Chapter Ten #2
My breath caught in my throat. It wasn’t like I’d told him all the details about my parents, or feeling trapped in a future I didn’t plan, but something about the way he said it—all sincere—was like someone putting a bandage over the cracks in my heart.
It both stung and felt good at the same time.
Before I could stop them, his words spread through my system faster than a drug and settled into the corner of my mind where I’d inadvertently started storing memories and details about Ethan.
“Ready?” he called, pulling me away from the strange, warm, fuzzy feeling growing in my chest. He was holding up his phone and waving. From behind the phone, he said, “I’m filming you.”
“You are such a dork.” He was making more work for himself by filming me, but whatever.
If he wanted to waste time cutting me out of his footage, that was his problem.
Holding up my camera, I hit Record and started slowly working my way around the car, careful to keep Ethan out of my shot.
Once I’d completed the circle, I motioned to Ethan to go around again.
This time, I stayed still, filming him filming the car, so he’d have more options.
By the time he’d made it around another time, my arms were officially tired to the point of being over it.
Turning to me, he said, “I’m good. You happy?”
“I’ll have to be if we want to catch the fountain.
” I sighed, unscrewing my camera and collapsing my tripod before tucking both safely back into my bag.
The gesture bought me a second to try to get the butterflies in my stomach back under control.
We were really doing this. Or we would be if the car was more reliable than our ability to navigate the lofted walkways of Las Vegas.
Both of us got closer to the car, and I could almost feel our collective trepidation about taking something that so clearly did not have airbags onto the road. As if reading my mind, Ethan said, “It does have seat belts, I checked.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “Alright.”
Walking around to the passenger side, I took a deep breath and grabbed both sides of the no-doors and pulled myself into the vehicle.
Once I was in, I put my backpack between my knees, praying that Ethan didn’t take any sharp turns too fast, then started trying to figure out how to put on my seat belt.
It was one of those harness seat belts with a seemingly endless number of straps that all connected to one another.
After a minute of buckling, unbuckling, untwisting, retwisting, and adjusting, I finally decided to copy Ethan.
Unfortunately, he’d already buckled up and was watching me struggle, amusement written across his face.
“Do you need help?”
“No. I got it,” I said, more out of pride than honesty. If Ethan could figure this out, then surely I could, too. I tried another buckle and almost immediately unfastened it. The thing felt like it was designed to strangle me.
“You sure you got it?”
“Mostly sure,” I said, keeping my eyes focused on the task at hand so I didn’t have to see him trying not to laugh.
“It’s just that we are kinda tight on time, and—”
“Okay, fine.” I dropped all the different buckles. “How does this work?”
“Here, lean forward,” he said, reaching across the car and pulling a strap in front of my seat. “Put your arm through this part.”
I rotated around to move my arm through the strap. Ethan’s hand grazed the base of my neck as we both tried to adjust the belt. My skin prickled with the sensation of his touch, awareness running down my spine. I took a deep, steadying breath.
“Sorry,” he said as something clicked over my shoulder and the belt dropped a few inches. He sat back into the driver’s side. “You should be good to snap the front buckles now. It works like a star.”
“Right.” Objectively, I understood what he was saying, but my body was still stuck on the way the skin on the back of my neck was tingling, as if his hand were still there. I gave myself a mental kick to push the sensation of his touch out of my mind and started clicking buckles into place.
“Ready?” He smiled at me again, then twisted the key in the ignition. This time the car blared “Birds of a Feather” as it roared to life.
Working the stick shift into gear, Ethan eased his way out of the valet traffic, the engine’s growling growing louder the faster we drove.
Part of me wanted to ask Ethan what kind of person would want a car that was both extremely loud and very absurd.
The other part of me knew there was no way he could hear me over the sound of the wind coming through whatever door holes were called.
The light at the end of the Stonereel’s exit turned red, and Ethan took the car out of gear, quieting the engine as we rolled to a stop.
For a second, we sat in semi-silence, the colors of the car changing around us.
Searching for something to say that would make me feel less ridiculous, I shouted, “How’d you get so good at putting on weird seat belts? ”
“Little sister’s car seats. Although, she can do up her own belt now,” Ethan teased, watching me through the rearview.
