Chapter Sixteen #3
At different points, Ethan and I stopped to take pictures of each other with the signs. Half of them were blurry because we were rushing, and at least a third of them had Ethan making silly faces at me, but it didn’t really matter. Tonight, under the glow of the lights, every picture felt perfect.
“Wait, hold still.” I pulled out my phone to take another picture of Ethan, the pinkish glow from a flashing Wedding Information sign highlighting his cheekbones and giving his normally sandy-blond hair a reddish tint.
He looked at the sign, then back at me, then did an exaggerated wink at the camera.
“Switch.” Ethan waved at me to come stand where he was standing, even as the tour group started to move to the next sign. I blew a kiss at him. Ethan took the picture, then pretended to grab the kiss and smash it to his cheek.
“You’re extremely cheesy.” I laughed as we tried to catch up with the group.
“Sure, I’m cheesy. But you have to admit, I’m pretty gr-ate.” Ethan snorted as I groaned. “Get it? Because cheese is grated and—”
“Oh, I understood the pun. It was just really bad.”
“I make no apologies.”
“But you should.” I cackled. “That joke was beneath you, Grandpa.”
“My car music should have been your first clue. Proud grandpa right here.” He beamed at me and tapped his chest.
“Thank you all for joining us here. For those of you who are seeing the show, hang around for fifteen minutes, and we’ll call your group,” the guide said, interrupting our giggles long enough for the two of us to pull it together. “Until then, feel free to take pictures or visit the gift shop.”
“Come on. We have to take another picture.” Ethan nodded toward the La Concha Motel sign.
“Maybe someone from the group will—” I eyed the yard for a group that wasn’t already occupied with their own glittering neon photos, then turned back to him and shrugged.
“I have long arms.” Ethan held his arms out to demonstrate his reach. “And it doesn’t have to be perfect.”
“Alright, but when it’s blurry and we have to find someone to retake it, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.” I laughed as I walked over to his side. Ethan threw his free arm around me, and I tucked myself underneath it, snuggling against him, then smiled up at the camera.
“Three, two, one.” I felt his countdown vibrate through his chest as Ethan prepared to take the picture.
After a series of screen blinks, he let his arms fall and repositioned himself slightly so we could both see the pictures.
I tried to ignore the fact that my side felt cold with his absence and watched as he scrolled through a series of off-kilter photos.
“Okay, well, they’re definitely not perfect,” I said. The two of us were in frame, but the sign was crooked and half of it was missing.
“What do you mean? Everything that matters is in the picture.”
“Sure. If by ‘everything that matters’ you mean half a neon sign, then you are correct.”
Ethan stared down at the photo and then back at me, half smiling. “You’re the part that’s important to me.”
The gentle hum of neon bulbs buzzed between us as I processed exactly what he’d said.
“Ethan, I…”
I paused midsentence and tried to collect my thoughts.
I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t care anymore or that we were nothing more than friends.
And it was obvious he wanted something from me.
I wasn’t a rebound or just some girl to make his ex jealous.
If he’d gone to this much trouble to arrange tonight, it was safe to say Ethan cared about me just as much as I liked him.
In my mind, telling him how I felt was easy.
But now that I was trying to do it, none of my words seemed quite right.
The feel of his hand in mine came back to me.
I wanted my words to feel like that memory, warm and reassuring.
I reached for one of his hands, holding his fingers loosely in mine as I studied our skin.
My mind whirled through a thousand phrases.
I like you.
No.
I really like you.
Still not enough.
You get me.
Bland.
Please don’t let me go.
Desperate…and a little unhinged sounding.
“Yes?” Ethan gently prompted me, and I peered up at him. The same honey-brown eyes that had caught my attention on the plane searched my face, reminding me of a thousand small moments with him. Time spent together that I didn’t know would matter now seemed like everything to me.
Ethan mattered to me.
That was it. That was the phrase I wanted to say. Taking a deep breath, I pulled my shoulders back.
