Elke didn't get to see Joost break out into a wide grin. Instead of continuing to tug at Roan's hand, Elke yanked at his arm's socket. It forced him to turn with a swivel of his heels and Elke glared up at Roan fiercely.

'Roan, don't be so ridiculous,' she hissed. The collective noise from Joost's friends did well in blanketing her words. While Roan's statement went down in 'ooo's and snickers, Elke pleaded to her boyfriend.

'I'll be fine, El. I've done it before,' he said hurriedly.

It was true. Roan had raced before and every time, it sent Elke into cardiac arrest. She had never been in the car while he shot through the streets at high speeds but watching from the sidelines was no less terrifying. It was unsafe, stupid and a dead man's game. The close-calls and exhilarating finishes were too much for Elke but Roan never cared.

After begging and pleading, Elke had stopped trying to steer Roan's obsession away from racing. She resorted to sitting with her hands over her eyes. But this time, not Roan nor any of his friends had any idea what Joost was like behind the wheel.

He was only challenging him out of his dislike for Elke's neighbour. For all they knew, Joost could be a dirty player, although Elke doubted it.

When Roan turned back, the reaction had quietened and Joost was working at retracting his grin.

'Thanks, but I don't want to race tonight,' Joost said, his tongue teeming with more to say.

'Why?' Roan pushed and Joost shrugged with his hands in his jacket's pockets.

'I've not got my car with me.'

Roan's insides boiled with the way Joost looked down at him. They were the same height but it wasn't the elevation that threatened Roan. It was the effortless aura of the blonde, his close living situation to his girlfriend and the silver Impreza that sat in their apartment's underground carpark.

'What about the Porsche?'

'What about it?' Enzo intervened, this time, with a daring scowl. Roan was going to say how amazing Porsches were at racing but he didn't want to flatter anyone.

With all the stares, Roan was getting more and more agitated. Humiliated, Roan finally dropped Elke's hand and turned away. Elke didn't have the luxury of receiving his acknowledgement as he headed for his car. His friends rushed to talk to him but he threw the driver's door and got in wordlessly.

Elke was sure she looked pathetic as Roan pulled out of his parking space. The engine roared, making some who weren't paying attention jump in their places. Elke would have done the same if she wasn't already deaf to the noise.

In a series of erractic turns, the WRX left the meet in a huff of annoyance. People watched until the tires screeched on the main road, including his friends who were left behind without a ride home.

They tried to play off the situation by lowering their heads in a huddle. They knew enough people and had enough connections to hitch a ride from someone else at the meet. They mumbled in agreement, finished their drinks and seperated.

Not one of them looked Elke's way, the girl having not moved from her place in the street. She should have learnt by now that being unalert in a carpark was dangerous but the heat of her embarrassment clouded her judgement.

Elke's own jumper sleeve made her jump as it ghosted her arm. Whipping around, the girl reered her arm back and was met with piercing blue eyes. His hand was outstretched, having touched Elke to get her attention with a soft 'hey'. But his fingers didn't make anymore contact other than with the fabric of her blue jumper. None the less, it made her recoil with a soft gasp.

'Sorry,' Joost said. His lopsided smile had vanished from his face, leaving him with tight lips and dulled eyes. He looked at Elke with a pity that she hated but was used to.

Elke sighed and said, 'It's okay. I'm sorry about that.'

'You have nothing to apologise for. In fact, he should be apologising to you.'

Pushing hair out of her face, Elke noticed that Joost's friends had retreated to the black Porsche. They talked about the encounter with scoffs and rolled eyes. Even though it had been tense, they laughed at points and imitated Roan's voice. Elke felt like she should be offended but she was no where near the word.

'Do you have a ride home?' Joost asked, bringing Elke's attention back to the man beside her. His tall frame loomed over her and a street light beamed perfectly behind his head. It made his bright hair cast shadows over his chiselled face. Elke tried to drag her eyes behind him or anywhere that would appear as a casual sweep of the eyes, but ultimately, Elke ended up back at Joost.

'I drove here.'

'In your Swift?' she nodded and Joost broke out into a smile. 'That's brave. Where is it?'

She pointed a finger to the next carpark across the street. On it's lonesome, sat her Suzuki. Fresh from the factory with no modifications, Elke's standard vehicle sunk into the background of the loud sports cars around them. She wouldn't have dared to park it where the petrolheads of the meet would see it or assume it belonged to someone attending.

Joost thought it was the most adorable thing he had ever seen. A Swift sitting on it's own in the dark was one thing, the thought of Elke parking it far away and hurrying with her head down was another. He laughed, turned back to Elke and adored the way she smiled shyly.

'Look, Joost...' she started, her smile fading and putting him on edge. 'I'm sorry about Roan. He can be such a child some times and for him to talk to you and your friends like that is unacceptable.'

'Don't worry about it-'

'No, it's not okay,' Elke crossed her arms and exasperated her tone. 'He's so prideful and I don't know what to do with him anymore. He embarrassed himself and me and I'm just so sick of it.'

There was so much that Joost wanted to say. It was hard enough to watch a man like Roan parade around while a woman like Elke trailed behind him. But to hear Elke voice her honesty on how she really felt, it became a whole new game of Joost biting his tongue.

'I'm just your neighbour,' he started and Elke went to retract her previous rant. Had she let too much slip? Was Joost feeling uncomfortable with her berating her boyfriend?

'But I'm also a guy with eyes, so I don't understand why Roan acts the way he does with someone like you to his name.'

Elke didn't understand and she showed it by raising her eyebrows in question. Joost pursed his lips at her reaction and glanced to his right, where Tantu, Daan, Enzo and Stuntje watched closely.

He had been feeling their stares for the entire conversation. It was only now that he considered calling for their help.

