twenty-seven #2
The only thing that comes to mind, again and again, is a breathy admission on a kitchen counter, every lie I’ve told myself
unraveling as I told Everett he’s not you. Last night, and this morning, and how it felt every minute before we walked into the party.
As if Cooper can read my mind, he glances around the room, searching for someone. “You know, I’d love to track down that director
friend of yours,” he says. “Talk to him about film school. My daughter was furious she missed meeting him.”
“Everett?” I say, stupidly, like the mere mention of him doesn’t have warmth shooting through me. “He’s around here somewhere.”
Cooper glances at me, a crinkle by his eyes as he gives me a soft smile that has me feeling utterly exposed. I throw back
the dregs of my martini and stand up, hopeful that if I face the topic of Everett head-on, Cooper won’t suspect me of anything.
I can’t have Cooper, a veritable stranger, thinking he knows something about me, understands it even before I do.
“Let’s find him,” I say. The martini Davi ordered me was strong, and his comment about why Laurel called me is still buzzing
incessantly around my head, some undercurrent to it that I can’t seem to fully ignore, something about this whole night rubbing
me the wrong way.
Cooper follows me into the crowd. Laurel has been a white blur all evening, but I haven’t talked to her since we arrived.
Right now, she’s laughing loudly with a circle of people underneath a sign that reads Laurel’s New Life! in looping golden script, a motto that’s starting to dull. I want to be clued in on what, exactly, Laurel’s new life is going
to look like. Our collective place in it.
I track Gabe and Davi down, making friends with people I don’t recognize. Neither of them have seen Everett in a while, they tell me, and so I resume my dogged march through the crowd with Cooper trailing behind me.
“Hey, it’s not a big deal,” he says at one point, leaning down so his breath is against my ear. I’m not exactly tipsy, just
less than, nursed the martini long enough that it feels less fun and more like a headache now, making me unnecessarily cranky.
“No, he’ll want to talk to you,” I say to Cooper. I can feel doubt radiating off him, think he’d probably be wise to veer
sideways into the crowd and away from me right now, find someone who isn’t acting like I am. But I can’t seem to stop searching
the room, feel almost desperate to find Everett, like my nerves won’t settle until we do.
“Sutton,” Cooper says, with a gentle brush of a hand against mine.
“There he is!” I exclaim, pointing with the same hand Cooper’s fingers just found across the room, to the doors that lead
out to the deck attached to the side of this place, where partygoers flow outside. Everett is leaned against the wall, a drink
in hand, and something about the sight of him has whatever has me so angry dissipating, quieting for now.
But when we reach him, I know instantly that something is wrong.
“Hey,” I say to him as he glances up.
“Sutton,” he says flatly. Then, eyes flicking to the person next to me, “Cooper.”
Cooper, to his credit, knows when to make an exit. “Can I get anyone drinks?” he says, eyeing both of us.
“No thanks,” I say. “But didn’t you want to—”
“I’m going to grab another,” he says, giving my elbow a squeeze that feels a lot like a goodbye before he nods at Everett.
“Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
I feel a little guilty as I watch him go. When I turn back to Everett, he’s taking a sip from his glass, something in it that looks stronger than anything he usually drinks.
“He wanted to ask you about film school,” I say. “His daughter wants to go to Devon.”
“I don’t want to talk to Cooper about film school,” Everett says, voice low.
I shake my head. “He’s a nice guy.”
“So? I don’t know him,” Everett insists, and I can tell that he’s angry, something simmering just below the surface. “Did
you want to spend an afternoon telling him how to land a book deal?”
Not really, I think, but that’s not the point right now. The point is whatever has caused Everett’s sudden shift in attitude.
“Are you mad that I was talking to Cooper tonight?” I ask. Everett shakes his head, looking exasperated, which has the same
frustration I felt with him at the beginning of the week flaring to life in my chest. “We’re not exactly together,” I say,
before I can think about it.
Everett’s eyes flash for a split second before something fizzles out there, fight and defeat all at once. “Oh,” he finally
says. “That I know.”
It feels like the world has been flipped upside down, like we drove into some other dimension on the way here. Everything
was fine, and now it’s not, and I can’t tell if I just didn’t notice that things really weren’t okay, or if something has actually gone wrong.
“Everett,” I say, reaching out to lay a hand on his arm. “What’s going on?” He glances down at where I’m touching him, something
seeming to still in his body. “Listen, we’ll talk. Just—once this is all over, okay? Once we’re past this week. Now just isn’t
the time.”
Everett’s eyes flick to mine. “Right,” he says, but it doesn’t sound convincing. “Of course we will.”
“Everett,” I say, as he steps out of reach, apparently heading somewhere. “I promise you.”
“I know you do,” he says, and he gives me a quick smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m going to get some air, okay?”
“Do you want me to come with you?” I ask.
He shakes his head, and I can’t tell what it is, exactly. I don’t know if he seems angry anymore. Not at me, at least. But
there’s something there that I still can’t grasp. “No,” he says. “You stay. It’s a party. Here.” He digs his keys out of his
pocket, hands them to me. The cool weight of them surprises me, like I’ve been handed his most prized possession, but I don’t
think to protest. “In case anyone wants to head home early.”
“Everett, what’s wrong?” I ask, but again, he shakes his head.
“Nothing,” he says. “I promise you.”
I can’t tell if he meant to echo me. If the words should land and sting, or if it was unintentional. But whatever he meant,
he goes. Backs away toward the door until he turns and makes it the rest of the way out, one hand in his pocket.
And I let him.