I thought I'd gotten run over by a car. The air had been knocked out of my lungs, my heart beating so fast it felt like fireworks were going off in my chest.

But there were no physical signs of injury. Seeing Atlas Vaughn in a tight black suit on an elevator, gawking at me as I hung onto Dane's arm like a tacky trophy wife, did nothing except bruise my pride and my ego. And all I could manage to do was a meek wave at him until the elevator doors shut.

Dane ushered me along into the ballroom where the charity dinner was being held, but I was shell shocked. I just hoped it was loud enough in the ballroom so nobody could hear the sound of my heart as it threatened to explode from my chest. It took all my energy and effort just to muster up some cordial hi's and hello's to people I vaguely recognized, including Dane's manager Chris, who was thankfully as oblivious as ever. Dane on the other hand must have noticed how adrift I looked, my eyes glazed over as if I was lost at sea.

"You look like you need a drink." Dane kept his hand gently clasped to my shoulder, and suddenly the feeling of his skin on mine gave me chills, and not the good kind. So yes, I did need a drink.

"Whiskey, neat," I grumbled. Dane shot me a confused look, but I just shook him off. "Please, Dane."

He blew out a breath. "Yeah, sure, no problem."

I felt myself exhale a sigh of relief as he disappeared into a small crowd gathered around the bar. Finally alone with my thoughts, I grappled with the obvious, slapping my phone against the palm of my hand. Paraphrasing Shakespeare, to DM or not to DM?

Dane reappeared beside me, pressing a cold drink into my free hand, and I immediately took a throat-burning sip.

I wasn't sure how much time had passed mingling with people that glanced at me the way you'd expect people to glance at someone fallen from grace, but Addie bopped up to me and temporarily gave me reprieve as she agonized about what VSCO filter to use on our picture for Instagram.

I took another sip of my drink as Dane's hand brushed against the small of my back. My phone pinged with a DM notification, and before even looking to see what it was, the thumping of my heart against my ribcage told me that I already knew.

I wriggled out from under Dane's touch and casually smoothed down my dress. "I'm just running to the restroom real quick, okay?"

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Fine, I'm fine," I replied hurriedly. "I just need some air. My social batteries need some recharging."

Dane's eyes, glassy and glazed over with liquor, gave me another once over before nodding and tearing his gaze away from mine. Maybe he knew I wasn't coming back...I just wasn't sure how much I cared.

I slipped away through the crowd, throwing myself onto the doors and exhaling a sigh of relief as I was greeted by the silence of the hotel lobby.

With my heart threatening to burst from my chest, Alien style, I scurried down the rich carpeted back hallways of the Four Seasons, until I slipped past the mahogany doors of the larger, grandeur ballroom, noise and music spilling out from the cracks in the bottom of the doors.

It was one thing to casually flirt with Atlas over Instagram DMs last week. I could take my time thinking of something to say, put my phone down, and go on with my day. Or more recently, I could not answer him entirely and hope that whatever that feeling was fluttering in my stomach when I saw his name would eventually subside. But now, seeing him again in person, smiling that perfect smile of his and trying to formulate words on the spot without biting my tongue off in the process threw my entire world off its axis again, just as I had begun to set it straight. He made me second guess everything.

Atlas leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets, dressed in an all black tailored suit that hugged every inch of his body perfectly. I never thought the sight of someone could truly take your breath away, but when he looked over at me, the faintest smile pulling at his lips, my lungs practically shut down.

"Hi." He breathed out, pushing himself off the wall.

"Hi." I echoed. I kept just enough distance from him, like I was afraid I'd get sucked into his gravity all over again, this time unable to break away. Escape velocity non-existent.

"Hi..."

We traded an awkward chuckle, rocking back and forth on our heels and looking everywhere except at each other.

I sighed and shook my head. "This is unbelievable, like how-"

"You look really nice." He cut me off, smiling as he looked down at me. The sincerity in his voice tugged at the one single thread that threatened to unravel me.

"Oh...thank you." I threw a coy grin his way, desperate to dissipate the red pooling in my cheeks. "I'm actually shocked to see you own clothes that don't have Porsche or Rolex written in five different places. You clean up well."

