“Oh, this is going to be a collector’s item someday,” I say. I’m glad for the distraction, feel the quick relief of our back-and-forth settling over me as I twist the shirt to look at it again. The original artwork forCooneyis on the front, large and undeniable. “I’m going to sleep in this every night. Can you sign it for me, Director?”
“Nope,” Everett says. He swings an arm around my shoulders and plucks the shirt out of my hands, tucking it under his opposite arm. Easy. Casual. NoI thinkall ofmy best days have been with youin sight. We could be two friends or a couple in love to any outsider as I lean around him, try to grab at the shirt he stole. “We’ll get you something better to sleep in.”
I lean into his side as we near the food trucks, letting myself, for just this moment, feel like I used to with him. Enjoy it. Whatever that means.
twenty-two
Fourth Summer
We slid into our fourth summer after a marathon of planning: tweaking dates so we could overlap as much as possible, moving things around again when new plans came up, cutting things short and extending them again and trying out every possible variety because we’d all just gotten so busy over the last year. And still, after everything, Gabe wouldn’t be there.
Ihave totake two weeks off for the wedding in August, he’d said the last time I’d talked to him about it.I’m using up enough vacation time as it is. I just can’t swing it this year.
I understand, I’d told him. Because logically, I did. Not everyone had the luxury of setting their own schedules, and we’d all see each other for a few days surrounding the wedding anyway. But the other part of me, the part that railed against any kind of change, the wholly unreasonable part, wanted to tell him to quit his job and make the trek to California so we could all be together.We promised each other this one week,I wanted to say.How big of an ask is one week a year?
On top of us being down one person again, this summer wouldn’t be the same for another reason. There wouldn’t be two extra days at the end of the week, because Everett, surprise of all surprises, had a girlfriend.
“What’s it like dating the most beautiful woman in the UK?” Laurel asked after we’d all arrived and settled into the living room of the cottage. Davi was grabbing water in the kitchen, and Everett and I sat at either end of the couch, like holding space between us was important.
Laurel leaned across the coffee table, holding up her phone to Everett as if he needed a reminder of who his girlfriend was. On her screen was a picture of him with Maud Turner at the red-carpet premiere of her last film, looking as much like a Hollywood couple as they did at Cannes for the showing of his most recent project the month prior. Everett in an expensive black suit, Maud in something bespoke and fashion forward.
They’d even been papped a couple times, coming out of Osteria Mozza or sitting outside Stir Crazy. It was those that bothered me the most, for some reason. Not that any of them should bother me. But I would zoom in on Everett’s face whenever Laurel sent me the photos, eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, like I could find clues there about whether or not he was happy. On the red carpet he was a presence, charming, laughing, and chatting. Everett at a party. But in these pictures some of that fell away, and so I studied them for signs they were real. If he loved her, if they did things like cooking together or surfing or if he turned on Ina Garten on Saturday mornings while they sipped coffee and woke up slowly. Probably. Probably those things weren’t just ours. And it was silly of me to think so.
“You’re just returning to us from France, aren’t you?” Laurel asked, when Everett just waved off her first question. “Fancy man.” And he did look fancy, tanned in a way that suggested yacht decks rather than mornings on his surfboard, his shirt so soft against my skin when I hugged him that I had to double-check it was, in fact, just a T-shirt.
The movie Everett had worked on two summers ago—Just an indie, he’d called it,nothing special—had been making its rounds at film festivals to much aplomb, garnering award buzz and landing him his next jobs and, maybe most importantly, budgets. While he was no household name, he was becoming increasingly well-known in the film community. And his relationship with a certain gorgeous, up-and-coming actress didn’t hurt his growing reputation either.
“You’re just getting back from a month in Bali, aren’t you?” Everett asked Laurel, deflecting her question.
“I am,” she said. “The wellness retreat was a success.”
“Remind me,” Davi said, as he flopped onto the couch next to me and it made a disagreeable sound. “If we have a wildly successful influencer and the next Spielberg in the room with us, why are we still staying in this shithole?”
“Take that back,” Laurel scolded him. “This place is not a shithole.”
Davi looked around skeptically at the tiny room, but didn’t say anything else.
It had come up, briefly, when we booked the cottage this year. A discussion of whether we should upgrade to something a little more comfortable, but Laurel had dismissed it, saying the whole point of the trip was staying here, specifically.
“Is Winona still coming down for a couple days?” Everett asked Laurel.
Her face clouded at the mention of her girlfriend of a year. Everett and I exchanged a quick glance, the first we’d shared since he arrived. “I don’t think so,” Laurel said, voice going a little far-off. Her expression matched, gaze drifting out the door. She would have made a great close-up in one of Everett’s movies.
“Everything okay?” I asked her, but she just gave me a wan smile.
“Fine,” she said. It was a small sting, unintentional, but there nonetheless. Laurel wasn’t telling me something, and as far as I knew, we told each other everything. But, I reminded myself, she would tell me when she was ready.
I stood up, brushing my hands on my shorts. “Should we head to the beach?” I asked.
Laurel brightened at this. “I’ll grab the wine!”
Davi followed Laurel into the kitchen while I scooped beach towels out of the basket by the back door. When I straightened, I smacked into half of a solid chest and an arm, stumbling back a step and almost landing back in the basket before Everett caught me around the waist and hauled me upright again.
“Thanks,” I said, taking pains not to breathe him in, let the familiar smell of him light up any neural pathways that only led to bad decisions. A bad decision couldn’t be made this week anyway, so there was no point in even letting my brain go there.
And yet, as I looked up at him, eyes latching on to his, those usual nerve endings flared to life regardless, sparking everywhere we touched.
Everett let go of me and waved me toward the door at the same time I nodded him in the same direction. We repeated the dance until we both stepped forward, bashing together again.
