Ethan got ready to hop in. I hit Record, then held the sticks high above my head so the whole car was in view as he walked to the driver’s seat. When I nodded, the car roared to life and then began playing “Rockin’ Robin.”
It took every muscle in my body not to shake with laughterso the footage wouldn’t be ruined. Fortunately, Ethan had no such obligation, and his face lit up. He threw his head back and laughed. To the camera and me, he said, “That is wild.”
“It’s one of a kind,” I said quietly.
Picking up my cue, he reset, winked at me, then took my line. “It’s one of a kind.”
As the lights on the car changed color, I motioned for him to get out. Once he was back by my side, I lowered the camera, my arms aching from holding it still above my head. “You and I should both walk around it a couple times with our different cameras to catch details. The sound quality here won’t be great, but you’ll have enough footage to voice-over and cut together later.”
“You know, you’re good at this.” Ethan pulled out his phone and walked toward the opposite end of the car.
My breath caught in my throat. It wasn’t like I’d told him all the details about my parents, or feeling trapped in a future I didn’t plan, but something about the way he said it—all sincere—was like someone putting a bandage over the cracks in my heart. It both stung and felt good at the same time. Before I could stop them, his words spread through my system faster than a drug and settled into the corner of my mind where I’d inadvertently started storing memories and details about Ethan.
“Ready?” he called, pulling me away from the strange, warm, fuzzy feeling growing in my chest. He was holding up his phone and waving. From behind the phone, he said, “I’m filming you.”
“You are such a dork.” He was making more work for himselfby filming me, but whatever. If he wanted to waste time cutting me out of his footage, that was his problem. Holding up my camera, I hit Record and started slowly working my way around the car, careful to keep Ethan out of my shot. Once I’d completed the circle, I motioned to Ethan to go around again. This time, I stayed still, filming him filming the car, so he’d have more options. By the time he’d made it around another time, my arms were officially tired to the point of being over it.
Turning to me, he said, “I’m good. You happy?”
“I’ll have to be if we want to catch the fountain.” I sighed, unscrewing my camera and collapsing my tripod before tucking both safely back into my bag. The gesture bought me a second to try to get the butterflies in my stomach back under control. We were really doing this. Or we would be if the car was more reliable than our ability to navigate the lofted walkways of Las Vegas.
Both of us got closer to the car, and I could almost feel our collective trepidation about taking something that so clearly did not have airbags onto the road. As if reading my mind, Ethan said, “It does have seat belts, I checked.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “Alright.”
Walking around to the passenger side, I took a deep breath and grabbed both sides of the no-doors and pulled myself into the vehicle. Once I was in, I put my backpack between my knees, praying that Ethan didn’t take any sharp turns too fast, then started trying to figure out how to put on my seat belt.
It was one of those harness seat belts with a seemingly endless number of straps that all connected to one another. Aftera minute of buckling, unbuckling, untwisting, retwisting, and adjusting, I finally decided to copy Ethan. Unfortunately, he’d already buckled up and was watching me struggle, amusement written across his face.
“Do you need help?”
“No. I got it,” I said, more out of pride than honesty. If Ethan could figure this out, then surely I could, too. I tried another buckle and almost immediately unfastened it. The thing felt like it was designed to strangle me.
“You sure you got it?”
“Mostly sure,” I said, keeping my eyes focused on the task at hand so I didn’t have to see him trying not to laugh.
“It’s just that we are kinda tight on time, and—”
“Okay, fine.” I dropped all the different buckles. “How does this work?”
“Here, lean forward,” he said, reaching across the car and pulling a strap in front of my seat. “Put your arm through this part.”
I rotated around to move my arm through the strap. Ethan’s hand grazed the base of my neck as we both tried to adjust the belt. My skin prickled with the sensation of his touch, awareness running down my spine. I took a deep, steadying breath.
“Sorry,” he said as something clicked over my shoulder and the belt dropped a few inches. He sat back into the driver’s side. “You should be good to snap the front buckles now. It works like a star.”
“Right.” Objectively, I understood what he was saying, but my body was still stuck on the way the skin on the back of myneck was tingling, as if his hand were still there. I gave myself a mental kick to push the sensation of his touch out of my mind and started clicking buckles into place.
“Ready?” He smiled at me again, then twisted the key in the ignition. This time the car blared “Birds of a Feather” as it roared to life.
Working the stick shift into gear, Ethan eased his way out of the valet traffic, the engine’s growling growing louder the faster we drove. Part of me wanted to ask Ethan what kind of person would want a car that was both extremely loud and very absurd. The other part of me knew there was no way he could hear me over the sound of the wind coming through whatever door holes were called.
The light at the end of the Stonereel’s exit turned red, and Ethan took the car out of gear, quieting the engine as we rolled to a stop. For a second, we sat in semi-silence, the colors of the car changing around us. Searching for something to say that would make me feel less ridiculous, I shouted, “How’d you get so good at putting on weird seat belts?”
“Little sister’s car seats. Although, she can do up her own belt now,” Ethan teased, watching me through the rearview.
“Rude.”
