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idkthisisjustforfanfic · 4 years ago

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that makes four.

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PART 4

Tristan had slapped his menu shut before you could even sit down. He’d been begging you to try a new place in Encino with him, you figured it was a good excuse to get Zoey out of the house and to let Maeve and CeCe duke it out in Shelli and Irv’s backyard instead of yours.

It was all work talk at first, he offered an update on a meeting you missed to drop off Maeve at a friend’s and Zoey sucked down a glass of wine promising to pump and dump before the night ended.

But now your plates were in front of you and you twirled spaghetti around your fork when she asked: “How’s your pool boy?” You stared up at her, unimpressed.

“He’s not my pool boy, and he’s fine.”

Tristan raised his eyebrows across the table. “Would you let Harry Styles be your pool boy?”

“Can we not talk about him like this, please?”

“Oh come on,” Tristan pulled a face. “If you’re not going to sleep with him at least let us fantasize.”

You must have twitched, a quick glance in Zoey’s direction or a quiver of your lip. Zoey leaned in and her voice was serious. “What was that?”

“What? Nothing.”

“What do you mean what was that?” Tristan asked.

“She made a weird face when you said that.”

“No I didn’t,” you defended. “I just don’t like talking about him in public, especially like this.”

“Bullshit,” Zoey laughed, leaned back in her chair. “What are you not telling us? Did you see him shirtless again?”

You let out a breath, wiped at your mouth and wondered if telling them would be the biggest mistake of your life. You couldn’t even get the words out before Zoey leaned in.

“You had sex with him?!” her eyes nearly bugged out of her head, Tristan’s fork clanked against his plate when his jaw dropped open.

You’d made it a whole week, almost. You pushed the thoughts down and brushed them under the metaphorical work rug. The body wash prototypes were in, you were booking models to do a photoshoot, video shoot, everything was getting lined up for the rollout in another few weeks. You didn’t have time to tell them about something silly and stupid and maybe a part of you didn’t want to fill them in because you were afraid they’d burst your bubble. It’ll never work out, what happens when his house is ready, he has a tour to go on.

“Be quiet,” you looked around and worried if anyone had overheard Tristan’s not-so-subtle name drop. “It’s not a big deal, okay? It’s not like it’s gonna be a regular thing.”

Tristan pulled his head back, offended by your words. “You had sex with him and you’re not going to make that a regular thing? Have you seen him?”

“Yes,” you made a face at Tristan. “I have seen him.”

“You are going to hit and quit Harry Styles?” Zoey leaned in and said his name much more quietly now.

“Well,” you dropped their gaze for a second, reluctant to be honest with them in fear of their reaction. “It’s happened once, and then we kissed once but CeCe came down, but she didn’t see anything. I’m just too old to be hooking up with a twenty-four year old.”

“Wait, okay, slow down. When did this happen?” Zoey asked.

“After my birthday dinner,” you shrugged. “We came home, had wine, the girls were out.”

“And when did you make out with him aside from that night?”

“The next night. And we didn’t make out, it was barely even open-mouthed.”

“Ew,” Tristan grimaced.

Zoey snapped to get your attention. “So twenty-four hours after you had sex, you kissed him?”

You made a face at her, unsure where she was going with it. You hadn’t been clocking or documenting your sexual encounters. “I don’t know, probably.”

“This is straight out of a trashy romance book written for middle aged women,” Tristan leaned back in his seat and took a pull from his glass of rosé. “I mean that in, like, a nice way.”

“Okay,” Zoey leaned forward. “So, nothing has happened since a week ago, then?”

“No,” you shook your head quickly. “Just those times. And I don’t think anything should happen again.”

They both groaned at the same time, Zoey’s shoulders sunk and she rolled her eyes. “You deserve to have sex with a hot guy.”

“I never said I didn’t.”

“Even if he’s younger than you.”

“I don’t want to traumatize my children.”

“Well you don’t have to have sex in front of them,” Tristan made a goofy face and you waved him off.

Zoey snorted out a laugh but you ignored their immaturity.

