Chapter 11 #2
She stopped moving and stood in front of the open-mouthed hole that revealed the theater lobby. She didn’t know she was shaking
until Adam’s steady hand landed on her shoulder and he draped his jacket around her. Her ears buzzed with a kind of white
noise from the shock of what had just happened. Even the world seemed to dim.
“Adam . . .” she said through a shaky breath.
“Let me get you out of here. Where’s your dad’s place?”
He meant her dad’s apartment, but her gaze instinctively went to the front of the theater. This was her dad’s place, and someone had just smashed in one of the glass doors. Anyone could walk in and completely destroy it.
She couldn’t let that happen.
Carly reached into the pocket of her dress and felt the brass top of the key. She knew that in a few hours the world would
reset. The door would be back as it always was—closed and protecting the theater. But right now, she wanted to do the thing
she hadn’t been able to when her dad was alive: stand by what he’d built.
She moved toward the entrance, carefully sidestepped the broken glass and slipped inside the theater.
She hadn’t returned to this space with the maroon carpet and hanging stars since the day the loop started.
Instead of the grief she’d felt the first time she’d come, there was a kind of release of tension from her shoulders.
She could watch over the theater, and if her dad was somewhere, he’d know that she cared enough to do this for him.
The crunch of glass caused her to turn as Adam pushed the door open and cautiously came in. His brows creased at the mess
before he looked up at her.
She didn’t know Adam well but understood by his expression that he wanted to leave. She, however, had a mission. So she stalked
off to the snack counter, where a metal chair with an upholstered seat waited. She picked the chair up and brought it directly
in front of the door. Then she sat and crossed her arms. She could feel Adam watching, but she was too afraid to meet his
gaze.
“Carly . . .” he started to say. “What are we doing?”
“We are not doing anything, but I am going to keep watch, in case they come back,” she huffed out. “If they do, I’ll barricade the door so they can’t come in.”
“Barricade?” he asked. “With what? I doubt your arm span would even reach both ends of the door frame.”
For some reason, Adam noticing her body made her cheeks burn.
“This will all reset in the morning,” he added.
But this didn’t concern Adam. This was between her and Bruce. She’d let him down once, and she’d never make that mistake again.
“I can’t let them ruin my dad’s place,” she simply said.
She waited for Adam to leave and retreat to his tree house. Instead, Adam found a metal chair and dragged it next to hers.
They sat in silence. Carly kept her eyes trained on the door and watched as bonfires burned in the middle of the street, and a stereo blasted music so loudly that the walls shook.
“I think that’s your car on fire.” She pointed out the window toward the hearse, now engulfed in flames.
“Huh.” He cocked his head. “There is something kind of mesmerizing about fire.”
“Look at you, a little pyro.” She gave him a side smile, and he easily smiled back.
An alarm on Adam’s watch sounded and he pressed a button to silence it. “The eclipse,” he said. Then he reached out and wrapped
his hand around hers. He was warm, and the gentle pressure of his fingers made Carly’s breath catch. She stared at their hands
and, as she did, a little flutter erupted across her chest.
Oh, God fucking dammit, she was attracted to Adam.
“Will you be okay if I go time it?” He swallowed, and she was suddenly very attracted to throats. His throat, to be specific.
Carly nodded, more at his throat than at him. He took his hand from hers, and as he stood, she reached for him, just enough
to make it all a bit pathetic.
He stepped through the broken door and walked into the street. She watched from the safety of her chair. He checked his watch,
and she found that was a very cute thing to do. He slipped on his eclipse glasses and looked up towards the sky, and she couldn’t
help noticing how tall and broad he was. She should’ve stood next to him, but she was really and truly dumbfounded by this
new feeling of attraction. How had her body decided this was the guy?
She distinctly remembered one loop where he’d sneezed so loud as she was leaving that she’d stubbed her toe. That wasn’t attractive. Adam wasn’t attractive. And yet, he absolutely fucking was, and she’d do anything to feel the long firm length of his body pressed up
to hers.
When he came back in, he rubbed the spot on the bridge of his nose where the eclipse glasses had left an indent. And then
he cleared his throat in the weird growly way that gave Carly goose bumps. Ugh, even his attractiveness was infuriating.
“Aren’t you going to ask if it shortened?” he asked.
And the truth was she couldn’t take one more thing. She was drained. She was sort of turned on. The idea of hearing her theory
was wrong wasn’t something she was ready to face.
“Tell me later.” She angled herself just slightly away in an effort to avoid her feelings.
Adam sat next to her again, put his elbows on his knees and leaned toward her. His warm and buttery scent hit her as he said,
“You know, I haven’t seen a movie in a long time. I could really use a break from all this.” He gestured his hand around,
and she felt that sentiment very deeply. She hadn’t been to a movie in almost a year. Wouldn’t it be nice to sit in the leather
seats with junk food and just distract herself for a bit? A dark theater would mean she wouldn’t have to look at Adam, either,
which, in light of her new preposterous feelings, might be a good thing.
