything crashed together inside of them, sharp and vivid: Their fingers tangled in the hair they’d been dreaming about for three weeks, their face inches from hers, the empty beach and the wind stealing their breath.
Dahlia leaned forward and kissed them.
London’s brain barely had time to process the feel of her lips, soft and pliant and sweet, their fingers automatically curling even tighter through her hair, silky and strong, the touch of their noses bumping together, before they started to cough.
London backed away involuntarily, their hands letting loose of their hold on her, choking on the tickle of a strand of her hair in their mouth.
Dahlia started to laugh. She pulled away too, yanking on the black elastic that perpetually encircled her right wrist. She dipped her chin, gathering the strands of her mane onto the top of her head. London stood still, heart pounding, fascinated at getting to watch this process up close, even closer than on set—stray pieces kept flying at their face as she worked on containing it—while disappointment dropped to their toes.
They were positive the moment had passed. They felt every inch of space between them. How could London have blown that so badly?
Although technically, it was her hair’s fault.
But when Dahlia finally finished thirty seconds later, the longest thirty seconds of London’s life, she closed the gap again. There wasn’t even a beat of hesitation. Which meant the first time hadn’t been merely a spontaneous fluke, the result of London rudely grabbing her hair in their hands. Their hands remained at their sides now, limp and useless, but Dahlia stepped toward them anyway. Close enough for London to smell coconuts.
Her hands cupped their face. Oh. Her hands were on their face. They were so soft. She was so soft.
London looked down at her for one second, saw the smile in her eyes before she closed them and leaned in. London didn’t waste it this time.
They pushed into her lips so fervently that she stumbled back a step, and London quickly wrapped their arms around her, steadying her with their palm on the small of her back. Their mouths opened to each other and there was her tongue, finally, hot and surprisingly determined, just like Dahlia, and the feel of it tugged at a string in their gut, a string that set everything else on fire.