“I mean that having Harry here is already probably confusing for them, right? Their dad leaves, their grandpa dies, now we have some stranger in our house and he’s playing with them in the backyard and--”

“Being more of a dad to them than Luke ever was?”

Zoey’s words brought a sigh out from between your lips. “Exactly.”

“Having a positive male role model is good for them,” Tristan said.

“Sure,” you nodded. “But what about when Harry moves out? He’ll just be another man that will leave them. They’ll be super fucked up.”

Tristan reached forward and took your hand in his. “Hey--it’s more about the fact that they have you and they have other people who love them. Who cares if their idea of a family isn’t the stereotypic, heterosexual norm?”

“I know,” you relented. “I just don’t want them to be poorly adjusted.”

“Okay, that sounds like something an obnoxious prep school guidance counselor would say to you,” Zoey eyed you with skepticism.

You shrugged your shoulders. “It was Maeve’s teacher.”

“Okay, fuck that teacher!” Tristan nodded. “Your kids are adjusting, and that’s because of how good of a mom you are to them. And mommy deserves a pool boy.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, even if his words were worthy of an eye-roll. Zoey tried not to let wine drip from her nose after a snort escaped between sips.

“Not my pool boy!” You giggled.

“Which is good,” Tristan nodded, his tone completely serious. “That would be so cliché even Nora Roberts wouldn’t write it.”

Slumber parties always made you anxious. They were one of those things that made you question how on earth people trusted you to watch a group of children when sometimes, you still felt like one yourself.

Maeve’s 11th birthday party was no exception. Five other girls danced around your living room and CeCe sat at the counter while you iced cupcakes. Her little face was scrunched into a pout so intensely that it almost made you giggle.

“You alright?” You asked her, dish towel over your shoulder when she let out another sigh.

“Just wish I could play with them,” she held her palms towards the sky in exasperation, reaching for a container of sprinkles when you let out a laugh.

“You get to go for ice cream with Uncle Jeff, remember? You’re gonna go to the beach, too, I think.”

You’d been trying to bribe her all week: a new tutu, a new doll, anything she wanted just to make her give up and accept the fact that her older sister didn’t want her at her slumber party.

And you couldn’t blame either of them. Of course Maeve didn’t want her younger (and very loud, dramatic, and demanding) younger sister trailing behind all night. But, on the other hand, of course CeCe felt left out when she saw all of the older girls arrive with their sleeping bags and birthday gifts.

She sighed again, your conversation interrupted by a ringing from your cell phone on the counter beside her.

“Uncle Jeff?”

She was right, you reached for the phone and held it up with your shoulder, hoping the laughter from the living room wouldn’t travel it’s way into the speaker.

“Hi--are you here?”

“Y/N, I am so sorry to do this--”

“Oh god, Jeff, no!”

“I just got called into the office because one of my artists apparently just posted some stupid shit on the internet--isn’t there someone else who can hang out with CeCe? Where’s Tristan?”

“I don’t know where he is, but I doubt he’d be thrilled to play dress up or skip through a park.”

“Zoey?”

You could hear traffic through his line, his karma for backing out at the last minute was having to sit on the 405. “She has a ten-week-old infant, Jeffrey.”

“Well where’s Harry? Can’t he pitch in?”

You let out a groan, CeCe had taken to pouring sprinkles into her hand and lapping them up with her tongue.

Harry was upstairs, hiding away from the girl gang currently singing karaoke and sipping on juice boxes. He had the day off and had dipped out in the afternoon to meet a friend for lunch. You tried to mind your own business--he could come and go as he pleased and just because you had slept with him once didn’t give you the right to suddenly start asking questions about his plans.

But the universe pitied you, apparently, because right when you told Jeff you’d figure it out and hung up on him aggressively, Harry pranced down the stairs and headed for the fridge.

“How’s it going down here?” He reached for a juice box, crisp apple, and fumbled with the straw when he turned to face you.

“Everyone is alive and nothing is broken,” you scanned the counter, another batch of cupcakes still in the oven with 10 minutes to go.

With the straw now between his lips, he raised his eyebrows. “Bar’s that low, huh?”

