It's infuriating how beautiful she looks.

I've rarely seen her in anything other than her business casual attire, which are always very chic outfits, but equally buttoned up. I can tell the dress isn't hers, and she wears it like it's not, but it shows off a tattoo on her shoulder I've never seen before - a dove. Glitter twinkles on her skin, her bare shoulders shimmering with a pink haze. It looks a bit like a slumber party makeover, something she's not as comfortable in.

She clutches a burger between both hands, savoring the bites like she's having a sexual encounter. For my own sake, I keep my eyes glued to the fluorescently lit road in front of me.

"Are you cold? Feel free to adjust the AC as you need," I tell her, gesturing weakly to the knobs on the dash, where they are in literally every car.

"It's perfect, Brett."

I hum, then spare a single glance at her. She's almost completely inhaled the burger, eyes closed in bliss, glossy lips pursed while she chews. I smile at the sight.

"Hey, President Mia, whenever you come back to Earth, could you punch your address in to my phone? I don't know where you live."

"Thank God for that," she says, but punctuates this with a fry. "What's your password?"

"Twelve oh eight ninety nine."

"Birthday?"

"My sister's."

She makes a soft, agreeable sound. "Cute." Then Siri is blaring through my speakers to tell me to turn around.

We're silent for a while; she's fixated on the warm, greasy food in her lap while I stare at the sky, starless and almost orange. There's a gentle hiccup from the girl beside me, whom I can hardly recognize with her guard down. She glances at me, wide-eyed, the corners of her mouth twitching into a smile.

"I'm not hiccupping because I'm drunk," she says firmly.

"Right."

"I just hiccup a lot."

I shoot her a glance from my peripheral, trying to mask a grin of my own. "But you are drunk."

"We love an observant king," she responds, her voice laced with sarcasm.

I snort. "Really drunk people say they're not drunk."

"If you're trying to get a read on me, use your words. We're grownups." She tosses a few fries into her mouth, then reaches deep into the bag to grab another. She holds it out to me, saying, "You should always be direct with me and I'll be direct with you."

I go to reach for the fry but she slaps my hands away. "On the wheel!" she insists. I give her a confused glance, but she just looks back at me, as if to say Well?

I open my mouth and she feeds me the fry, delighted as could be.

I chew tentatively, both the food and her words. "You don't like when I'm direct with you, Mia."

Her lips part in surprise and shifts in her seat to face me almost head-on. I catch her in glimpses, trying to keep my eyes on the road, or even just off her. It feels wrong, disrespectful somehow to be soaking in the sight of her like this. Like I'm violating her trust by catching the real Mia, when I know PR Mia wouldn't like it.

"What makes you think that?" she asks, up to her elbow in the paper bag. She fishes out nuggets, then sauce. I got one of each, but she chose Sweet and Sour. I file this information away, partially against my will, and know I'll likely remember it forever.

"Mia. I've always tried to get to know you. You aren't too keen on the idea."

She's got the box of nuggets balanced on one knee, the sauce tucked safely in the crevice created between her thighs. "That's not being direct. You beat around the bush with surface level shit, like where I'm from and what I majored in college. I don't have time for games like that."

I pull us onto the highway, fluorescent and overstimulating, and I'm thankful for the distraction from Mia beside me, who is chowing down. I've always liked the highway at night, the people who are all in their own worlds, focused on getting home or wherever they'll be resting. It's the world at its simplest, just living out its rhythms.

"Take the floor," I say, challenging her. "Be direct, then."

"I've got nothing to say."

I tilt my head, squinting at the road as it rolls beneath us. "Is that so? Not a thing?"

"Nope." She pops a whole nugget in her mouth in response. "Nuhn."

I let this statement hang between us, feeling as tangible as a marble in my palm, unassuming but weighted. Mia tugs at the hem of her dress, completely enveloped in her own mind. I'm trying not to stare, like stealing glances would be stealing something from her.

"So tell me why you wanted to leave," I say. "Seemed like a fun night with friends.

She shrugs. "It was. Fun, I mean. I just got tired."

"You sleep, like, four hours a night. It's the reason for your crippling caffeine addiction." I reach for the drink in the cupholder, a sweaty, paper cup containing pure iced water, and hold it out to her. "Speaking of."

