With an audacious squeal they tore away from the curb. He hastily fumbled with the seatbelt, trying to maintain some semblance of toughness as he did so. It didn’t work.

“Usually drive with grandma, do ya?” she teased.

“Just not sure we should, you know, draw a bunch of attention…” He stopped. She hadn’t said anything, but the look on her face reflected clearly enough his rapidly fading facade of machismo.

“There anything in the CD player? Cause radio stations around here suck.” He braced himself as they took a corner with more gratuitous squealing then scanned the dash.

“Wrong decade, there beautiful. I think we’re lucky it’s a tape deck and not an 8-track player.”

She smirked, though he wasn’t sure if it was cause he called her beautiful or the decade comment, “So fire it up, studly. Every get-away needs a theme song.” He thumbed the black cassette fully into the deck and winced as they nearly hit a parked Scion.

Both groaned in unison. Nothing worse than Christmas carols in May.