“Well, your friend Jeffrey just bailed on watching CeCe and going for ice cream.”

She was blissfully unaware of the change of plans, still licking sprinkles out of her palm, but now swiveled around on the stool to watch the girls jump around in the other room.

“I can take her,” he shrugged nonchalantly, ran a hand through his hair when you stared at him for a second.

If traffic was Jeff’s karma, Harry must have been yours.

“Are you serious? You wouldn’t mind?”

“Not at all,” he smiled. “CeCe? What do you say we do ice cream and pizza?”

She turned around at the sound of her name, her eyes lit up. “Pepperoni?” She asked.

“Of course,” Harry replied to her like it was a crazy question.

“Is Uncle Jeff coming?”

“He’s not,” You informed her, arms crossed over your chest. “You’re alright to go with Harry?”

You didn’t mean to make it awkward, but mom mode kicked in and you realized CeCe had never spent time alone with Harry except maybe in the backyard.

“Yeah!” She hopped down from the stool and grinned up at him. “Can I get a milkshake?”

Harry looked over to you and when you nodded, he held out his hand. “As many as you want.”

“That’s not what I said,” you called after him, watching as he led her over to the back door. He plucked his keys off the hook on the wall and smiled at you over his shoulder. “Please don’t be out late, text me when you get where you’re going!”

CeCe shouted a bye mommy!!!! before they disappeared into the driveway. A sudden raise in your pulse had you questioning what type of mother lets their 6-year-old get in the car with a pop star who’s probably hounded by paparazzi and maybe even doing cocaine on the weekends.

You picked up your phone and it rang four times before Zoey answered. “I need you to talk me off the ledge.”

“What ledge?”

The timer beeped and you gloved up to retrieve the rest of the cupcakes. “I’m apparently a psychopath because I just let Harry take CeCe for pizza and ice cream.”

You could tell she held back a laugh. “Why does that make you a psychopath?”

“Because he’s a stranger! What if he never comes back with her? What if he gets chased by paparazzi and CeCe is the next Princess Diana?!” The thought shuttered through your bones, a shiver down your spine when Zoey cleared her throat.

“Okay, so, as a mom, I totally get that. But I also think you’re freaking out too much.”

The cupcake tin rattled onto the granite. “How?!”

“He’s not a stranger, he’s been living with you guys for like, over a month now.”

You thought about it for a second. Two weeks turned into a few more, four weeks slipped by easily. What felt like it was going to be a blip on the radar now felt like a totally normal thing: dinners with him as the fourth seat and texts to him in the middle of the day asking if there was anything he was in the mood for.

“I just can’t believe I trust him enough to do that, I guess.”

“Y/N, he’s a good guy,” she laughed. “He likes your kids and he definitely likes you.”

“We’re not going there,” you said. “I have a house full of ten-year-olds and cupcakes to frost.”

“Okay, well, you’re not a psychopath. And there’s nothing wrong with having feelings for him.”

“Zoey! You are starting to sound like the psychopath!”

“I’m alright with that,” laughter through the phone when you told her you had to go. Love you, see you later, pinch Benny’s cheeks for me.

You were swept up in the excitement of the night. Your own pizza was delivered before 8pm, a movie turned on by 9pm. They decorated cupcakes at the dining room table and proceeded to eat more than they could fit in their tummies.

Maeve was in heaven, opened presents when you snapped pictures on your phone. Harry had texted to let you know they’d stop at Shelli and Irv’s before heading home. If CeCe came home in the middle of presents, she’d probably break down right there.

So when you heard the alarm signal a new entry, you hoped CeCe was too tired to argue with you about sleeping in her own room and not in Maeve’s with the rest of them. Your legs were folded beneath you on the couch, noise in the kitchen when Harry rounded the corner with CeCe asleep on his shoulder.

You stood up, eyebrows high when he smirked in your direction. “She’s out cold,” he laughed. “Fell right asleep on the way home.”

“It’s like a ten minute drive from their house,” you said, opening your arms to take her. “Sorry, here.”

