Dark Wild Night

I burst out laughing, slapping a hand over my mouth as I glance back at the screen door.

He kisses my chin, his calm smile slowly straightening into a sweetly curved line. He suddenly seems thirty years older than me. He handles this infatuation so well. “We’ll finish this later.”

When I nod again, he guides me off his lap and we lie down, shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the sky. It feels like an enormous ocean above us, swimming with stars. Oliver’s hand finds mine, his long fingers curling around and between.

“Tell me more about L.A.,” he says.

I groan, taking a few breaths to collect my thoughts. “I started Razor so long ago, I don’t think I remember the stumbling at first. But going up to L.A. was like ice water dumped over my head. I felt na?ve and useless in these meetings—about my own story—and then when I would go home at night to work on Junebug, it was like I couldn’t even get started.”

He hums sympathetically beside me, lifting our joined hands to his mouth to kiss the back of mine.

“I missed you and was obsessing about us, and couldn’t stop worrying about how I was coming off in these meetings.” I look over at him. “There were three of them: Gregory—don’t call him Greg, by God—Austin, and Langdon.”

“Gregory Saint Jude?” he asks, “He did Metadata last year, right?” He’s obviously more familiar with these names than I am—I had to do some quick IMDb’ing on my phone in the hall the other day—and I have a pang of embarrassment all over again.

“Right. And he’s fine. He didn’t really engage me much, but Langdon is a total douche. Initially Austin said Langdon really connected to the story, but let me be clear. He doesn’t. Or, maybe he does, but as a forty-something dude who wants to bang Quinn.”

Oliver groans. “So did you finish the edits?” he asks, and I can feel his head turned, the weight of his eyes on me.

“No, we got through it but they’re letting me have two weeks with it to ‘put my polish on it,’ whatever that means,” I say. “There are so many things I’m not allowed to change, and the things I am aren’t really details I care about. I don’t care about Quinn’s clothes.”

He sighs, turning his face back up to the sky. “I’m sorry it was frustrating, pet. That sucks.”

I nod. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out. I’m just glad to be back with you tonight.”

“Same.” He kisses my hand again, and after we have spent several minutes looking up at the stars in silence, the screen door squeaks open and I feel Dad up there, looking down at us. I know what he sees: his daughter lying on the grass, holding hands with a man for the first time in front of him. I can’t imagine what he feels, if it’s bittersweet or only sweet, or as terrifying for him as it is for me.

“Dinner,” he calls quietly.

Inside, he’s set the table with placemats and napkins tucked into brass rings. A candle is lit in the middle and when I look up at him to scowl, his eyes are more anxious than teasing. I can tell he knows he’s gone a little overboard and I give him a reluctant smile instead.

Oliver sits beside me on the opposite side of the table from Dad and we serve ourselves in silence. Without me here they’d be laughing and eating unself-consciously. Without Oliver here, Dad and I would be laughing and eating unself-consciously. In this case, two is not better than one.

Dad clears his throat awkwardly and looks up at us. “I am really happy for you two,” he says.

I open my mouth to beg for us to change the subject, for the love of God, but Oliver senses something I don’t, and covers my knee with his hand beneath the table, squeezing.

“Thanks. It’s pretty great so far.” He smiles at Dad before taking a bite of salad.

“Friends first,” Dad says, nodding.