Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“I…” My voice trailed off as I watched Ethan come through the door. Unlike me, he moved through the room easily. Nodding and waving back at people as if he wasn’t also holding my entire heart in his hands.
“Hello. Jamie, are you with us?” Gabby waved in my face, then stopped when she realized where my attention was directed. “Okay, be chill. If the night ends and he didn’t submit your video, Nittha and I will be your bodyguards. We’ll leave right away.”
“After we let the air out of his tires. You do know which car is his, right?” Nittha asked. She sounded like her usual light, bubbly self, but there was enough of an edge to it that I wasn’t entirely sure she was joking.
“No one is committing any misdemeanors.” Gabby made a face at Nittha that suggested she was worried about her judgment sometimes. “We’ll go to the drugstore, buy some ice cream, go home, cry a little, and watch junk TV while talking shit about Ethan’s bad haircut.”
“I don’t think it’s a bad haircut.” I wrinkled my nose at Gabby.
“You wouldn’t.” She rolled her eyes.
“It’s more like a lack of haircut than—” Nittha’s voice was drowned out by too-loud hype music blaring from the speakers while a massive Kelly Sparkles appeared on-screen, looking like he’d stuck his finger in an electrical socket.
“Hey, hey, party people. Welcome to the first-ever TrendCon Regional VidCast.”
My palms started to sweat as Sparkles went over how the entries would be played, how people could vote, and what the prizes were for third-, second-, and first-place videos.
I tried to keep my eyes on the screen instead of following Ethan’s every movement as he leaned over and said something to Sterling.
Chills ran through me, and I wondered if I was going to be sick.
I wanted to blame my nerves on the idea that tonight I could win $150,000, but in reality, I was mostly anxious about what that video would say about my future, if any, with Ethan.
The thought alone made my stomach turn. I needed to splash cold water on my face or something.
Anything to help me calm down. As the first video started playing, I mouthed Bathroom to my friends and slid off my bar stool.
Trying to ignore the cold sweat running down my back, I edged along the railing that separated the bar from the restaurant so I could get to the bathroom.
I made it exactly two feet from our table before I knocked into someone.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, then stopped.
“Are you okay?” Ethan asked, concern on his face.
“Nerves.”
“You did set up a kind of high-stakes situation for yourself.” He half smiled, and my heart felt like it was tearing in two.
The next video started playing, casting a bluish light across his face and taking my mind back to that afternoon at the pool when all this started.
Ethan leaned his back against the railing. “What do you think so far?”
“Think? About what?” I searched his face for any hint of what he was feeling as my mind tried not to pull itself apart. I’d said I wouldn’t ask him about the video. I told him he didn’t even have to speak to me. The fact that he was standing here had to be a good sign, right?
“About our odds of winning.” Ethan nodded toward the screen as if it were the most obvious question in the world.
“I think it depends on which video you chose.” The part of me that wasn’t on my best behavior wanted to reach out and shake him.
My mind was as far away from the competition as Chicago was from Cape Town.
“It seems like the first vid they played has roughly the same idea as our general tourist video.”
“Hmm,” Ethan hedged. “And the second one?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know.” Ethan’s eyes studied my face, and it took everything in me not to bolt from the room. “I didn’t watch it.”
It felt like gravity had increased its pull around my heart.
At any minute, it was going to fall out of my chest and shatter on the floor.
He hadn’t watched the second video. He wasn’t here to make up.
He was here to let me down gently. How could four words hurt so badly?
Tears started to prickle at the corners of my eyes, and I took a long, deep breath.
“Okay.” I exhaled slowly, wondering how long I would need to stand near him before I could turn around and give Gabby and Nittha the signal for us to get out of this place. Deciding that the approximately three seconds I’d already waited was long enough, I said, “I accept this, but I’m gonna go.”
Ethan opened his mouth to say something, then paused as the screen behind me caught his eye.
A smile worked its way across his lips as the next video started playing.
Light washed over his face, and all my escape plans froze.
I knew that light. I’d watched it about a million times this week.
Turning in time, I caught a clip of Ethan waving at me from behind a camera, and then a mirror clip of me waving back at him.
Our sixty-second love story. Everything I’d wanted to say to Ethan working its way across the screen. Only, he hadn’t seen it.
“Please don’t go.” Ethan reached out and caught my hand as if he could sense that I was getting ready to bolt. He took a step closer to me. “I didn’t want to watch this without you.”
Everything but him and the screen seemed to slip away as we stood together, watching as BamBam and Buzzy chided us during the panel.
From my camera’s angle at the back of the room, it’s clear from the way Ethan was looking at me that BamBam really did notice his feelings long before I did.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could tell people were laughing before the next image came through: the two of us standing close as we tried to figure out how to film the fountain.
Him putting on my helmet at go-karts. Holding hands over a sunset.
Blowing him a kiss at the Neon Museum. Then the title card: Las Vegas: Sometimes what happens here stays with you.
The screen faded into the next video, and I could feel Ethan watching me. “So that’s how you really feel?”
I tried to read his face. Whatever future there might be for us hung in the balance, and I wanted to choose my words carefully.
“You asked me to trust you. Trust that everything would work out if I chose you, but I was too afraid. You weren’t responsible for what happened because of Emmie’s videos, or my family’s behavior, but I pushed you away like you’d had a role in everything all the same. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, you leaving hurt. A lot, actually.” Smiling half-heartedly, Ethan shook his head. “Like I cried. More than once.”
“If it helps, so did I.” I rested my free hand on his arm. The piece of me that wasn’t feeling awful for hurting him was comforted when he didn’t pull away. “Really, I’m sorry. I should have chosen you right then and had some faith that it would work out. If you’ll let me, I’m choosing you now.”
Ethan laughed, then glanced down. He was still holding my other hand. He’d had every chance to let go, and he hadn’t. It wasn’t forgiveness yet, but relief began to course through my system anyway. I missed holding his hand.
“For someone who doesn’t do social media, you killed your first serious attempt.” This time, his grin was genuine as he leaned toward me.
“Someone wise said I have to put myself out there.” Threading my fingers through his, I stepped a few inches closer to him. I was near enough that I could see the flecks of gold in his eyes.
“If I forgive you, can you promise to not freak out about what the internet says about us?” Ethan asked, his gaze tracing my face with an intensity that surprised me.
“Yes.” I nodded and stepped another inch closer to him so there was only a sliver of space between our bodies. “I promise I will not have that level of freak-out ever again.”
“Then I forgive you.” Ethan’s lips tugged into the slow, sweet smile I’d gotten used to. Dropping his voice so only the two of us could hear it, he said, “And it’s good that you won’t freak out because I am going to kiss you now, and I’m pretty sure we have an audience for it.”
“Audience or not, I choose you.”
“That’s all I wanted.” Ethan let go of my hand and wrapped his arms around me. Pulling me toward him, he closed the last bit of distance between us. The sounds of the world and our past mistakes melted away as our lips met.
His kiss tasted like a smile and felt like neon lights.
It was a kiss made up of sunsets, old-school music, and embarrassing cars.
It was sealed with bags of chips and complex coffee orders.
It held promises of movie nights and days by the pool.
More than shared secrets and inside jokes, this kiss was real.
It held a future with a thousand kisses like it.
The kind of kiss that meant wherever the future took us, we’d choose to have that adventure together.