As soon as they’re gone, and Laurel, Gabe, and Davi erupt intooohson my other side, Everett retreats back into himself. If he still had his hood up, I swear he’d be drawing his head into it like a turtle.
“Shut up,” he says to our friends. Laurel pelts him with a peach ring, Davi cooing his name loudly enough for nearby moviegoers to hear while Gabe claps. I reach for the open bottle of wine, pouring heavily into one of the mishmash of cups we tucked into bags and handing it to Everett.
Because I get it, I think. It’s not that he isn’t proud of hiswork, or that he hates signing middle schoolers’ sweatshirts. He isn’t vain enough to think everyone here is going to recognize him, or care if anyone does. But there’s something so personal in it that it’s like we’ve all sat down to watch a naked Everett on an operating table for the next two hours, ogling something he’s powerless to hide. Everett can be the charming guy, self-deprecating enough that he’s not an asshole. But he’s never totally had to be that with us. This trip, this place was once a sanctuary. And even if coming to see his movie isn’t the reason it’s not, even if some of the magic faded from this place a long time ago, tonight makes him feel like he isn’t safe. Like we’re examining him somehow, the same as everyone who has watchedCooneyand made some assumption about the people who created it.
“Thanks,” he says with a grateful grimace as I hand him the wine, filled to the top. I nod, pour my own glass, and settle in as the screen flickers to life in front of us, ads and announcements starting to roll as the sun dips beneath the horizon.
I startle a little when Everett’s arm brushes against mine, looking over in time to see him glance away from me and back at the screen, where an ad for a local credit union is scrolling past.
I look down at where our arms touch, the blue of his sweatshirt against my denim jacket. And I shift, the same way he did, just close enough to mean something, pressing back.
An hour in, Everett is miserable.
I glance away from where the two leads are breaking into the abandoned medical facility and look over at Everett, who’s watching 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 hateCooney,” 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 thingswould 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 aboutCooneyanymore 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.