“I can bring her up...just lead the way,” he motioned with his head for you to go first up the stairs. He followed you down the hall and to CeCe’s room, pink walls and a plush carpet underneath her twin-sized bed that still seemed too big for her.

He put her down when you flipped on a nightlight, watched when you tugged the duvet over her and kissed her on the forehead. You sighed when you stood up straight beside him, voice quiet. “I’m not waking her up to brush her teeth cause she’ll freak out and want to be included in the party. Am I a bad mom?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, smirked down at you quickly before looking back to her. “You’re a great mom.”

You elbowed him in the ribs playfully. “You have to say that.”

“I do?”

“I’m your landlord,” you laughed, leading him back into the hallway.

“I thought you were my friend?”

A sigh, the darkness a cover for your confusion and your fluttering heart beat. “Yeah, that too.”

He was quiet for a second, if it weren’t for the bedroom of kids down the hall you’d pull him into you despite better judgment. He stared down at you with a dimpled smile, but you took a step back.

“Thanks for taking her, and hanging out with her. You really didn’t have to.”

“I had fun,” he reassured you. “We got a pizza and ate in a park near Westwood Hills, then got ice cream, visited with Shelli and Irv,” he listed it off like it brought him as much joy as it did her.

“Hey, not to be weird or anything, but--how’s your house coming?”

He sensed the shift in the air too, but he didn’t know that it came from a place of fear. A question you had to ask: this was temporary, this wasn’t real, this was just a convenient set up and you couldn’t lose sight of that.

“Oh, yeah--I’m going over on Sunday to see it. Apparently there are still issues with the plumbing that have to be updated. They said it might be a few more weeks.”

“Okay, I just didn’t know.”

“Yeah, is that okay? I can try to find somewhere to stay if you need me out?”

“No,” you said it quickly. “I don’t need you to leave.”

“Okay,” he said, his eyes still on yours. He reached forward to brush a piece of hair behind your ear. “I like staying here with you guys.”

“...I like it too.”

“Mom?” Maeve’s head poked out of her bedroom. “Hayley spilled soda on the carpet!”

He stepped back from you quickly, like his reflexes were getting better each time. You laughed at his sudden movement, “coming!”

He smiled down at you and let out an exaggerated sigh once Maeve’s door was slammed shut and the music was back on, a magnetic pull between your chests that maybe he felt too. “Hayley, Hayley, Hayley.”

But again, a rush of uncertainty and self-doubt made you grateful for the interruption, your stomach weaving itself in knots when you stared at your ceiling fan and hoped that sleep would come.

Work picked up in the next week, Tristan was in your office most days with spreadsheets and graphs and to-do lists that made you feel like you needed a margarita at 2pm. On Wednesday Harry made dinner and CeCe had a meltdown when you forced her to take a bath.

Friday night entailed dinner at Shelli and Irv’s, the girls and Harry and Jeff too. You stood in the kitchen with a glass of wine in hand, Shelli watched as their chef sautéed something through steam. When Jeff pulled Harry away to show him a new guitar Irv had been gifted, you ignored the smile on Shelli’s face.

“How are things going?”

“Fine,” you said, casually and calm and cool. “How are you?”

“Y/N,” she smiled. “Does Jeffrey know?”

“Know what?”

“About you and Harry?”

“No,” you told her quickly. “There’s nothing to know, alright? We were drunk, it was not a big deal.”

“Alright,” she held up a hand, effectively resigning when she sipped her Pinot Grigio, a disappointed sigh before she asked: “How are the girls holding up?”

You sighed, unsure if she’d really drop it. You told her about Maeve’s birthday party and caught her up on the body wash debut. Deadlines were quickly approaching, the launch party was being scheduled and production was full steam ahead.

You almost thought you’d make it through the rest of the night without any drama--no more mention of Harry or the happenings between you. But eventually he and Jeff found their way back to the kitchen and you hoped that no one noticed how close Harry stood to you.

Jeff was in the middle of filling you and Shelli in on Harry’s album plans: they were wrapping up production and soon they’d announce the release date, his excitement cut off by a shout from the backyard.

