twenty-one #2
the screen like it’s a car crash happening in front of him, vehicles piling up, maybe an explosion or two.
“I’m going to check out the food trucks,” I say, loudly enough for the others to hear. Everett jerks his gaze to me. “Anyone want anything?”
“Fries,” Laurel says without looking at me.
“More fries,” Davi echoes. Gabe holds up a hand on the other side of him to add a third order.
“Great.” I slap my hands on the ground behind me, look at Everett. “Can you help me?”
He’s already standing up.
We wind through the crowd toward the arc of food trucks arranged around the lawn, Everett’s shoulders visibly relaxing the
farther we get from the screen. Though, when there’s a particularly loud crash as the love interest knocks into a rack of
rusty medical instruments, they shoot back up to his ears.
“You really hate this, don’t you?” I ask as we get in the short line for a burger truck, its side boasting an illustration
of smiling French fries in a red plastic basket.
Everett glances down at me, appearing to weigh his words before he finally gives in and shrugs. “Yeah,” he says. “I hate it.”
“I should keep it in mind for the cookbook,” I say. “That I’ll hate it someday.”
“I don’t hate Cooney,” Everett clarifies as we move forward a spot. “I love the version of it in my head.”
“Ah,” I say, tugging my jacket a little tighter around me. It’s not cold out, but something about being with Everett like
this, talking normally, has a shiver running through me. That, or the memory of earlier, his hands scraping up my thighs,
like some dream I had. “So it didn’t turn out how you wanted it to.”
“It’s not even that,” he says, shaking his head a little as he thinks.
“I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like I thought things would go one way and they didn’t.
And the way they did go is fine, great even, in a lot of ways, but .
. . I keep wondering about the other possibilities.
I can’t seem to let go of them . . . If that makes sense. ”
I stare up at him, quiet for a minute. Because it does make perfect sense to me, but not in the context of his movie. And
as Everett looks at me a beat too long, I wonder if he feels like we’re not just talking about Cooney anymore either.
“Next!” We both yank our gazes away from each other to the woman hanging out of the window of the food truck, looking a little
exasperated, like it’s not the first time she’s tried to get our attention.
“Sorry,” I say, quickly stepping forward and trying to leave the buzzy feeling in me behind.
The woman tells us they’re running a few minutes behind after we place our order, so we wander over to the small carnival
area while we wait. All the better to distract Everett.
It’s quiet over here, most everyone watching the movie or getting food while watching the screen over their shoulder now.
A group of teenagers are on the rickety, carted-in carousel at one end, laughing and shouting to each other while a set of
grandparents and their grandkids stand at the Whac-A-Mole game, losing spectacularly.
Everett and I wander in silence for a while, but there’s not much to explore. After two laps I nod toward the ring toss. The
bored-looking attendant takes our money and quickly returns to his phone.
“Green or red?” I ask Everett, holding up the stack of rings that look like they’ve seen better days. Everett takes the green
from me and I nod toward the milk bottles we’re meant to land the rings on. He misses his first shot.
“Better luck next time,” I say, as I throw and miss too.
Everett grins at me as he throws the next one, narrowly making it around the neck of one of the bottles.
“I swear I used to be better at things like this,” I say as my next one bounces off and lands in the grass.
“Yeah? When?” Everett asks. “Was ring toss big on the San Francisco sports circuit when you were growing up?”
“You have no idea,” I say. I toss one and it lands on top of Everett’s green ring.
“Hustler,” Everett mutters sarcastically, shaking his head. “Here to take me for all I’m worth.”
“Didn’t realize we were betting on this game,” I say as he picks up his next ring, misses again. “What’s on the table?”
Everett thinks for a minute as I throw and land a red ring. When I turn to look up at him, smiling, something in his expression
has heat rising up my neck, into my cheeks.
“Lunch with me,” he says, chin tilting forward as if in invitation. “Not Cooper.”
I’m grateful that the carnival lights are already casting everything in shades of reds and oranges, or Everett would see how
flushed my face is at this, as if he just offered up strip poker as a bargaining chip instead of a meal together.
“I already told you,” I say, fingers curling around my final ring. “I’m not having lunch with Cooper again.”
Everett’s eyes are locked on to mine, holding me there. “You never told me that,” he says softly.
I swallow, try to keep my shoulders steady as my breathing hitches. It takes everything in me to tear my gaze away from his,
toss the ring in a lackluster movement toward the bottles. I don’t really want to win this bet.
But the ring flies in a perfect arc right toward the milk bottle in the middle and lands cleanly, no spin at all.
“Winner,” the attendant says flatly. He rummages around in a plastic storage bin behind him, eyes on his phone screen as he finally produces a rolled-up T-shirt and extends it in my direction. I have to lean over the booth to grab it from him.
We fall into step next to each other as we head away from the game, the T-shirt tucked under my arm. When I risk a glance
up at Everett, he’s already looking at me.