Page 68 of Pick-Up
“What is the transitive property?”
“I have no idea. But I still think I’m right.”
“Of course you do,” he says. It sounds damning, but his eyes, fixed on me, spell something else. He holds my gaze. I know I should, but I can’t look away.
Suddenly, the silence is supercharged. The air that separates has texture. Can magnets attract and repel at once? I feel like I should speak, but I can’t find my voice. I feel like I should move, but I am a statue. He licks his lips. I am riveted.
I flash to the fleeting feel of his lips against mine last night, and I want to relive it.
Just like that, I am leaning in again as if in a trance and, as I do, he follows suit. Little by little until we’re close enough for me to notice the inkiness of his lashes, the way his eyes actually have gradations of color, hold multitudes. I am ready to fall headfirst into their depths.
His gaze drops to my chest, then sears its way back up to my lips, all lava. And that’s it for me. My brain may be a holdout, but my body is in. And I am closing my eyes against reality and saying screw it, when an alarm goes off. It takes me a moment to realize it’s not in my head. That there is an actual alarm sounding from Ethan’s phone. We dart back to our corners. Again. And this pattern is starting to feel painfully familiar.
As he goes to grab his phone, I exhale. Shaky. What is happening here? I’m unsure. Or maybe I want to be unsure. Actually, it seems pretty damn clear.
“It’s six thirty,” he says, running a hand through his hair so it stands on end. “I’ve got to call my daughter.”
“Oh, shit!” I say, shooting to standing. “I have to call my kids too.”
I grab my bag from the counter and, as we cross to our adjoining rooms, we almost smash into each other, my hands landing flat on his chest.
“Sorry, sorry!” I say as I snatch them back. I am the platonic ideal of out of sorts. If that could be a platonic ideal.
The nothing that has happened is more awkward than something.
Inside my room with the door safely closed, head in my hands, I mouth a string of obscenities. I am literally vibrating. Then, I flop onto my bed, steady myself, and pull my phone out of my purse. But, just as I’m starting to dial, there’s a knock at the door. Ethan pops his head in. Demon Dad. In mybedroom.
I sit up straight.
“Hey,” he says. I have an impulse to cover up, I guess because I’m sitting on my bed, but I am fully clothed and wearing the same tank top and jean shorts I was wearing one minute before in the livingroom with him. “Meet you back out there afterward and we’ll order room service?”
“Room service?”
“Yes. Food. That they deliver to your room. Because we skipped the group dinner. You must be hungry?”
It’s true that I have eaten mostly taffy and plantain chips since lunch, since that’s what we had for craft service. I realize underneath the panic and the other thing I refuse to name (let’s call it “Bob”), I am ravenous. “Yes,” I say. “Hungry, I am.”
Have I turned into Yoda? Ethan looks at me like I’ve lost it.
“I think maybe I should place the order now, so we don’t have to wait, actually,” he says. “Any idea what you might want?”
“A burger, maybe?”
“A burger, for sure?”
“A burger, for sure.”
He closes the door, shaking his head.
And, as I push the memory of the feel of his chiseled chest under my palms out of my mind, trying to ignore “Bob,” I realize I am in a definite pickle.
29 | Demon PickleETHAN
This woman is my kryptonite. I’m losing my damn mind.
Even after a whole day on set—where she killed it, by the way—she comes in flushed and glowing. And, in those shorts, all legs.
Then she sits down to hang out, and it’s like we do this every day. She’s just natural, cool. I mean, she’s also totally impossible. But I like that too. And I realize, this ease—and spark, if I’m honest—is exactly what I never had with my ex-wife. We had mutual respect, even similarities. But not this.
