The car screeches as Nico slams on the break. "Shit!" he yells. "C'mon, move it or lose it. . ."
"Nico, it's a little old lady on crosswalk," Jason says patiently, "and she has the right away."
"She's moving too slow!"
"She has to be at least eighty years old. With a walker."
"That's no excuse," Nico says. He sighs and rests his forehead on the steering wheel. "Why do I even have to learn to drive, anyway? I can just shadow travel wherever I want to go."
"Because," Jason says, "it's part of the normal teenager experience, and it builds character."
The lady finishes crossing and Nico floors the accelerator. Jason is thrown forward against his seatbelt.
"You're doing good, Nico, but maybe a little, um, gentler on the gas pedal?"
"Gentle. I can do gentle," he mutters. His hands are clenched on the wheel, knuckles white, and his posture is stiff.
"You need to relax."
"I'm relaxed!" He turns on the radio. Who Let The Dogs Out? blares through the car. "See?" he adds, and then he swerves wildly around a kid on a bike.
As they roll through another stop sign and narrowly avoid get smashed by a minivan in Nico's blind spot while changing lanes, Jason notices the speedometer.
"Dude!" Jason exclaims. "You're going sixty in a forty."
"I'm fine," says Nico stubbornly. "Just because you're my boyfriend doesn't mean you can be a backseat driver, asshole." There's a loud crash as their car knocks over someone's mailbox.
When they finally pull out of the suburbs and onto the highway, the sound of sirens echoes over the radio.
"Fuck," Nico yells.
"I told you so," Jason says smugly. "I said, sixty in a forty. I fucking told you!"
Nico pulls over. The policeman knocks on their window, and Nico rolls it down.
He ends up with a ticket that Jason looks way too amused about, and when he glances over to the passenger seat, Jason's grinning.
"Shut up," Nico tells him.
Jason kisses his cheek. "How about I drive next time?"