She huffs dramatically but takes it from me. From the corner of my eye I can see her sipping from it aggressively. In exchange, she offers me another fry, and I lean in to bite it from her fingers.

"I spend my whole week with people. Managing people, being managed by people. I'm peopled out," she says. "I liked being with the girls, and I liked having a moment where I could flirt and dance and drink, but it's not my lifestyle. It feels like playing pretend."

I fold my lips into my mouth, tearing mindlessly at the dead skin hanging off. I want her to keep talking; I want to drown in her voice. I'm deliberately silent.

The issue with that, though, is that Mia is not the type of person who needs to speak to fill the silence. She's comfortable in it, contented, even. Even if things grow awkward - and they have, in meetings and media training we've done before with some of the other influencers with my agency - she absorbs that energy and channels it back to everyone else to deal with. She's sturdy, unbothered.

And even though every nerve ending in my body is burning, screaming at me to keep the conversation rolling, I can't bring myself to do it. She's curled up in the passenger seat, balancing various sauces and food containers on her legs. Interrupting her peace, her meal, her thoughts, it feels slightly criminal.

So we stay like that, silent, sharing water and fries for the thirty minutes back to her apartment.

She guides me to the guest spots in the parking garage, gathers her trash in the paper McDonald's bag, and turns to me to ask, "You coming?"

Without thinking, I immediately respond, "Inside?" then cringe at how dumbfounded I sound. I've only barely put the car in park, my headlights reflecting off the concrete wall in front of us to blind us.

This moment of disbelief fuels Mia, dry wood to her raging fire of overt confidence. "It's the middle of the night. You're going to drive forty minutes the opposite way back to your place right now?"

"I've got to do it anyway," I say. "Tonight or tomorrow, doesn't matter."

She opens the car door and turns to me sharply. "It does matter. I don't leave your house late at night. It's dangerous - you're tired, and it's hard to see, and the bars close soon and then there's drunk drivers on the road." She pauses, hoisting her tiny purse further up on her bare shoulder. "I would feel better if you just stayed. But I won't make you do anything."

And that's how I ended up in her kitchen, watching her chase down her birth control with a half-empty Diet Coke from the fridge. I'm standing there like a moron, blinking at the decorated walls and perfectly aligned furniture. It feels like it was plucked straight from an interior design magazine, literally. There's not a photo of her, not a grocery list or reminder pinned to the fridge, not a fork in the sink. It could be an AirBnB and that would make more sense to me than this being Mia's home.

She steps down the hallway, her now-bare feet padding lightly on the wood, and I shove my hands in my pockets and try not to look as uncomfortable as I feel. She leaves her bedroom door open, and I can faintly hear drawers opening, then the sound of her dress zipper.

Moments later, she calls, "Get in here, dummy."

I'm terrified.

I follow her voice to the dim room at the end and hover in the doorway, tucked out of sight - my sight. "You alright?"

"I'm dressed, if that's what you're asking." I poke my head in the door, feeling slightly relieved at dodging that morality conflict. She's clad in a dingy t-shirt that reads Too dumb for New York, Too ugly for L.A. If she's wearing shorts, I can't see them, with the shirt being so long it kisses the tops of her knees - a crazy length considering that she's already pretty tall. She's rubbing at the makeup on her face with a wipe. "Like you'd ever be so lucky."

I lean against the door frame and fold my arms across my chest. "What did you call me in here for?"

"So you don't have to be a wet noodle in the kitchen?" she responds, walking past me quickly and into the bathroom just to the left of me. She riffles through the middle drawer of the bathroom counter, pulling out what looks like a cleanser. "Because I said earlier we're being direct. So be direct."

"About what?"

"I'm not an idiot, Brett," she says, smearing the mascara down her cheeks. "You've had some shit to say to me for, I don't know, five days? Say what's on your mind."

I want to protest, to not let her have this win, but it's too good of an opportunity to speak candidly with her. Not with Business Mia, with PR Mia, but with Mia. Pajama Mia, suds-ing up her face with tiny, slightly beige bubbles.

