seventeen #3
Everett’s slicing slows, almost instinctually, his shoulders hitching the smallest bit. No one else would notice, but I do.
I’ve realized this week that I know Everett’s tells better than I thought I ever did, and something about it is disconcerting
to me, like there was a key detail about our relationship I missed. Like the arrangement we had revealed more about ourselves
to each other than I knew.
He looks over at me, finally, and I think he might say I don’t. That I’ll roll my eyes and we’ll be on our way, back to disliking each other in private and pretending to generally get
along in front of Laurel. But instead, his expression softens. “I just want you to be happy,” he says.
It’s simple. Standard, even. Something you say to a friend, or an ex, or the sort-of-ex Everett and I are to each other.
But something about it smacks me in the chest, has my breath not coming as easily for a second, and try as I might to scramble for a reason, a logical explanation for how I’m feeling, I can’t come up with one.
Everett tells me he wants me to be happy, and all rational thought flees my brain.
The door to the kitchen swings open behind us and I look quickly away from Everett.
“Got it!” Cooper exclaims before plonking the wine down on the counter. “This looks great,” he says, coming over to us and
putting a hand on both of our shoulders, peeking between us. “I can take over here, man,” he says to Everett, reaching a hand
toward the cutting board.
Everett sets his knife down, stepping quickly away. “Sounds great,” he says, in a voice a little rougher than usual. He walks
out the door without another look back.
I sit up front on the drive back to the house after dinner, Laurel insisting she hasn’t had any back seat time this whole
trip. She and Gabe and Davi start up their usual karaoke as soon as the radio turns on. Everett and I are silent the whole
time, but I can feel every minute shift in the air as he turns the wheel, as he lifts his eyes to glance in the rearview.
As soon as we’re back at the villa, I hop out and march toward the steps, determined to get up to my room before anyone can
stop me.
But Laurel has other plans.
“I saw Taboo in the cupboard!” she says excitedly, back to her normal self. “Everyone in their pajamas and we’ll meet out
back in five.”
Everett is standing in the foyer, door still closing behind him as the others scamper off toward their rooms like excited,
overgrown teenagers. I’m standing at the base of the stairs, one hand on the banister, knocked a little to the side by Davi
and Laurel in their enthusiasm.
“Going up?” Everett asks, nodding at me.
I follow his gaze to where I can see the second-floor landing, look back at him, a little dazed.
By what, I’m not sure, but something settled in back at Cooper’s.
I just want you to be happy. I shouldn’t read into it, I know.
Shouldn’t think about the way he said it, or how he looked at me as he did. But it was
there all through dinner, something that kept dragging my gaze to him, even if he hardly glanced my way, my mind on the almost
ragged edge to his voice as he said it. And, further down, on some moment years ago, just the two of us, promises made that
neither of us were ever going to be able to keep. Some kind of hope lodged between us that we couldn’t hang on to.
“Yep,” I finally say, but I don’t move.
Everett walks over to me, pausing on the other side of the banister. He puts his hand just above where mine is sitting, his
index finger settling against my pinky. Innocuous enough, and yet it sends a spark zapping down my spine, straightening my
posture, chest tilting toward his.
“Did you mean what you said?” I ask in the quiet, my own voice low. Everett’s brow furrows. “In the kitchen. You want me to
be happy.”
He steps closer to me, mere inches between us now. “Of course I want that,” he says. His next inhale is a little shaky, deeper
than the last. “I’ve always wanted that.”
“I want that too,” I say. “For you.”
I wish I could somehow record every unspoken thing zipping between us right now.
All the conversations we should have had and never did, all the things we actually mean.
Of course we want each other to be happy, in the same way we want Laurel and Davi and Gabe and most people, generally, to be happy.
But it feels so much bigger when Everett says it.
I want to ask where he wants that happiness to come from.
I want him, I realize in that moment, as his fingers slide just over mine.
This. Worst of all, it feels so familiar I worry that it’s been with me this whole time. That I never fully stopped wanting it.
It’s enough of a shock that I startle back, sucking in a breath. Everett’s hand slides off of mine as I do, his gaze dropping
for a second before he looks up at me again.
“After you,” he says, gesturing to the stairs.
“Thanks,” I say, nodding.
It takes me a moment longer than it should to turn away.