“Mommy!” CeCe’s voice was shrill and desperate as it rang through the house. She let out a loud sob and when you looked up, you saw her clutching her elbow with a new grass stain on her shirt. She was fine, it was one of those moments where she thought the world was ending but everyone else knew getting knocked over by her sister wouldn’t kill her.

“She’s fine,” Maeve rolled her eyes, a quick look down to CeCe who’s eyes were already filled with tears.

“No I’m not!” she screamed back at her sister.

You looked to Shelli with an exasperated look, set your glass of wine down on the counter. Before you could make any movement, though, Harry’s hand hovered on the small of your back. “I’ll go, enjoy the wine. She’s fine.”

He was right, there was no question that CeCe would survive her scraped elbow and bruised ego. He moved towards the backyard and you were frozen in place when Jeff’s forehead wrinkled.

“What was that?” he asked, eyebrows strung together like tea lights once Harry was out of earshot.

“I don’t know--what do you mean?”

You looked over at Harry, now on the ground in front of CeCe who’s wails were much quieter. She wiped at her wet eyes, a little laugh escaped her lips when Harry brushed the grass off of her elbow and cracked a joke.

“Well, he seems pretty good with them,” Jeff leaned against the counter, the sliding door providing a perfect view as CeCe stood up and raced back towards Maeve.

“Yeah, I mean, he is.”

“He also touched your back in a funny way.”

Shelli raised her eyebrows and sipped at her wine again.

“And now my mom is making a weird face,” Jeff’s eyes narrowed when he looked at you. “Are you--is there, like, something going--”

“No,” you said quickly, a finger pointed at Shelli and another pointed at Jeff. “Do not say anything in front of the girls.”

Shelli stifled a laugh but managed to look incredibly innocent at the same time.

“Oh my god!” Jeff said this with a noise of shock, eyes wide when he looked between you and Shelli, then back out to the yard where Harry laughed with Irv. “Oh my god, and you knew?”

Shelli shrugged her shoulders, a don’t blame me look crossed her face when you took a swig of wine to calm the pounding of your heart.

Jeff had always been protective and caring and like a brother. Not in a weird way, not in the you can’t date my friends way. Just in the sense that he wanted to know who you were hooking up with and he’d been encouraging you relentlessly to stop picking assholes ever since you filed for divorce.

But this was different, this was a friend of his and a client of his. It was someone that his entire family knew and this was probably the worst choice of rebound.

“Please relax,” you said this with a look of warning in his direction. “I will explain to you what your lunatic mother is smirking about but you have about fifteen seconds to wipe the look of shock off your face before he comes back in here.”

“She’s fine,” Harry waved a hand once he was back in the kitchen. “And what look of shock are we wiping off of our faces?” The dimple was there again, the corner of his mouth pulled up and he scanned all three of you for any sort of information.

“Just that you are so good with the girls,” Jeff covered for you, a confident nod when he hoped Harry would believe him.

“That’s surprising to you?” Harry pulled his head back, an obvious look of mock offense. “I’m great with children. They love me.”

Maeve came in from the fading light, out of breath from running around with whatever ball they’d gotten their hands on. “Who loves you?”

“Kids,” Jeff replied for him.

“Oh,” Maeve said. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” You looked down at her, unsure if she was agreeing or just voicing that she understood.

She shrugged, plucked a chicken skewer from a dish in front of Shelli. “I mean, I like having him around.”

Harry was practically tickled pink. “Thank you, Maeve.” He turned to rub this in Jeff’s face. “See?”

“He cooks well, plays outside with us, definitely funnier than mom,” Maeve kept listing things off, pulling laughter from the rest of the crew.

“Maeve!” You whined. “I’m funny!”

“You’re like, sometimes funny.”

“Sometimes funny is better than never funny,” Harry nodded in your direction, an attempt to soften the blow.

CeCe had wandered in behind her sister, she picked at the scrape on her elbow until you called her attention. “CeCe--do you think mommy’s funny?”

“Mmmm,” the thought on it for a second, put her finger to her chin and scrunched up her nose. “Sort of.”

