They’re doing a Summer of Spielberg thing at the hundred-year-old theater over in Silverton, and Gabe’s grin is bright and crooked in the light from the vintage marquee. “Oh, hey, I brought you something,” he says as we’re crossing the parking lot, digging into the cargo pocket of his shorts and coming up with one of those plastic glasses sets with the nose attached, complete with a fuzzy synthetic mustache. “To avoid detection.”
I laugh out loud as we head into the lobby, grabbing them out of his hands. The very tips of his fingers brush mine. “Oh, you’re funny,” I tell him. “Nobody will notice me now.”
“Nope.” Gabe smirks, reaching for his wallet as we step up to the ticket counter. “I got it,” he says easily, waving me off when I try to pay.
“You sure?” I ask, tucking my disguise into the collar of my shirt. Until now we’ve always split dead even when we did anything together, lunch at Bunchie’s or the first night we went to Frank’s for hot dogs. I’m not totally sure what it means that he’s changing the rules. It’s not a date, I told myself as I got ready tonight, even as I wiped vanilla behind my ears and flicked on mascara.
In any case, Gabe lets me pay for the popcorn, and we settle into the tattered red seats, bits of crimson thread dangling from the edges. The chilly air is heavy with the smell of old butter and salt. The theater’s old, and the rows are crammed close together: Gabe’s knees bump the back of the seat in front of him hard enough that the girl sitting there whips around and shoots him a dirty look in the half second before she realizes how cute he is, and smiles instead.
Gabe shakes his head sheepishly. “Look at me, I’m like Andre the fucking Giant,” he murmurs to me, snorting a little. “Do you know I actually got asked to go stand in the back of a bar in Indiana last winter? It was a Game of Thrones watching party; I was blocking everybody’s view of the dragons.”
That makes me laugh. “Life’s hard,” I tell him, and he mock-scowls and makes a big show of not knowing what to do with his elbows. It’s surprisingly goofy, not a side I’ve ever really seen out of him before—growing up, I always thought of him as Joe Cool, not somebody who ever felt self-conscious or unsure about anything.
“Is this a date?” I blurt as the lights dim, squinting a little to track his curious, open expression in the fading light. He looks surprised. “I mean, like, right now? You and me?”
Gabe looks surprised. “I don’t know, Molly Barlow,” he says, shaking his head like he’s setting me up for a riddle. “Do you want it to be?”
Do I want it to be?
“I . . .” don’t know, either, I almost tell him, but just then the lights darken completely, the familiar old score starting up. Gabe reaches for my hand in the dark. Instead of holding it like I’m expecting, he turns it over, though, rubbing the tip of his index finger in patterns over the inside of my wrist, stroking over my pulse point until it feels like every nerve ending in my body is concentrated in that one place, an icy hot sear like the stuff my old track coach used to have us rub on our knees after practice. It’s Gabe. It’s Gabe, and I’m pretty sure it is a date—that I like that it’s a date, the dark private feeling of being here alone with him, even though the theater is more than half-full. It feels illicit, like if anyone found us we’d be hauled off to jail in handcuffs. But it also feels good and easy and right.
Gabe’s fingers play over my wrist all through the first third of the movie, drawing idle curlicues there. I wonder if he can feel blood beating against the inside of my skin. I hold my breath, feeling my heart twitch with anticipation at the back of my mouth as he touches me, like one of my mom’s crazy fans speeding through her chapters to see what will happen next.
What happens next, as it turns out: nothing.
E.T. and Gertie watch Sesame Street. Gabe reaches for the popcorn. I wait for him to take my hand again but he doesn’t, just sits back in his seat right through E.T. phone home and the bicycle over the moon, arms crossed over his chest like he’s been there all night long, like this was never anything but a friendly hangout to begin with.
So. That’s confusing.
I could take his hand myself, obviously. I’m not twelve years old or Amish or from the year 1742, and God knows I used to reach for Patrick’s whenever I felt like having mine held. I’m not shy. But there’s something about Gabe’s sudden retreat that throws everything else into sharp relief, the shine wearing off and my foggy head clearing enough so that I can finally see this whole night for what it is—and what it isn’t.
I guess I was wrong, then.
I don’t know why I feel so disappointed about that.
I pull it together as the lights come back up and people start shuffling out into the narrow aisles, pasting the same “everything’s great” smile on my face I’ve used for everyone but Gabe all summer long. “That was fun,” I say brightly, in a tone so fakely jocular I might as well add “. . . bro.” Gabe only nods. I pick up my purse and follow him out toward the exit, telling myself there’s no reason to feel so let down.
“You okay?” he asks now, and I look up at him. We came out through a side door, just the two of us walking along a narrow strip of sidewalk outside the theater, the lights from the parking lot casting orange pools onto the concrete and everything else shadowy dark. He bumps his arm against mine, gentle. Right away I feel the hair stand up. “Hm?”
“Uh-huh.” Both of us have stopped walking. I can hear car doors slamming out in the parking lot, the sound of engines rumbling to life. I swallow. “I’m good. I just—”