“If I text you nine-one-one, you better come save me,” I tell my cousin.
“You got it,” she says.
Jake and I hop in the back of the truck, and he informs me that due to space, it’s just the four of us tonight—him and me, Chloe and Cooper.
Fantastic.
Five minutes later, we pull into the drive-in theater for double-feature horror-movie night, whereScreamwill play first, followed byHereditary, neither of which I’ve seen. Cooper backs the truck into a parking spot so the bed is facing the movie screen. After he and Chloe hop out of the front seat, Jake scoots as far over as he can, so he’s jammed against the side, and I sit next to him.
Cooper hooks the speaker to the truck, then avoids eye contact as he sits next to me. Chloe squeezes in next to him, forcing me to be mashed between him and Jake. “Sorry,” he says.
Jake lifts his arm to make space, setting it over my shoulder and pulling me closer. The fact that Cooper doesn’t do the same—put his arm around Chloe to make space—isn’t lost on me. With my arm pressed to Cooper’s, my whole body tingles, wantingmore.
I hate this so much. Why on earth did I agree to this torture?
“Everyone comfy enough?” Jake asks, throwing blankets over all of us.
“Yeah,” Cooper and I mutter in unison.
“No. I’m too squished,” Chloe says. I can’t decide if she’s actually suffering over there, or if she just wants Cooper’s arm around her. Either way, he only inches closer to me. By the time we’re all situated and the movie starts, Chloe has more space than any of us.
I lean my head back on Jake’s arm and replay Sloane’s words in my head.Ignore Cooper and Chloe.
Which is harder than I thought it’d be, considering we’re all smashed together.
A while later, the cold air cuts through my striped cashmere sweater, and I shiver. Cooper doesn’t look at me and he says nothing, but he pulls the blanket up so it’s covering more of our top halves, then he lowers his arm.
But beneath the blankets, in the nearly nonexistent space between our legs, his knuckles graze mine before he settles his hand there.
And he doesn’t move it.
I close my eyes. The touch is subtle, the backs of our hands pressed to each other, but it’ssomething.
I should pull my hand away. I should tell Jake I want to move a blanket to the ground, outside the truck where I can’t see Cooper, but I can’t.
Because it hurts to get mere crumbs, but it also feelsso right.
So, we watch the rest ofScreamlike that.
When the movie ends, Jake announces he needs to stretch. Cooper’s hand slips away as he pushes the blanket off us, and we all pile out of the bed.
I use the bathroom and wait in a mile-long line for popcornfor the next movie, then head back to the truck, where Cooper, Chloe, and Jake are waiting—and a mini pumpkin is sitting on the opened tailgate.
I stop short of the truck and look at them. Cooper is staring at the blank movie screen, gnawing at his lip, Chloe’s eyes are flitting between the three of us, and Jake is watching me as he nervously cracks his knuckles.
I slowly approach. “What, um, is happening?”
“Open it,” Jake says, gesturing at the pumpkin.
“That’s… for me?” I ask. I glance at Cooper, who seems to be avoiding looking at me.
“It is,” Jake says, now grinning.
Oh no.
Now would be a great time for the ground to open up and swallow me.
I set my popcorn on the tailgate, and it topples over and spills. But I don’t even care.
