"I want to be that firefly," I say, looking up at my fingers silhouetted against the cloudy treeline. "You are that firefly," he says, and as we dance I listen to my blood rushing full and wide, a current of mead lit with neon green from beetle-wings above. Spinning, my skirt twirls soggily around us both, gathering grass clippings.
His best friend sits next to me on the couch, a soft-looking woman with careful eyes. I set my drink down on the table, folding my hands on my lap. She tilts her head seriously, scrutinizing, and I wonder if she knows my fingers are sticky with pomade and soda. In the corner he laughs, the spikes in his hair reflecting the chain around his neck.
My back is tiny: his palms across my bones reach both shoulders. In the cavelike trance of his room, the false dawn of morning filters from the casement window under the canopy, lighting the blond of his arms. Almost invisibly, his lips touch my neck.
Groggy, my head haloed in frizz, I squeeze out the early afternoon sun. He is gathering bottles from the sitting room, and when I look down, I see he has left me a slice of cheese balanced on a glass, poised to fall into orange juice. I grin.