Jeff let out a big laugh at that, Harry tried to stifle one and you dismissed the jabs. “Okay, well, it’s not like anyone here is a comedian.”

“Harry’s funny,” CeCe said with a smile. “He reads books in silly voices.”

Jeff’s eyebrows shot up at that again, amused and surprised by the fact that Harry was in on the bedtime routine. But it was infrequent, sometimes CeCe would beg for more time outside or another thirty minutes of TV.

If the tears got aggressive or the tantrum became too much, she perked up pretty quickly if Harry offered to read with her. It was way more exciting than reading with you, Maeve had explained.

After showering Harry with compliments, the girls were excited to sit on Shelli and Irv’s patio. Pink lemonade and a delicious dinner, though neither of them would even so much as take a bit of your salad.

They ran around some more while you sipped wine, Jeff and Harry had been talked into a two versus two soccer match and Irv laughed his head off when Maeve actually scored on Jeff. Darkness came and CeCe crawled into your lap, eyelids getting heavy until you buckled her into the backseat.

You’d taken one car, CeCe’s booster seat was too clunky to move over to Harry’s so you drove and felt slightly embarrassed about the crayons and coloring books scattered on the floor of the backseat.

“Mom, can I have another sleepover this weekend?”

“With who?”

“All of the girls from last weekend.”

“Honey, no, that was a big party for your birthday.”

“I’m aware,” she shot back quickly. “But we all had so much fun and we wouldn’t be as loud as we were last time.”

“I said no, Maeve. You can do something with your friends if you want but we’re not doing another sleepover right now.”

You’d been hesitant about it in the first place. A group of ten and eleven-year-olds? With Harry in the house? It felt like a recipe for disaster and aside from a few excited stares when they were first dropped off, you all escaped relatively unscathed.

You worried at first about the whispers from other moms--she’s letting a twenty-four year-old live with her children?--but you soon realized that they were almost more excited about sneaking a glimpse of Harry than their daughters were.

“You’re so annoying,” she quipped from the back. “You never let me do anything fun.”

Harry’s lips twitched up in a tiny smirk, a sideways glance in your direction. You’d already told him how awkward it felt to discipline them with him right there, a glass of wine in the kitchen one night and he teased you about your frustrated mom voice.

“Maeve--don’t be rude. You just had a birthday party and now you want another, basically.”

“No, I want to have the same girls over. It’s not my birthday so it’s not a birthday party.”

A left turn into the driveway. “But you want me to order pizza and make cupcakes and you want to drink a bunch of soda again?”

“Yes.”

You pulled into the garage and cut the engine, turning to look at her. “Maeve, sweetie, I love you. But no.”

She let out a huff and shoved the door open, she typed in the entry code and slammed the door to the house before the rest of you could even climb out.

“The drama,” CeCe shook her head, tired steps towards the house.

“The drama is right,” you told her with a laugh. “Go wash up and I’ll come up in a few, okay?”

She scampered up the steps, you dropped your keys on the counter inside and then turned to look at him. “Do you have a second?”

He nodded, leaned on the counter. “What’s up?”

You didn't know if it was a good idea, but you'd spent enough morning drives to school lecturing about how honest is the best policy, so you figured you'd give it a shot.

“Uh, well--Jeff may or may not be suspicious about you and...me.”

Using the phrase made you nervous, like he’d laugh and think it was stupid. You and me.

“Oh,” he said, eyebrows arched. “Did you--why did that come up?”

“Well you went to handle my crying child, which is--you know--”

He laughed a little, “too boyfriendy of me?”

Your heartbeat picked up in pace, your face felt hot and it suddenly felt like he was watching you too closely.

“No--I don’t know--you touched my back and he just asked what was happening.”

He deflated at that, hung his head low for a second and then looked up. “Oh, I--uh--I’m really sorry, I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.”

“No!” You felt bad, that wasn’t the message you were trying to convey. If anything, you wanted to give him the out and the okay that he didn’t have to do this. He didn’t have to step into your family like some hero for you or your daughters. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable, I just--I don’t know where you are at, I guess.”

