It’s late afternoon when Natalie tugs you through the heavy glass doors of the mall on the edge of town, her fingers hooked tight through the belt loop of your jeans. Her chipped black nail polish scratches your hip as she drags you forward with that careless grin, the one that makes her eyes crinkle in a way she’d probably punch you for pointing out.

Inside, the air smells like stale popcorn and cheap perfume. Fluorescent lights hum above your heads. You wonder if she notices how every person glances at her — the heavy boots, the leather jacket hanging off one shoulder, the cigarette tucked behind her ear even though she can’t smoke it in here. She looks like she doesn’t belong in a place with pastel storefronts and teenagers giggling over pretzels. But she wants to be here with you which feels like its own kind of rebellion.

You walk past the food court, half-listening as she talks shit about the pizza place you used to work at — about how you look too soft to scrape burnt cheese off an oven tray. She says it with her shoulder brushing yours, voice low, a secret just for you. She buys you a pretzel anyway, salty and warm, and you swear she only does it to watch you lick the butter from your thumb.

You don’t know who spots the old photobooth first — the battered thing wedged between an arcade and a claw machine, with a faded sign promising 4 Photos for $5. But she stops, her combat boot planted in front of yours, smirk flickering at the corner of her mouth.

“We’re doing it,” she says, already fishing crumpled bills from her back pocket.

You try to protest, mumbling something about how it’s probably broken, how the pictures will be awful, but Natalie just shoves you inside, curtain snapping shut behind you both. The seat is too small for two, so she half-straddles your thigh, her boot heel knocking against your sneaker. She smells like leather and cheap cologne, a ghost of cigarette smoke clinging to her hair.

She feeds the machine a bill, punches the blinking green button. There’s a beat of silence — the cheap lens staring you down — and then her hand slips under your jaw, tilts your face toward hers.

“Smile,” she says, but she’s already grinning that wicked grin, mouth brushing your cheek when the first flash goes off.

The second photo clicks just as she kisses your temple — quick, almost shy — but the booth doesn’t care. It immortalizes it anyway: her nose buried in your hair, your eyes wide and a little stunned.

By the third shot, you’re laughing. You try to cover your face with your hand but she catches your wrist, pinning it to your chest. Her lips are at your ear now — she whispers something you can’t hear over the whir of the machine, but her breath sends a hot shiver down your neck.

For the last photo, she turns your face and kisses you. Properly. Her lip ring cold where it grazes your mouth, tongue slipping between your teeth just as the flash pops and your vision goes white for a second — the sound of her soft, breathless laugh filling the small dark space.

When it’s over, the curtain drags open too fast, spilling you both back into the humming neon light of the arcade. Natalie grabs the strip of photos before you can, holding it above your head as you reach for it, laughing.

She squints at the pictures — your flushed face, her smug half-smile, the stolen kiss frozen in grainy black and white. She folds the strip in half, slides it into your back pocket, then hooks her finger through the belt loop again.

“You’re keeping that,” she says, eyes dancing. “So you don’t forget how hot I look today.”