I’d parked in the backblocks a few streets from the venue, engine ticking as it cooled, the bass from the concert thudding faintly through the dark like a second heartbeat. The plan was simple: wait, nap, wake up when my phone rang. Dad duty. Chauffeur with street cred. That’s why I’d pulled on my most battered Ramones tee, holes soft as confession, just in case my kids’ friends clocked me and needed proof I wasn’t some beige suburban cliché.

I must’ve drifted off, cheek pressed to the window, when the knock came.

Not a cop’s rap. Not impatient. Just… curious.

I cracked one eye open and saw her shape through the glass, the glow of a streetlight catching velvet black cotton stretched over a body that had lived a little. I rolled the window down and there she was—mid-forties, easy smile, hair that knew exactly how to fall. Her Velvet Underground shirt looked like it had stories of its own.

“Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “I thought you were dead.”

“Only on the inside,” I said. “Waiting for kids.”

She laughed. The real kind. “Same. Thought I was the only relic hiding out back here.”

I stepped out of the car. We leaned against our respective doors, swapping war stories. Concerts we’d survived. Bands we’d loved before life got loud in other ways. She told me what she used to get up to at shows—how freedom felt when the lights went down and nobody knew your name. The air shifted as she talked, charged, like the moment before feedback screams through an amp.

At some point we noticed how close we were standing. How the conversation had slowed, thickened. Her eyes flicked to my mouth when I spoke. Mine traced the curve of her hip without asking permission.

“Do you want to sit?” she asked, nodding toward her SQ7, the ultimate in Mum accessories. “More comfortable than… whatever this is.”

The back of it was warm, leather holding the day’s heat. We didn’t rush. That was the thing. Hands finding, unhurried. Mouths exploring like we were remembering something important rather than discovering something new. The kind of intimacy that comes when you know who you are and don’t need to pretend.

Time blurred. Streetlight shadows moved across the windows. The world narrowed to breath and touch and the low hum of a city minding its own business. We gave each other exactly what we’d been missing, generous and greedy all at once, until the tension broke and left us laughing softly in the dark.

Eventually, the bass fell silent. Reality called. We straightened shirts, exchanged a look that said this was enough—perfect because it didn’t need to be more.

She squeezed my hand before I slipped out. “Nice tee,” she said. “You still got it.”

“So do you,” I replied, watching stand and check herself for signs of mischief. He phone buzzed, she gave me a last cheeky look and transformed back into suburban mum, and drove off into the night.

When my kids finally called, I was wide awake, smiling to myself, the echo of bass still in my chest—but now it wasn’t just the concert.