“If you are here for the nine-fifteen display, please follow me.”
Not for the first time, a museum employee’s voice made both of us jump. I tried not to resent them for ruining my perfect moment a second time. Ethan’s face appeared stunned, as if someone had thrown a football directly at his head and barely missed.
“Thanks for arranging this.” I sighed, feeling the courage I’d managed to scrounge up disappear under the expectant gaze of the museum employee. Why was I such a wimp? People put themselves out there and got rejected all the time. Instead, I seemed doomed to miss the moment forever.
“Oh, of course,” Ethan said. Gently, he rearranged our hands so they were properly clasped, then looked down at me, checking to see if this was still okay.
I smiled up at him, praying that it would convey all my unarticulated feelings.
The ones I understood and the ones I didn’t, all of which added up to the idea that Ethan felt like my person.
Even though, according to my parents, I was too young to have a person. And according to BamBam, this particular “young person” was meant to be in my no-person zone. But I’d worry about all that after I was brave enough to tell Ethan everything.
“We should go.” Ethan nodded in the direction of the employee who was now walking out of the park. We wandered back across the street as the guide walked us through a series of murals focusing on the unsung heroes of Las Vegas.
“You could totally make a movie about this,” Ethan whispered as we moved to the next mural. “Old Las Vegas.”
I eyed him to see if he was serious. When he didn’t laugh, I leaned into him playfully. “I feel like it can’t be a heist movie, though. That’s been done. Maybe I’ll make a love story.”
“A Las Vegas Love Story.” Ethan moved his hand in an arc as if seeing a title on a marquee. “Has a nice ring to it. I’d see it.”
“At this point, it is clear to me that you will sit through anything,” I joked.
“Only if you make it.”
My heart seemed to beat twice as fast as he smiled down at me.
Our guide stopped at the entrance to another outdoor park, pulling my attention away from Ethan as they said, “And this is where we keep the signs we can’t repair.
It’s also where our show starts. It’s set to music that is gonna make you want to shake what you got.
We’ll leave everything lit up after the show, so don’t worry about taking pictures now. Just enjoy the experience.”
Ethan and I exchanged glances, then tried to swallow our giggles.
The employee looked like the kind of person who would shake what the good Lord gave them any day of the week to any song, including a polka if it came on.
Part of me hoped they would play some of Ethan’s old-man music to see if he could resist the urge to dance along with the show.
As the employee went over the rules about filming (don’t do it), Ethan whispered, “This is what I wanted you to see. I watched that video you did where you colorized all those old photos of BamBam. I bet you could do something like this with that skill.”
I felt my eyebrows creep up my forehead.
That video of BamBam was a couple years old, back when I was experimenting with different photo-treatment techniques to see what people would click on.
I’d loved it, but it hadn’t been popular, so I’d stopped doing it.
Apparently, Ethan not only went that far back in my creative history; he remembered it.
“What—” I wanted to ask him what he saw in those videos, when the lights dropped and we were plunged into darkness.
Moments later, a projector reincarnated the long-dead signs, as an old jazz standard about love and Las Vegas played.
The lights displayed on the signs weren’t neon, but in some ways, they seemed more magical, like someone had colorized an old photo and placed us in it.
Suddenly, we were back in time, the reanimated neon transporting us to the early days of the city with all the glamour and mystery that entailed.
With the lights swirling around us, it felt like I was on a dance floor waiting to be swept up in Ethan’s arms.
I’m not sure that either of us made the conscious decision to stand closer to one another.
All I know is that by the time another slow jazz standard came on, Ethan’s arms were around me.
I leaned my head back to rest on his chest. The rhythm of his breathing and the warmth of his body against mine was soothing.
Like it was just us two living in the illusion the old signs cast.
Eventually the music faded, and we were left with the sparkle of projected lights.
Other guests started to take pictures, but Ethan and I didn’t move—unwilling to let go of the last little bit of magic.
