This was the mark of deep infatuation, he thought: the desire to watch a woman talk just to see her lips move, to be around her. - Hugh Howey

Swiveling in his old wooden chair, the legs squeaking as if startled by the sudden movement, he glanced at the clock on the wall behind him and surveyed the time imprisoned behind its yellowed and crazed plastic dome.

When the headlights hit us, the rays acted like a steel blade slicing through our indecision. Our thoughts and plans fell away — as did our logic and ability to reason. All that remained was the urge to flee.

And it’s hard to say who moves first. There is a lightning bolt of awareness, an electrical shock as my mind rewires itself to cope with this looming fact: We are about to kiss. And then I’m pulling him into me, and I swear I feel him pulling me as well, and lips that I have damned crash into the lips that damned them. Holding his face, like one might cup a chalice, I realize how thirsty I was for this. How badly I want him right then, in that moment. I don’t care who he is, who I am, or about any story.