Words didn't do him justice. He looked good. He looked better than good, and that white streak in his hair was brighter than ever, like it had been kissed by the sun. But I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction. Not yet, anyway.

Atlas pulled at the collar of his dress shirt, loosening the tie around his neck. "Yeah...well, suits aren't really my style. I'm a t-shirt guy."

A surge of noise ricocheted through the hallway when someone briefly opened the door to the ballroom. When silence enveloped the air again, we traded soft glances, and it reminded me of what drew me to him in the first place. All the hard, rigid edges of him fell away, the way clouds dispersed after a storm, exposing nothing but the soft light of the sun. I was Icarus, and I had flown too close to him.

I sighed. "...Atlas, what are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" He echoed with a smirk.

The slightest laughter threaded itself between my words. "No, I asked you first."

I didn't even realize I had been smiling at him until I felt my cheeks start to hurt.

He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, it's a Porsche event forced upon me, unfortunately. They sponsor this Florida Race Series thing through the Porsche Driving Academy. It's like if you want a shot at being a big time driver, you probably start here. I won it years ago before I was even in F3-"

"Obviously," I had to add in with a chuckle.

"Yeah, obviously." Atlas returned my grin. "But anyway we've gotta be here, show face and all that circus fuckery. Honestly, I hate it, and I hate being forced into social interaction."

"I get it," I nodded, flicking my wrist back down the hallway I came from. "I got suckered into judging a juniors event, but I'm not exactly in the mood to play nice with all the people who don't surf."

"You're playing nice with me, though." Atlas's grin cracked open a little wider.

"Oh, give it some time," I mirrored his coyness. "That whole charming race car driver thing only gets you so far."

He arched an eyebrow at me. "Oh so you think I'm charming?"

Heat flooded my cheeks, and judging from the way his lips continued to curl upward, he noticed. He took a small step forward and closed the space between us, entrapping me in his orbit all over again. He smelled crisp and clean, like summer air after it rains.

I huffed out a breath. "Charming with selective hearing, apparently."

Atlas lowered his head, subtly biting down on his bottom lip. "Oh come on, you mean to tell me you aren't the slightest bit interested in hearing me go on about gear shifting, drag reduction system usage...all the sparks and the heat..."

I knew he was throwing whatever racing jargon he could at me on purpose, and I chuckled and crossed my arms over my chest. "Well, it all just sounds like a foreign language to me."

Atlas tilted his head to the side. "I mean I can really speak a foreign language if you'd like. I'm fluent in three."

"Why do European guys think all American girls want to hear is for them to talk dirty in another language?"

"I never said talk dirty..." he leaned down closer to me, his lips brushing the side of my cheek when he spoke. "But I will if you want me to."

I let out a shaky breath, putting my hand to his chest and gently pushing him away. "I'm good for now, thanks."

He kept that coy smirk on his face and leaned back onto the wall again, swiftly slipping his tie off and unhooking the top two buttons on his dress shirt. "Let's get out of here. I've been over this bullshit before it even started."

"Get out of here?" I scoffed. "And go where?"

"Somewhere. Anywhere but here."

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, hesitation painting my features enough for Atlas to notice and bark out a laugh.

"What? Afraid your surfer bro boyfriend is going to notice?"

I frowned and put my finger up. "Not my boyfriend."

Atlas nodded slowly, silently eying me up and down.

"You jealous?" I let a faint grin pull at my lips, secretly hoping in the deepest, darkest parts of me that maybe he was.

His smirk twisted up into that brilliant, full blown smile of his, and he laughed. "Well, you're out here talking to me instead of in there with him. So no, obviously not."

I scoffed again, trying to hide the sheer disbelief twisting up my face. He was confident in a way that just skirted the line of sheer arrogance but never actually crossed it. But I'd let him cross every line with me that night, and he knew it.

"Anyway...I'll be out front with the car in ten minutes."

I didn't know why I assumed Atlas Vaughn would drive like a normal person, but the moment I slipped into the buttery black leather seats of the sleekest Porsche 911 I'd ever laid eyes on, he took off into the night, like James Bond in his impeccably tailored suit chasing down some evil mastermind. I wasn't prepared to be a Bond Girl, but he gunned it up to nearly 90 MPH the moment we hit open highway. I spent the first five minutes in the car with him trying to stop myself from actually throwing up my internal organs, all while trying to remind myself that he did this for a living, and 90 MPH for him was most likely slow.