Nestled against him, I let my mind drift back to the museum and the words I’d been trying to find.
I could still say them now. Even if he never kissed me, Ethan deserved to hear the truth.
Closing my eyes, I took one deep breath, before reaching up to take hold of Ethan’s hand again.
Exhaling, I leaned away from him, slowly unwinding our bodies so that I could face him.
Ethan swung our hands back and forth, then smiled at me. “Are you ready to leave?”
“Not yet. I want to tell you something. Or, I don’t know…
talk about something.” I shook my head, my eyebrows drawing together in concentration as Ethan’s smile faltered slightly.
Taking a deep breath to slow myself down, I tried again.
“I mean, I want to talk about you. Us. I want to talk about us.”
“Uh-huh.” Ethan’s brow furrowed even as he tried to keep his surprise out of his tone. “Okay. What about?”
The little piece of me that wasn’t freaking out about opening up wanted to laugh at how nervous he sounded. The rest of me was pretty sure that even though it was cold out, I might anxiety-sweat through BamBam’s sweater.
After taking a careful, slow breath, I said, “When we were talking at Red Rock, you mentioned that you were interested in someone new and I—”
“Oh.” Ethan’s entire body relaxed. Stepping a few inches closer to me, he said, “To be clear, the someone new is you. I’m interested in you.”
I tilted my head back and grinned. “Yeah. I figured that part out.”
“Okay, because I didn’t think I was being subtle, but you didn’t say anything so then I resigned myself to potentially dying in the friend zone of an unrequited crush.”
A gentle laugh rolled through Ethan’s body, then he bit down on his lower lip to keep himself from saying more.
We were close enough now that I could see the fine lines of his cheekbones highlighted in the shimmer of the neon signs.
I wanted to reach out with my free hand and trace the reflection on his skin.
Instead, I reached down and took his other hand.
“You were not subtle.” I stepped an inch closer to him. “I just hadn’t figured out the perfect words to say that I felt the same. Maybe I still haven’t, but I really like you, Ethan Wyatt. You matter to me.”
For a moment, Ethan was still, and I started to wonder if I’d actually said anything out loud, or if this entire thing was a dream.
Then a slow, quiet smile made its way across his face.
Ethan glanced to the left and then the right as if he were waiting for someone to tell him this wasn’t real.
When that person didn’t appear, he looked back at me.
“I thought you knew?” Ethan took a small step closer to me. We were close enough that I had to tilt my head back slightly to be able to see that smile. “You don’t need to be perfect with me. I want you exactly as you are, Jamie Webb.”
My heart was beating wildly. Ethan licked his lips, and my breathing became shallow as desire coursed through me. I leaned into him, closing the gap between us. Searching his eyes, I whispered, “So then, is there no perfect way to ask if I can kiss you?”
Ethan laughed quietly, then dipped his head so our lips were almost touching as he said, “That is the perfect way.”
His lips brushed mine. The kiss was shy at first, soft and gentle, like he was testing to see if I was really there.
I untwined our fingers, sliding one of my hands up the plane of his chest, enjoying the feel of him, solid beneath my hand.
My touch seemed to free something inside of him, and Ethan deepened the kiss, releasing my other hand and wrapping his arms around me, pulling me closer to him so our bodies were aligned.
My mind shut everything that wasn’t him out. The press of his hand on the small of my back. His hair between my fingers. The smell of him. His taste. Like mint and something untamed and sweet. Whatever it was, I wanted more of it.
Slowly, Ethan relaxed his hold on me, and I held on tighter to him, still dizzy from the kiss. “What…”
Ethan leaned his forehead against mine and whispered, “The lights are on.”
My mind cleared enough to realize that he was right: They had turned on the bright park floodlights again, taking the magic of the re-created neon with them. I sighed, letting my hand fall away from the back of his neck. “I’d rather stay here with you.”
“Kissing me is not location dependent. I’ll always be where you are.”