Ethan smirked as the light turned green, then moved the car back into gear. Ten very loud minutes later, we pulled up to the Bellagio’s parking lot.
“We made it,” Ethan said as soon as he shut off the engine.
“And the whole Strip knows it,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt. Even though the car was off, it still felt like my entire bodywas vibrating along with the engine. “Why would anyone want a car like this?”
“What? You don’t want to announce your presence to half of Chicago every time you go to the grocery store?” Ethan asked, unbuckling his own seat belt.
“Can you imagine being late to school in this?” I giggled, jumping down on wobbly legs.
“Or being late for curfew? You’d get caught by the whole neighborhood.” Ethan got out of the car like he’d disembarked from a ship. Our eyes met, and we immediately cracked up. Walking around to my side of the car, he passed me a bag of jalapeño chips and smiled. “Promise me, if you need a break you’ll eat, okay?”
“I promise.” I smiled, taking the chips and putting them into my bag for later. As the two of us began winding our way toward the front of the hotel, I asked, “Where’d you learn to drive a stick?”
“I’m not really sure.” Ethan’s brow furrowed as he thought. “My dad, I guess.”
“How do you not know where you learned to drive?” I asked as we weaved around a family.
“I know where. I was at my family’s garage.” Ethan shrugged. “I’ve hung around my dad, cars, and other mechanics for as long as I can remember. I don’t know that anyone ever really taught me. I feel like someone asked me to move a car one day, I probably stalled out a thousand times but learned along the way.”
“So, your family owns a repair shop?”
“Yes. My mom works there, too, so basically the whole family spends our time in the shop,” Ethan said, a faint smile tracinghis lips, as if whatever memory came with this explanation was dear to him.
“It must be fun to share an interest with your family.” A tiny pang of jealousy squeezed at my heart. The kind of envy where you are both happy for someone and sad over the thing you’ll never have washed over me.
“I wouldn’t say it was a shared interest so much as my parents didn’t have money for babysitters after Stephanie and Katie graduated, so the interest was forced upon us.” Ethan laughed as the iconic dancing fountain pool came into sight, already crowded with people waiting for the show. “But yeah, it’s nice. Especially now that the garage is doing well enough that I don’t have to be there unless they need extra help or I want to hang out with my parents or something.”
“That’s sweet. You’re lucky to have the kind of family that hangs out together.”
“I am.”
Ethan glanced down at me, and I smiled up at him as we slowed our pace, both of us scanning the pool’s railing for a break in the crowd where we might be able to squeeze in and film the fountain without a bunch of heads in the way.
“There are a lot more people here than I thought there’d be,” Ethan said after a beat of searching.
“You’re taller than me, so if we can’t find a spot, maybe—” I cut myself off as I watched a family reorganize themselves against the railing, making enough space for a person to squeeze in between them and another group. I reached out and placed my hand on Ethan’s, pulling us toward the edge of the balcony overlooking the water. “There’s a spot.”
The gesture wasn’t meant to be a big deal, merely a way to move us away from other pedestrians, but as soon as my fingers touched his skin, it felt like I was being pulled into him by a gravitational force. The electric hum that seemed to constantly hover between us returned, its spark more intense this time. Ethan glanced down at my hand, then back at me. I held my breath as the two of us stood still for a heartbeat that felt like it lasted forever.
Someone walked by carrying a baby, and Ethan moved a few inches closer to me to avoid them. He was close enough that I could smell him, clean. Like whatever soap he used had eucalyptus in it plus some other scent that was all him. I liked that scent more than I wanted to admit. I knew I should take a step back. Being so near to him was reckless. There were only so many reasons he could be this close to me, and if anyone from the con or one of our grandmas’ combined three million followers recognized us, they might jump to conclusions. Then again, I wondered how much I’d care if they did.
The next moment, a woman with a toddler and a giant M&M’s store shopping bag jostled us, throwing me slightly off balance. I let go of him, instantly releasing the tension betweenus.
Ethan blinked at me as if he was as confused by whatever was going on with us as I was. He ran a hand through his hair as I cleared my throat, willing my cheeks not to flush while I took my phone out.
“I’m gonna film with this.” I waved the phone at him, still feeling flustered. “It’s too crowded to use my big camera.”
“Um. Okay.” Ethan sounded groggy as if he was reconnecting us with the reason we were here.
Turning my back to him, I carefully removed my backpack and set it on the ground, then looped one strap around my ankle so no one could scoop it up and take off with it. A hush fell over the crowd as the fountain lights came on and music started to play. I tried to focus on my camera as the first spout of water shot up, but I couldn’t. At least, not the way I usually did when I was working. Ethan was standing near enough to me that I could feel the warmth of his body along my back. The smell of his soap worked its way through my memory. A piece of me wanted to lean back and snuggle into his chest. To take a deep breath and wrap myself in him.
Another burst of water shot up from the opposite end of the pool as the music crescendoed, and I was slow to pan to it. We didn’t have time for me to miss shots. I was being ridiculous. If I wanted to win the contest and get my parents off my case, I needed to focus on the task at hand, not on the boy behind me. Holding my breath, I hoped that if I couldn’t smell him, whatever this feeling was would go away.
I managed to film the rest of the show without any more slipups. Ethan stepped back as the crowd dispersed, giving me room to unlace my backpack from my ankle and put it backon.
“What’d you think?” he asked as I readjusted the straps on my bag.
“The show was cool. I didn’t realize that it was set to music. It felt like a fountain dancing in an old Western movie.”
