Vignette from Inside My Toyota Highlander

Giancarlo Ricci

Afterwards, we notice the mess: our unzipped jeans slumped across the dash, my chipped bong fallen against the now-cold pizza box, his blackberry juul lying beside the lube I bought on my way here, and we lock eyes before belly-laughing at the sight. I slink onto his lap, our calves dangling out the open trunk, looking westward onto unlit pacific water. He presses his hairy chest into my naked back, draws my waist towards his soft dick, drags his stubbly chin against my collarbone: now our heads are resting against each other, and we let the late-summer breeze lick our flushed bodies, softly swallowing air that tastes like sativa and sea-salt and sex. I lean so deeply into his warmth that he consumes me whole. We stay like that, watching the tide sink lower and lower, before he jumps out onto freezing sand, then grins with all his teeth. He stares at me before starting down the vacant coast, gliding between glassy beachgrass and the grainy night-ocean, and now I’m laughing, watching him sprint naked down the shoreline, running further and further away.