“And now Jeff is asking questions,” he laughed, a nod like he knew where you were going with it.

There was no label necessary. It wasn’t that type of thing, you knew that. “That’s what you walked in on after CeCe got hurt.”

Another nod, like the puzzle pieces were fitting into place. “Right. Got it. Was he--how did he seem? Did you tell him that we--”

“He put it together,” you cut him off, again careful of the words used around the girls even though they were upstairs and--by the sound of it--bickering in the bathroom. “But he was fine with it. I just think we need to be careful, you know. The girls...and this is temporary, and--”

“Absolutely.”

“So, you know, just--”

“Yeah.”

An awkward silence. “I should go tuck them in.” You turned on your feet and headed for the stairs before he could reply, desperate to get out of the situation out of fear of having to find more words to string together in a messy jumble of emotions.

Another slammed door from Maeve when you reached the top of the stairs. You knocked twice. “Can I come in, please?”

“No!”

“Maeve,” you leaned against the doorframe. Harry came up and offered an awkward smile. “Please let me talk to you.”

“I’m not talking to you!” She shouted.

Harry came over and knocked. “Maeve? It’s Harry--can I come in?”

Silence for a second, her footsteps were audible on the wood floor. The door opened a crack, she peered out with narrowed eyes. “Fine--but not her.”

You looked over at Harry, unsure of his game plan but also fed up with the theatrics and the overreaction. He shrugged his shoulders half-apologetically, a smirk in your direction before he slipped into the room.

Did you stay and listen? Was it weird? What would he even say to her?

You decided against it, headed for your own bedroom and tugged on pajamas after you flicked on CeCe’s night light and kissed her goodnight. At least only one of them was being dramatic today.

Five minutes passed, then ten. You tried not to look at the clock and focused instead on a book Zoey had told you was a must read.

Eventually there was a knock on your door, Harry pushed it open and smiled. “Do you want some intel?”

“Duh,” you said. “Come in.”

He walked forward and sat on your bed, a sigh when he brought his eyes to yours again. “Well, she said you’re annoying again.”

“Of course.”

“She’s just grumpy. Said Hayley wanted to have a sleepover this weekend because it would be better at her house.”

“Ah,” you nodded. “Some 5th grade rivalry.”

“Classic, really.”

You laughed. “Was she okay talking to you?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, eyebrows low on his forehead. “Opened right up.”

“Well, we do know she likes you more.”

He rolled his eyes. “She just likes that I’m not you.”

“Feels like that’s the same thing.”

Quiet for a moment when he angled towards you, scanned your face with his eyes.

“I guess I’ll go say goodnight.”

“Oh, I tucked her in.”

Your mouth tugged into a smirk. “You what?”

“She said she didn’t want you to come in.”

“So you tucked her in?”

He let out a laugh, explained the process like it should have been obvious. “Yeah--pulled up the blanket. Patted her on the head. She said she brushed her teeth.”

You leaned back against the headboard, the same buzzing feeling in your chest took flight when he asked: “why is it so shocking to everyone that I’m good with them?”

It slipped out before you could think of the possible consequences. “Because you’re young.”

“I’m not that young.”

“And Luke was just--not like that. He was pretty disinterested after CeCe was born.” You hoped this was enough of a redirection.

“You’re really caught up on my age, aren’t you?”

“No.”

He raised his eyebrows and offered a look that said: bullshit. When he didn’t speak, you cracked a joke.

“Or...you are not hung up enough on how old I am.”

“Why should I care how old you are?”

“Cause you’ve had sex with me and you’re living in my house.”

“Both of those things I am aware of. And feel really good about both of them.”

You let out a laugh at his nonchalance, folded your arms over your chest when he stood up. “You’re something else.”

“I’m not,” you disagreed.

“I think you are,” he nodded, leaned closer to you and offered a challenging glare. His hair was messy, he’d been running around in the backyard with them at Shelli and Irv’s, a few glasses of wine in him seemed to loosen him right up to the point that he was ready to slide tackle your six-year-old.

