Once they’re in the car, the darkness closes in around them intimately. The radio is down low, soft, so they can hear the music but not the lyrics. Passing street lights flicker over the dashboard, stripe across the console between them, then disappear somewhere behind. At the first stop light they catch, Jim covers Alan’s hand on the gear shaft. His fingers curl through Alan’s, strong and warm. When the light changes, Alan doesn’t shift into gear immediately; he doesn’t want to lose Jim’s touch. But an engine behind them revs and Jim’s hand returns to his lap, and Alan puts the car into gear.
For the first time he can ever recall, he wishes he drove an automatic.
Though he drives well under the posted speed limit and tries to hit every stop light he can, Alan finds that, before long, he