Tantu had filled them in on who Roan was and why the man disliked Joost as much as he did. This made his friends, who weren't occupied like Apson with his own girlfriend, watch the interaction while hanging on to every movement of Joost and Elke's mouths.

Turning back, Joost's fingers fidgeted in his pockets at the brown eyes that stared up at him. He wanted to shy away, make an excuse on why he had to leave. But at the same time, every tortured minute next to Elke was a minute Joost thought about fondly.

'You're pretty, Elke. Surely you know that,' he finally said. 'A guy should be worrying about whose looking at you rather than racing.'

The time it took for Elke to recollect herself was long. Her jaw hung open and a warmth grew rapidly on her cheeks. There was no joke in Joost's tone and he made sure to tilt his head when he spoke. He didn't smile because that could be taken as teasing and there was no falsehood in his admission.

Instead, Joost was unwavering despite his nervousness.

'You... that's-that's not... okay...' was all Elke could manage. Her stutters accompanied her rapid blinking. She tried to make sense of what Joost said and prayed that her face wasn't as red as it felt.

Joost thought Elke was pretty. That shouldn't have made her feel the way that it did. It made her chest swell and her mind race with jumbled thoughts. One side of her brain told her to awkwardly shrug it off because, hell, she had a boyfriend. The other side melted and giggled with a hand to her lips in a gush of emotion.

She was thrown back to the times when Roan would make her feel like this. But it had been months since then and now, Elke was blushing madly in front of Joost Klein. His very presence made Elke want to inch closer and accidentally brush her arm against his. When Joost smiled, she wanted to enjoy whatever it was that brightened his handsome face. When Elke was alone in her apartment, she hoped that Joost would knock at the door in a spotaneous visit.

What was she doing? Why was she still in the carpark blushing in front of her handsome neighbour?

'Whose your friend, Joost?'

Turning away from each other, the two were spared another awkward silence by a young woman. With dark hair and an oversized jumper, she had asked Joost the question all while smiling at the brunette she didn't know.

'This is my new neighbour,' Joost gestured. 'Elke, this is Alanis, Apson's girlfriend.'

'He's over there whispering with the others,' the girl said and Elke followed her finger to see where Joost's friends gathered.

Apson was in the passenger seat when Elke was nearly ran over. He had short, curly hair and a wide smile. He and the other men tried to appear like they weren't just watching the interaction they had single-handedly set up. They were tired of not knowing what Joost was saying to the girl who was abandoned by her own boyfriend. When they saw red splotches grow on her cheeks, Apson volunteered his girlfriend to intervene.

Alanis resisted, asking why in the world Joost was talking to a girl that had a boyfriend. But after some coercion, it wasn't long until Alanis was placing herself in the mix of stutters and stolen glances.

'It seems like you need a friend,' Alanis said. 'Lucky for you, we've been long overdue for another female. You'll realise that soon enough.'

'Sounds like I've already been indoctrinated,' Elke joked, grateful for the talk that eased her flushed cheeks. She liked Alanis' forward nature. It made her feel safe and welcome after being left in Roan's dust.

'Call it what you will, El.'

Alanis was pulling Elke over to the Porsche before she knew it. Joost trailed behind them, shoving Stuntje's shoulder when he wiggled his eyebrows silently. As Alanis introduced everyone, Joost made sure to stand by Elke's side as she nodded politely. He unconsciously watched her try to recollect everyone's names and smiled when she got one wrong. It didn't go unnoticed by his friends, making them exchange looks from across their huddled circle.

'So your name isn't actually Tantu and your name isn't actually Stuntje?' Elke tried to get her head around the nicknames.

'You're Teun,' the man nodded.

'You're Martijn,' Stuntje nodded and his baby face smiled crookedly.

There was then Daan, who Elke greeted with a familiarity. He was hard to forget with his hairless head and she was hard to forget after nearly ending up on the Joost's bonnet.

'Well, it was nice to meet you all. I'm going to head home,' Elke eventually said and was farewelled by everyone. It was a big change from what usually happened when she left car meets. If she was lucky, Roan might have given her a kiss when his friends weren't looking.

Joost stepped away from the group to say his own goodbye. Elke didn't say anything to this and headed towards her car in the next carpark. At the end of the meet, Joost slowed and rummaged around in his jacket's pocket. He pulled out his cigarettes and lighter, dying for nicotine after the long night.

He had tried to resist smoking while Elke was around, fearing it would bother her, but she had stuck through his friends' introductions. That had to count for something.

'I'll wait here until you get over there,' Joost said, gesturing to the Swift in the dark. Elke tried to listen but was distracted by the lighting of his cigarette. He cupped his hands around his lighter's flame and his blonde lashes focused on lighting the end. Smoke puffed into the night as Joost straightened up and his eyes landed on the girl who was yet to speak.

Taking the stick in between two fingers, Joost exhaled with his shoulders sagging. He thought about bringing his pack back out and offering Elke one. He hadn't thought that she smoked, but as she lingered in front of him, Joost cursed his assumption. He didn't want to be rude so he stuck his hand back into his pocket.

'Did you want a ride home?'

Joost paused. Elke tried to keep her feet from scuffing anxiously against the tar. The question had troubled her since walking from the Porsche to where the main road began.

It was innocent with no other connotations. He was her neighbour, they lived at the same address, and he was going to be driven home by Enzo, anyway. The question shouldn't ravage her nerves like it did but with a shaky breath, Elke tried to act as casual as possible.

Pursing his lips to surpress his smile, Joost stared at the girl full of surprises. He took a drag and Elke watched, mesmerized. Lines formed where his cheeks hollowed and his perfect chin displayed a black mole. How Elke never noticed it, she didn't know.

'Sure,' he answered, giddily. 'I'll let Enzo know.'