“Do you think we could watch one?” he asked.
Carly knew her way around a projector. In high school, she’d worked weekends at the Burbank 16. So when she walked into the back storage room, she quickly found alphabetized and labeled film canisters stacked on neat shelves. Bruce’s handwriting was uneven and hurried, but she could read the words.
She wanted something fun to take them out of the loop, if only for two hours. But Adam said, “I found this in a box labeled
‘Carly’s movies.’” He held the can up.
The Shield Force was a buddy cop film set in Chicago and starring her ultimate Hollywood heartthrob.
“Oh my God.” The space was small, and Carly had to press herself against Adam’s back to reach the box he’d found. She was
momentarily stunned by his unexpectedly broad shoulders, which caused her to rapidly blink. She bit her lip in an attempt
to refocus, then pulled the box off the shelf. Inside were at least a dozen of some of Carly’s favorite films—the ones that
had made her want to be a screenwriter. “Almost all of these star the greatest actor of all time, Rhys Montrose,” Carly said
with a toothy grin. “But in The Shield Force he takes his shirt off in one very pivotal helicopter sequence.”
Adam let out a little huff of acknowledgment. “Here I thought you cared about films with a capital F.”
Is Adam . . . jealous? No, that was a silly thought. He was just being his usual Adam self and found a new way to insult her.
Carly could insult right back, though. “The human body is cinema, Adam. Maybe you’re just too uncomfortable in your own masculinity to acknowledge the majesty of the male form.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m bisexual. I’ve been with men. Rhys wouldn’t be my celebrity crush, though.”
“You’ve . . .” It’s not that Carly was shocked that Adam was bisexual, necessarily, but hadn’t he been with Shireen forever?
“When?”
“High school. Junior Year. Casey Todaro. He was a nice guy.”
“Oh.” Carly tried to hide her shock.
“But maybe The Shield Force will prove me wrong about Rhys,” Adam said.
As they returned to the snack counter in search of gummy bears and popcorn, the whole situation felt wildly normal, as opposed
to the terrifying reality of every loop. They were just talking about pop culture, grabbing food and getting ready to relax
with a movie.
Why hadn’t Carly thought to come here sooner? The change of pace was a balm.
In the theater, they sat in the middle row, and Adam’s elbow landed on the armrest between them. Their bodies touched, but
he didn’t pull away, and she didn’t, either. They were both comfortable, so what was the harm? Other than the fact that she
could feel the heat of his skin through his shirt.
“Okay, let’s say your theory is correct,” Adam said as the title cards rolled onscreen. “That a person has created some change
in our universe. And we are somehow those people.”
“Thank you, yes.” Carly shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth.
“So if we stopped spending time together, no further changes would occur. Correct?” He grabbed the gummy bears and tore the
package open.
“Yes,” she answered hesitantly. “That’s what I tested the last loop.”
“Let’s run a more proper control experiment, then.”
She didn’t love his expression, which looked like he was about to say checkmate. “So what are you . . . What are you saying?” she asked.
“Let’s isolate for two additional days.” Adam leaned a bit closer and she was distracted by a vein in his forearm, but tried to listen as he said, “No talking. Just go back to how we were before. We’ll study the eclipse independently and if it keeps decreasing, then your theory is incorrect.”
“But if it doesn’t decrease, then I get a Pulitzer?” She smiled.
“We’ll see.” He tossed a gummy bear into his mouth and chewed. “Do you want to know if the eclipse was shorter today?”
“No.” Carly just wasn’t ready for the bubble of this moment to pop yet. “So, when do we isolate?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Okay.” She could avoid Adam, she thought as she chewed her popcorn. She’d done it over two hundred times before. Her leg
began to bounce in her seat, and she smoothed her hand over her thigh to still herself. She wished she had her fidget cube,
or her stress ball to squeeze. Instead, she squeezed the top of her knee.
Her leg stilled. She was ready to be absorbed by the film, just as her dad would’ve wanted. That brief thought of Bruce triggered
the realization that she was finally getting to watch a movie in her dad’s theater, but he wasn’t there. He never would be
again. Carly’s cheeks were wet with tears before she realized what was happening. Adam’s arm coiled around her shoulder and
he brought her into his chest. He smoothed his palm down her back in slow, gentle swipes until her body calmed.
At some point, Carly’s thoughts strayed from her dad to Adam, who wasn’t as terrible of a person as she’d thought. Here he
was, comforting her, when he really didn’t need to. He wasn’t asking why she was crying. He wasn’t trying to force her to talk about her feelings. He was just letting her completely soak his shirt
with tears.
She was suddenly very tired. When she blinked, her lids nearly refused to open, and it was with some effort that she fluttered them.
Maybe she’d fall asleep in this chair. Her dad had picked comfy ones, hadn’t he?
Her dad. Her dad . . . She buried her face into Adam’s shirt.
He smoothed his palm down her back again. And eventually, she drifted off.