The highway that skirted along downtown Miami whizzed by in a blur of lights and colors as I tried to juggle gripping onto the door handle with white knuckles, and simultaneously trying to text Dane a lame excuse about how I wasn't feeling well, then quickly put my phone down.

I didn't even wait for his response. What was the point? I'd already started to feel guilty for ditching him, but it was too late. Atlas had me in his claws, like a wolf with its prey.

"You okay?"

Atlas's voice brought me back into the transcendental reality I had been thrust into. A reality of fast sports cars, guiltless and free, with a handsome British man whose hand I might have been inclined to hold if it wasn't preoccupied with the steering wheel and the gear shift.

I gulped. "Yeah. Fine."

He kept his eyes ahead, but a faint smirk pulled at his lips. "I promise I won't kill you. Just trust me."

I did trust him. That was the root of the problem.

He flipped through radio stations with some buttons on the steering wheel, but I had him stop on a fuzzy alternative rock station.

"Wait, I love this song."

I reached over to the dashboard, and despite at first turning the dial that controlled the air vents, eventually I cranked up the volume to O.A.R.'s Love and Memories, right at the best part of the chorus.

Love me, faster than the devil

Run me, straight into the ground

Drowning, deep inside your water,

Drowning deep inside your sound.

I lifted my gaze to Atlas, who met me with an amused smirk and pressed a different button on the roof next to the rear view mirror. With a whoosh of air, the convertible top of the car opened up, kicking my hair up in every direction. Atlas gently raised the volume again to lift the music over the sound of the wind.

Here I'm stuck inside yesterday,

Everything is giving way

You fell from me, didn't you?

Didn't you?

I felt myself unwind more and more, and before I knew it I was screaming into the hot Miami night sky. It was the kind of music you sang out loud, no matter what kind of car you were in or what kind of guy sat next to you, staring at you all wide smile and bright eyes.

"Feel better?" He asked.

"Yeah," I breathed out, finally feeling my heart start to slow as the music quieted. "I do, actually. I just...I have a lot of good memories associated with that song. With O.A.R. in general, actually."

Atlas shook his head. "Never heard of 'em."

"What?" I scoffed. "Do you live in Europe or a bubble?"

"Depends on my mood," he shrugged, a grin still pulling at his lips. "Although sometimes I'd definitely prefer to live in a bubble."

Another OAR song came on, but I reached over and lowered the volume.

"I spent a summer in San Clemente when I was 15," I said, tapping my fingers on my knee to the beat of This Town. "They were just holding this free live show in an amphitheater by City Hall, and I had no idea who they were at the time...but for some reason it's the memory I associate with that whole summer. Hot California nights, live music, it's all so vivid still."

"I feel like I have memories like that," Atlas nodded, the soft cadence of his accent sailing over the music. He chewed on his bottom lip. "When I was in karting, my dad and I went to Switzerland for some championship. I don't even remember the race, I just remember...sitting on the balcony in our hotel room at some lodge in the mountains overlooking this crystal clear lake and..." he paused and let out a heavy breath. "It's the smaller things I remember the most. I mean I was...nine maybe? Like you said...it's so vivid."

I dropped my voice just below the music, and my heart lurched. "You must really miss him."

"Every single day." He stopped to clear his throat, and thank god for OAR, otherwise his sudden, jarring silence would have only exacerbated my guilt in bringing his father up. "Anyway...they're good memories. I mean it."

He kept his eyes to the road, but I smiled at him anyway, hoping maybe he'd feel it.

You can be my modern girl,

and I can be the one you found.

If we're taking on the world today,

I know we got to leave this town.

"So wait a minute," I held up my hand. "Do you even know where we're going? Or are you just driving around to show off?"

That effervescent smile of his returned, the faintest little dimples popping up next to the corners of his lips. "If I was really showing off, you'd know it."

