Homewrecker

28 - 𝓬𝓵𝓪𝓼𝓼𝓲𝓬

It was almost two hours later, just as the sun was starting to dip behind the pine trees in the distance and painted the sky in a watercolor-like mixture of pinks and yellows and cars were putting their blinkers on before turning onto the pavement curved around the now illuminated drive-in sign, and Ethan was still speaking with a fake Australian accent.

He called anyone who passed him mate, his accent drifting from Australian into a Boston one as he explained to me that larger cars were told to park in the back, smaller up front near the screen. It wasn't until he actually directed a car to the second screen with it that I spoke to him for the first time other than mumbled okays and got its.

"Are you really still going to keep talking like that?" I asked as the driver of the sedan he had talked with popped the trunk and Ethan lifted it open, revealing an unfolded mess of plush blankets and collapsed lawn chairs inside. According to what he said earlier, each car with a trunk had to be inspected.

He gave me a quick glance over his shoulder as he closed the trunk, giving a firm pat against the metal when he was finished. "I am, mate," he told me, his deadpan expression twitching into a slight smile when I stared at him, unamused. "Ryan bet me I couldn't keep up a British accent for a whole shift. If I win, he has to use Andi's Instagram to post a video of himself singing an old Justin Bieber song on her stories. So, yeah, I am."

I gaped at him. "You're doing a British accent?"

The slight smile turned into an actual laugh, carving out a single dimple in one of his cheeks. "No. It's Australian," he told me, still chuckling. "I literally called you mate a few seconds ago."

I was quiet for a moment—telling myself that I definitely did not feel embarrassed that I hadn't remembered that and fell for his joke, when he seemed to document every little thing I told him—as another car approached us and asked for the fourth screen. It was a van, so Ethan only gave a quick glance through the tinted windows before sending the couple on their way. "So, if you lose, what do you have to do?"

"I'm not going to lose."

"But if you did, you must have wagered something."

He shook his head. "Nope, not happening."

I stared at him for another moment, realizing as he directed another car for the fourth screen that it wasn't that he hadn't wagered anything, but that he was embarrassed to admit what it was. Which intrigued me and made me want him to give up the fake accent even more. "Is it something humiliating? Or painful? Or maybe both? Wait. Are you getting a Brazilian?"

He made a face. "No."

"You're totally getting a Brazilian, aren't you?"

"No," he reaffirmed, resuming his deadpanned expression as he looked at me but there had been a glint added in his eyes, a warmth that smiled even though his lips weren't. It was open, and friendly. "I saw you on the news the other morning."

"I know what you're doing," I told him, even though I felt a part of me seize up at the thought of him actually watching as it aired, whispering to that part that it really didn't matter if he did or didn't, but it still felt like some sort of unwarranted invasion. It—us, me—was just out there for anyone with a cable connection to find, to peer in and observe, like we were right then as sedans popped open their trunks for us to inspect. "You're trying to distract me, so I won't figure out that you'd have to give up the abs or something."

"Still no," he told me. "It looked like you hated it."

I hesitated as a hatchback pulled in front of us and caught a glimpse of the corner of a grease stained pizza box underneath a pile of fleece blankets in the backseat but didn't say anything as Ethan patted the rear window after glancing inside.