Homewrecker

42 - 𝓼𝓲𝓭𝓮

It wasn't until almost half an hour after two in the morning that the last lingering cars left as the credits for the second films of the double features ended and left the screens blank, chairs had been stacked on the tables inside the concession stand, and our shifts at the Starbright Drive-In ended. Ethan rode his Segway back into the office when we went to clock out, all while explaining his disdain for the movie theme for Thursday nights on the fifth screen—action movies.

"The pacing is uneven, there are too many pointless car chases and explosions, and the protagonist is usually too good at everything to be compelling," he was saying, bringing up the time clock on the computer. "If you've seen one action movie, you've literally seen them all."

Soon after we clocked out and he continued this rant—with me interjecting that he did liked The Force Awakens, which was said to have similar problems, and he became somewhat flustered in his attempts to defend his opinion—he got into his car with Taylor-Elise in the passenger seat.

She had her window rolled down and facing Andi behind the steering wheel of her own car, on her phone with the screen almost completely white, but she wasn't texting or anything, just holding it in her hand. Her face looked somewhat flushed, her eyes glittering as she held it out through her rolled down window and to Taylor-Elise. For the briefest moment, I wondered if maybe she had her own Kingston she was agonizingly waiting for a text message from.

She was still turned to Taylor-Elise when I got into the passenger seat, still always a little surprised to find that it wasn't locked or something, and kept my water bottle in my hands against my lap because it felt weird to put it in her cupholder, presumptuous or something. "I can't believe how close you are," she told Andi, grinning but Andi seemed more reserved, maybe even nervous. "It's going to happen tonight."

"It might not," Andi said, pulling her phone back from where she had been hovering it in the space between their parked cars, the air conditioning blasting cold air against her bare arms and lifting the ends of her hair against her chest. "I could lose, like, five hundred in twenty minutes or something. It happens randomly sometimes."

Taylor-Elise shook her head, her gaze lifting as she rolled her eyes then turned to Ethan beside her, tugging on his locked seatbelt in mild frustration while simultaneously fiddling with the radio station. "She's about to get her Gold Play Button," she said to him, gesturing toward Andi's car as he finally got his seatbelt to loosen. "Tonight."

Although I was still confused over what was happening—and what a Gold Play Button might be, or why Taylor-Elise seemed convinced that Andi was about to get one tonight at nearly three in the morning—Ethan seemed to understand almost immediately and smiled. "Hey, that's awesome. Good for you, Andi."

She smiled faintly, glancing down at the phone screen glowing white against her uniform Starbright t-shirt. From where I was sitting in the passenger seat, awkwardly smoothing my fingers over my water bottle as they talked and I stayed quiet and furthest away. A moment later, they waved and pulled out of the parking space beside us, but Andi still hadn't moved, staring down at her phone.

Then, after another pause, she begrudgingly turned to me. "Okay, would you just . . . hold this. Let me know if it gets close to one million."

I tentatively took her phone from her, heavier and the screen wider than my own phone when I held it carefully in my hands, as she pulled out the parking space and made the turn to leave Starbright.

Now that I was holding it, I could see that it was some sort of countdown, apparently to one million according to Andi and the number on the screen of 999,957. Then I realized it was a YouTube subscriber count with the channel name AndiSoliday above the fluctuating numbers.