While in the middle of an eye roll, I caught sight of a vivid fluorescent sign in the distance, bright against the backdrop of the night. I grinned.

"Well since your arrogant deflection means you have no idea, let's take a detour."

Atlas scoffed. "A detour?"

"Come on, don't you trust me?" I kept grinning at him, mocking his tone from earlier. "Take this next exit on the right."

We slowly coasted off the highway, and I directed Atlas and his Porsche into what seemed like a dark abyss, until the 7-11 sign came into view, like a bright lantern that ensnared fluttering little moths like us, lost in the night.

"Uh..." Atlas pulled the car into the almost vacant parking lot, the pavement decorated with cracks and bits of litter that had accumulated from the day. He pulled into the first spot by the door but kept the engine running. "Explanation, please. I feel like we're gonna get mugged."

"Where do you think we are exactly?" I unbuckled my seatbelt and made a move to get out of the car, and after another moment of suspicious looks from Atlas, he put the top back on the car, killed the engine and followed me out. On the outskirts of Miami, the sound of the city was just a mere hum in the night, but the sound of the ocean within reach put me more at ease.

"Listen, I've been craving a slurpee for like, three months, and there hasn't been a 7-11 anywhere I've been recently, so..." I made a grand sweeping gesture towards the doors. "Here we are. Since you didn't have a destination, I made one for us."

"I had a destination..." Atlas grumbled as he followed me through the door.

The guy behind the counter snorted at us when we walked in, raking a chunk of greasy hair out of his face. "What is this, prom or something?"

I scoffed and led Atlas by the arm to the slurpee dispenser fountain.

"What are we doing?" He made a move to lean against the countertop, but stood back up rigid when he realized he'd get sticky, sugary muck all over his expensive suit.

I grabbed two extra large cups and handed him one. "Watch and learn, bubble boy."

I filled half my cup with coca-cola flavored slurpee, and half with pina colada, and a small squirt of grape on the top.

Atlas made a face, some sort of combination of amused and disgusted, but a faint smile still pulled at his lips, just enough to give me a glimpse of the white of his teeth.

I chuckled and shook my head. "Don't be a dingus, just do it."

"A what?"

"A dingus," I shrugged. "You know, lame. Don't be lame, I feel like it goes against your brand."

He groaned and scooted beside me, bumping my hip with his. He filled his entire cup with the blue raspberry flavor.

"Boo, still dingus," I lightly shoved him on the arm. "Live a little! It's not illegal to mix flavors."

"What?" he chuckled. "I like blue raspberry. It's not illegal to like blue raspberry either."

"Just try this, you'll change your mind."

I hesitated for a moment before giving my cup to him, watching him gently take a sip, never breaking his eye contact with me. Despite the fact that my tongue had been down his throat several times already (and other places I'd rather not admit), there was something about sharing the straw of your drink with someone that felt more personal and more intimate.

"You liked it." I gave him a triumphant smirk.

He paused and ran his tongue along his bottom lip, licking away a tiny splotch of purple from the drink.

"It's uh...it's alright."

"Sure, sure." I rolled my eyes and nodded, following him up to the counter. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet, but I grabbed his wrist.

"Oh no," I shook my head. "Your Euros are no good here."

Atlas groaned. "We do have credit cards in Europe, you know."

"Right, because swiping your black AmEx at a 7-11 for $3 worth of slurpees is such a flex."

I dropped our slurpees on the counter and managed to produce a $5 bill from the black hole that was my old, battered Louis Vuitton purse that I bought myself for my 18th birthday.

The greasy-haired cashier had beady eyes like a mouse, and they darted back and forth between Atlas and I.

"You look like someone famous," he finally said.

"Me?" I pointed to myself.

"No, him."

Atlas scoffed and shook his head. "Nah mate, I think I just have one of those faces."

Something that resembled a laugh came sputtering out of me. I nodded to the cashier. "Keep the change, mate."

Atlas eyed me with a grin once we stepped back out into the humid night air. "Are you making fun of the way I talk?"

"Moi?" I asked, frowning and putting my hand to my chest. "I would never. But just for the record, you do not just have one of those faces." I punctuated my last few words with air quotes. "You're pretty identifiable. I mean, you're like James Bond with a touch of Rogue."