Instead, I press my back against the wall behind me and soak her in for a minute. On my right, her bedroom is lit by a closet light on the far end. It's almost entirely white - white curtains, white sheets, white rug - with a few splashes of yellow here and there. But unlike the main living space, this one is brimming with kitschy trinkets, bits and bobbles, a couple photographs. I feel drawn to it, this tiny glimpse into her, but she's right in front of me, just daring me to speak my mind.

"Fine," I concede. "You said tonight that it was fun to be flirting. What happened to your not-boyfriend?"

She rinses her face. "You answered your own question, didn't you? Not my boyfriend."

Her words land abrasively, and we make eye contact in the mirror. "Sorry," she says. "That's rude to him. We were never exclusive and it's ended, anyway. Or ending, very shortly. He's moving away in a few weeks."

I give a slow nod. "And how are you doing with that?"

"He's an amazing person - and a much better one than me - and maybe in a different life we could've had something really beautiful." She pats her skin dry and digs around for a second before pulling out a serum. "But it's not meant for me, and that's fine."

 My back is glued to this wall, my feet glued to this spot, my eyes glued on Mia as she unwinds her dress-up look. I'm embarrassed to realize how hard I'm staring, how much I'm straining my eyes to catch a glimpse of what I'd been thinking about for a while now. A light smattering of freckles paints the bridge of her nose.

A piece of me floats away. I suspect it will float right into her palm and live with her forever.

"What's it to you?" she asks. She's brushing through her hair now with the aggression I've only seen toddlers use on doll hair, like it's not attached to her body.

"If you're doing alright?"

"If I'm single or not. If I'm flirting."

I wiggle my toes, suddenly glaringly aware that I didn't take my shoes off at the door. It felt wrong somehow, like it would strip me of my temporary visitor pass.

I meet her gaze and hold it. "Just piecing things together."

Mia rolls her eyes. "Good God."

"What?"

She turns to face me, her hip angled towards the counter, her right foot perched in Tree pose just above her knee. She lowers her hairbrush. "Brett, you care because you're attracted to me."

My face contorts into something like shock, but she holds up a finger to prevent me from arguing. "Don't start. Not only am I not an oblivious idiot, but I also heard you and Jasper talking on the patio furniture. You stare at me like the answers to the universe are written between the creases of my eyes. I'm not mad about it, but let's not pretend like it's something else."

I furrow my brows. "Mia, do you think I'm trying to sleep with you?"

She shrugs, nonchalant. "I don't think you're actively trying, but I think it's crossed your mind."

I step forward, into the bathroom door frame. With a low, severe voice, I say, "Let's get this clear. I like you, Mia. As a publicist, but even more as a person, a friend." 

Somewhere obscure, the air conditioning fades to a stop, and we're left in the sound of the other breathing.

"And for what it's worth," I add, "I'm not trying to sleep with you."

A sly grin plays on her lips. "No?"

"Absolutely not."

Mia closes the distance between us, so close I can feel the heat of her skin. She smells like vanilla and syrup and vodka. Her breath hits my jaw as she says, "So you're not tempted to share a bed with me tonight?"

"While you're drunk? Wouldn't dream of it."

She leans back, eyes me skeptically. "And if I wasn't drunk?"

"If that's what you wanted, you'd have to ask. You said it earlier, use your words."

It's a check mate, a stand off between us. The stare down is fierce and unfaltering. Where Mia is guileful, I'm deadly serious. My fingers ache to reach out and touch her. I can imagine how smooth her skin is beneath the callouses on my palms, how warm she'd be.

After too much time has passed, I take a step back, out of the bathroom. "I'll set up camp on the couch."

"Blankets are in the closet at the end of the hall, if you don't want to wait for me to personally tuck you in."

"Do you need anything?" I ask earnestly.

"You fed me and brought me home," she laughs, and the sound shatters the tension we'd built. "I appreciate what you've done already."

We exchange mindless goodbyes, and then I'm walking back to the living room, reeling from what just happened. 

I'm curled beneath a light, fluffy blanket with all the living space lights shut off before Mia has emerged from the bathroom. The sink is on, then off, then on, then off, then the toilet flushes, and there's a sneeze. Finally the light from the hallway is snuffed.

I hear a faint, "Thanks again, Brett." 

And I muster a measly, "I'd do it all again for you."