“Rude.”
Ethan smirked as the light turned green, then moved the car back into gear. Ten very loud minutes later, we pulled up to the Bellagio’s parking lot.
“We made it,” Ethan said as soon as he shut off the engine.
“And the whole Strip knows it,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt. Even though the car was off, it still felt like my entire body was vibrating along with the engine. “Why would anyone want a car like this?”
“What? You don’t want to announce your presence to half of Chicago every time you go to the grocery store?” Ethan asked, unbuckling his own seat belt.
“Can you imagine being late to school in this?” I giggled, jumping down on wobbly legs.
“Or being late for curfew? You’d get caught by the whole neighborhood.
” Ethan got out of the car like he’d disembarked from a ship.
Our eyes met, and we immediately cracked up.
Walking around to my side of the car, he passed me a bag of jalapeno chips and smiled.
“Promise me, if you need a break you’ll eat, okay? ”
“I promise.” I smiled, taking the chips and putting them into my bag for later. As the two of us began winding our way toward the front of the hotel, I asked, “Where’d you learn to drive a stick?”
“I’m not really sure.” Ethan’s brow furrowed as he thought. “My dad, I guess.”
“How do you not know where you learned to drive?” I asked as we weaved around a family.
“I know where. I was at my family’s garage.
” Ethan shrugged. “I’ve hung around my dad, cars, and other mechanics for as long as I can remember.
I don’t know that anyone ever really taught me.
I feel like someone asked me to move a car one day, I probably stalled out a thousand times but learned along the way. ”
“So, your family owns a repair shop?”
“Yes. My mom works there, too, so basically the whole family spends our time in the shop,” Ethan said, a faint smile tracing his lips, as if whatever memory came with this explanation was dear to him.
“It must be fun to share an interest with your family.” A tiny pang of jealousy squeezed at my heart. The kind of envy where you are both happy for someone and sad over the thing you’ll never have washed over me.
“I wouldn’t say it was a shared interest so much as my parents didn’t have money for babysitters after Stephanie and Katie graduated, so the interest was forced upon us.
” Ethan laughed as the iconic dancing fountain pool came into sight, already crowded with people waiting for the show.
“But yeah, it’s nice. Especially now that the garage is doing well enough that I don’t have to be there unless they need extra help or I want to hang out with my parents or something. ”
“That’s sweet. You’re lucky to have the kind of family that hangs out together.”
“I am.”
Ethan glanced down at me, and I smiled up at him as we slowed our pace, both of us scanning the pool’s railing for a break in the crowd where we might be able to squeeze in and film the fountain without a bunch of heads in the way.
“There are a lot more people here than I thought there’d be,” Ethan said after a beat of searching.
“You’re taller than me, so if we can’t find a spot, maybe—” I cut myself off as I watched a family reorganize themselves against the railing, making enough space for a person to squeeze in between them and another group.
I reached out and placed my hand on Ethan’s, pulling us toward the edge of the balcony overlooking the water. “There’s a spot.”
The gesture wasn’t meant to be a big deal, merely a way to move us away from other pedestrians, but as soon as my fingers touched his skin, it felt like I was being pulled into him by a gravitational force.
The electric hum that seemed to constantly hover between us returned, its spark more intense this time.
Ethan glanced down at my hand, then back at me.
I held my breath as the two of us stood still for a heartbeat that felt like it lasted forever.
Someone walked by carrying a baby, and Ethan moved a few inches closer to me to avoid them.
He was close enough that I could smell him, clean.
Like whatever soap he used had eucalyptus in it plus some other scent that was all him.
I liked that scent more than I wanted to admit.
I knew I should take a step back. Being so near to him was reckless.
There were only so many reasons he could be this close to me, and if anyone from the con or one of our grandmas’ combined three million followers recognized us, they might jump to conclusions.
Then again, I wondered how much I’d care if they did.
The next moment, a woman with a toddler and a giant M&M’s store shopping bag jostled us, throwing me slightly off balance. I let go of him, instantly releasing the tension between us.