"Rogue?"

"Yeah, from X-Men? She has a white streak in her hair like you do." I paused when he gave me another shrug, and I sputtered out a laugh. "For fucks sake Atlas, you don't know X-Men? You really do live in a bubble."

Atlas stopped beside the driver's side of the car, leaning forward with his elbows on the roof. His eyes glinted in the light of the stars, and just like the night we met, he sucked me into a whole new galaxy. "Are you flirting with me or starting a fight?"

I chuckled. "Pick your poison, I guess."

"I already did, it's called blue raspberry."

He'd sucked me dry of witty responses, so all I could muster was sticking out my probably purple tongue at him before ducking back into the car.

We coasted back along the palm tree lined highway with the top back down, the lights of the city twinkling in the background and the smell of the ocean so faint but still something I felt like I could reach out the window and grab with my hands. I made him keep the alt grunge rock station on, trying not to blow the speakers of his sports car when Semi Charmed Life came on, and trying not to smile when he sang along with me.

It took me a moment to realize how slow he was going, like maybe he was trying to preserve the moment in the only way he knew how.

After realizing we'd mostly just gone in a big circle, he finally drove us down a side street and stopped when the pavement turned to gravel and sand, opening up into what I could only assume was the beach in front of us, along with a dark night sky.

He put the car in park and killed the engine, but the faint melody of Vertical Horizon lingered in the air.

"So..." I popped my lips, glancing down into my slurpee and soaking in the irony of the song playing.

But I've been unable to put you down.

I'm still learning things I ought to know by now.

"So, don't you want to watch fireworks?" he asked, pointing up and out of the open roof of the car, exposing every little fleck of star in the night sky.

Cause you're a god, and I am not,

and I just thought I'd let you go.

"How'd you even know what today is?" I said with a slight chuckle.

Atlas took the lid off of the cup and stabbed the remaining ice of his slurpee with the straw. "I might not be American, but I've been around the world a few times. I'd like to think I'm pretty cultured."

I grinned and gave him a light shove on the arm. "Now you just sound pretentious."

"Well, I am a little pretentious." He shrugged.

"Atlas Vaughn, I admire your self-awareness." I took another sip of my slurpee.

"Oh yeah," he rolled his eyes. "That's the first thing everyone says about me, the most self-aware guy on the grid."

"Sarcasm noted." I shook my head. "Then enlighten me, what do people say about you?"

Atlas shifted in his seat, turning his body to face me. He held up a finger. "Frigid. That's everyone's favorite." He put up another finger. "Elusive. That's Daily Mail's most overused adjective for me. Since I won't talk to anyone in the media about anything, like ever." He held up a third finger. "Does not play well with others, and my unwillingness to apologize about anything I've said or done, because apparently I'm just not a nice guy."

I laughed, but he put his hand down and frowned, the creases in his forehead deepening. "Oh, you're serious? Do people really say that about you?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" He groaned and leaned back into the seat, chewing on the straw of his drink. "I don't talk or do interviews so they don't have anything to talk about...so they make things up instead. Being elusive apparently toes a fine line between being sexy and just being an asshole, and I'm usually described as the latter. But I know who I am, and it's not my fucking responsibility to live up to people's made up expectations about me."

Without giving myself a moment to think twice, I reached over and gently put his hand on his.

"For what it's worth, I actually think you're a pretty nice guy." I offered him a faint smile. "Even that first night we met in Monaco, I look back on it and realize you took us through the side entrance to your apartment building because you didn't want people harassing us. And the water thing? Come on, I mean who offers their one night stand water?"

Atlas kept his head down, but a soft, half-smile pulled at his lips. "Well, despite popular belief, I was raised to be a gentleman. Besides, I actually like you, so...being nice isn't so hard." Amusement threaded his words, but that faint smile lingered.

I scoffed. "Like me? You barely know me, Atlas."

He leaned back into the plush leather seat and tilted his head up towards the sky. His voice was soft when he finally spoke.

