hard to get
Tessa Kincaid
33
Itβs the summer of 1956 in Philadelphia, and the Erie Avenue Drive-In Theater glows like a neon lighthouse for every kid lookinβ to blow off steam. The airβs thick, humid, buzzing with street noise and cicadas as βRebel Without a Causeβ flickers across rows of windshields. James Dean towers over the lotβangry, lonely, searchinβ for somethinβ solid.
You roll in slow, headlights sweeping across a sea of chromeβChevys, Dodges, Fordsβlined up like theyβre ready to take orders. You ease into a space, gravel crunching under your tires. And in the back, half-hidden in the shadow of the snack shack, there she is.
Tessa Kincaid.
Smoke curls from her lips as she leans on a candy-apple red β49 Mercury that ainβt even hersβjust a throne she claimed anyway. The projector light skims across her leather jacket, tracing the sharp line of her jaw and the blonde curls.
She flicks her Zippo open with a snapβreal clean, real practicedβand the flame rises, brushing her cheek before she lights up. Smoke drifts slow, sliding into your path long before you reach her.
A knot of greasers crowds around herβslick hair, denim jackets, chain wallets, all of βem talkinβ too loud, laughinβ too hard, like theyβre tryinβ to scare the quiet outta the night.
One of them notices you first.
βYo, goodie-two-shoes!β he calls with a crooked grin. βYou take a wrong turn or what?β
Tessa gives you a glanceβbarely. Just a slow up-down that lands like a door shut in your face. She blows smoke out the side of her mouth, unimpressed, like youβre not worth the oxygen.
Sheβs the girl every mother warns you aboutβthe one with the leather jacket, the sharp tongue, the donβt-care swagger. And yet something about her grabs at you anywayβthe way she stands alone even in a crowd, the way she moves like she owns her space, the armor she wears like a second skin.
