They first saw eachother in the Walmart late on a Friday night, nothing but the hum of freezers and the eerie bright fluorescent light above them. They couldn’t help but share a furtive glance over the produce section as she picked out her tomatoes, and he filled a plastic bag with red onions.

He had at least two dozen cinnamon buns in his cart. Marian could feel his eyes follow her around, seizing her up. Delicious tinges of excitement and electricity ran through the metal cart, burning her skin as it made its way into her bloodstream.

They checked out side by side, listening for each other’s breath in between the mechanic beeps as they scanned their groceries. Their cars were at opposite ends of the vast parking lot, and they left at a steady pace, slowly separating over the cold pavement as the stars shone down over their perfect forms.

 They must have left in different directions, too, because she never saw his headlights in her rearview mirror. As she waited at the stoplights of the empty streets across town, Marian leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, savoring the memory of the heat and the perfect ache of knowing she may never find him again.

But of course, she did, out in the hot dust of the desert as she stood in line for the tacos that were sold out of the tiny van with peeling white paint. He was behind her; she could feel it in the way the skin pricked up on the back of her neck, and the air changed all around her.

He kept his distance, and she ordered her food and took it back to her car without ever daring to look back, pulling over to bite her lips and curl her back against the seat in secret pleasure. As long as he had never reached out to touch her, she could imagine anything about him. She was secure in the knowledge that he understood and was doing the same.

Marian had never heard his voice, but suddenly, she felt it was all around her, filling the forgotten corners of her home and booming out of the radio they played at her office. She expected to see him everywhere and nowhere at the same time, so she wasn’t surprised when she found him standing in front of her on the sidewalk in front of the post office.

His eyes burned holes into her soul as she opened her mouth. She hadn’t decided exactly what she would say, but he put a single finger to her lips, and she was consumed by the delicious pain of his skin against hers under the hot sun. There was nothing left for either of them to voice in the intimacy of their proximity.