"Are you so sure about that? I think I do. For example...I know you hate tea, even though you know you drink too much coffee, and I know you can quote any Lord of the Rings movie verbatim. I know you like smelling like the beach and the ocean..." He gently moved his hand up my arm, his fingers caressing my bare skin, and even in the heat of the summer night it still sent a chill through me. "And I think you know me too. More than most people like to think they do."

We finally looked up at each other, and a whirlwind of emotions hit me as I fell into the sea of his stormy eyes. He took a breath and went to say something else, but fireworks began bursting in the night sky, raining down lights and colors on us.

It was beautiful, but I still couldn't tear my eyes away from him. At this point I was kidding myself into thinking I could handle someone like Atlas. I was sitting in a car worth more than my condo, watching fireworks boom overhead to the thunderous beat of my heart, and yet I'd never felt more at ease in my life. Flashes of light dotted his face in reds and blues, and his hand was soft as he brushed it against my own. Drowning was the act of dying underwater, but someone like him, with hair like waves and eyes as deep as the ocean, made me feel like I was drowning on dry land, and I needed to come up for air.

"Atlas..." I swallowed hard. "I do like you. And I don't mean to ruin the whole moment, but this just...I just can't."

"Can't what?" He asked, but the way he pinched his lips together told me he already knew. He just wanted to hear me say it.

"Whatever this is," I gestured to us. "I just...getting attached is not on my current list of priorities."

"Yeah, I know." He nodded, keeping his head up to the sky. "I...I really can't either. For my sake and for yours."

My voice cracked. "We're just worlds apart, Atlas."

"I know."

His hand moved to my thigh, delicately tracing circles on my skin, and my insides shuddered at his touch. The wires between my mind and my body were all criss-crossed, and in my mind I knew it was wrong, my body knew it was so right.

"This just wouldn't..."

"...it couldn't..."

"It just won't work."

By that point I was breathing my words into his mouth, his lips so close to me I could taste the sweet flavored sugar from the slurpee on his breath. But we didn't kiss. We just held each other's gaze, drinking each other in like we were trying to map constellations in the flecks of each other's eyes. I reached up and gently ran my fingers along the angle of his jaw.

"But I meant what I said," my voice came out in barely a whisper. "You are a good guy. And tonight ended up being one of the best nights I've had in a long time, so thank you."

"Well...the night's not over yet," he breathed out against my cheek. "Maybe we just make the most out of it now."

I smiled at him, and that was all he needed. He gently pulled me over the center console, tucking me into the space between the seat and his right hip, and I shuddered at the thought of how perfectly I fit into his body, like a lock and a key to a place only we knew. Without breaking our heated gaze, he reached over and pressed the button to close the roof of the car again. I bit down on my lip as he ran his hand up my thigh and slipped it under the hem of my dress, making my whole body shiver.

"If you tell me to stop, I will," his voice dropped to a low whisper.

"Don't," came my breathy reply. "Don't stop."

We still didn't kiss. Instead, we skirted around dangerous territory, our clothes the only barrier between our hands blindly trespassing on the most intimate parts of our bodies. I wanted to feel him in ways I'd never felt anyone. Our moans and groans melted into the blasting of the fireworks above, and we were swallowed up in a storm of sensations and sounds.

"Atlas?" I breathed out into his neck, the nerves in my body still ricocheting as he held me in his arms. His response came in the form of a low moan into my bare shoulder, his ragged breaths warm against my skin.

"Maybe...maybe we could just..." I paused, still catching my breath.

He gently put his finger to my lips. "Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?" He gave me that perfect half smile, the kind that didn't quite reach his eyes but still made my heart skip all the same.

"Often," I returned his grin.

We finally kissed, fireworks still exploding overhead in streams of lights and sounds and our hands imprinting the steam-coated windows of his car. I swear the world could have ended around us, and we'd never know.

now we sit in your car and our love is a ghost
well, i guess i should go, yeah, i guess i should go

hard feelings/loveless / lorde

this is without a doubt one of my favorite chapters of the whole story (it's also one of my longest at a sexy 5k+ words), & so this chapter deserved two gifs...mostly because it took me hours to make them but also MY KIDS ARE SO PRECIOUS LOOK AT THEM

anyway, silent readers make me sad, so let me know your thoughts, feelings, deepest secrets, even if it's your first and only comment so far!