He watched you for a second, almost like he was waiting for you to stop him. You didn’t, though, you wanted him to kiss you just as much as it looked like he wanted to close to the distance between your chests.

Instead of telling him you shouldn’t, instead of telling him that the girls were down the hall and this was risky, you pulled him on top of you, tugged him by the t-shirt until he flopped down on your bed with a laugh against your lips.

He lifted himself up after a clumsy moment, looked down at you and smirked.

“What?” You asked playfully.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been so turned on by someone in my whole life.”

His words circled around you, pulled your body up to melt into his when his hand cupped your face. He laced his fingers through the hair along your neck, the warmth from his body made your pulse rise with each second.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this when they’re home?”

If the dimples on his cheeks weren’t enough, if the way his tattoos littered his skin wasn’t enough, if the look in his eyes right now on top of you was not enough to create a full-on mom fantasy in your head, the way he talked about your daughters was.

“Yeah,” you tugged him back against your mouth, felt the way your hips tilted against his without any thought. His hands moved to your wrists, holding them in place when he trailed his lips down your jaw, down your neck, pressing kisses in a line along your collarbone.

His hands were warm when they grazed your hips, connecting with skin beneath the fabric of your shirt. You grasped for the hem of his and tugged it over his head in a quick motion, eager to reconnect and feel his skin against yours.

He tasted like wine and smelled like summer, yanked your panties down to your ankles and used his fingers to pull quiet gasps from you like no one had ever before. He held onto your headboard and thrusted into you after you begged: please, please fuck me.

S’probably my favorite thing to do, he said.

The lights were long off and when your heart beats settled and you wiped sweat from your forehead, he laced his fingers between yours.

“Does Jeff want to kill me?”

“No,” you giggled, turned on your side to get a better look at him. The moon through the window illuminated his nose, his eyebrows, the specks of light green in his eyes as they devoured you. “But I’m sure you’ll get a talking to.”

“Should I not talk to him about it?”

You knew what he was asking, you knew he really meant what am I supposed to tell him? What does this mean?

You didn’t have an answer. You didn’t know what he should say or how you should address any of this, because at the end of the day you were a mom and a business owner and he was eight years your junior. He had an album to finish and tour and you knew how that worked.

You watched your dad’s busy lifestyle pull his marriage apart at the seams. Late nights, dinner parties, too much coke in the 80s before you were born and all of those signs pointed in one direction: this would never last.

It couldn’t last, nothing about the equation made sense. Harry + you = fling, rebound, a hook up or friends with benefits type situation that would eventually fade into a memory when he went on tour or when he got the call: your house is finished!

You didn’t have to answer him, though, the pattering of feet in the hallway as a little voice shouted mommy! had you shoving Harry out of bed and onto the floor with a thud before CeCe could push the double doors open.

“Mommy! I had a bad dream!”

“Hi, honey, oh, it’s okay,” you were upright in bed and welcoming her into your arms when Harry grimaced in the dark.

He mouthed a few swear words as you held CeCe, squishing her face into your shoulder to keep her eyes from landing on Harry. You gestured at him wildly with your free hand, ordering him to duck down and remain unseen.

“It was just a dream,” you told her, “you’re okay. Do you want me to walk you back to bed?”

“No,” she cried out quickly. “Can I sleep here?”

You hesitated, then nodded and looked at Harry in the dark. “Of course, yes, you can fall asleep here and then I’ll bring you back to your room.”

“Okay,” she said, the steadiness of her voice returning when she crawled out of your lap and to the spot where Harry had just been. She tugged at the comforters, pushed the pillow in different directions before she let her head rest atop it.

She let out a sigh, her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks and soon enough Harry poked his head up to look at you with wide eyes as you rubbed CeCe’s back.

You held up a finger to your mouth, gave him a threatening glare when he bit back a laugh. You rolled your eyes--it wasn’t funny. She almost walked in on the two of you and while she’d already endured some traumatic things this year, seeing her mom hooking up with the pop star from down the hall would be sure to take the cake.

When Harry caught your gaze again, you smirked, he giggled, clamped a hand over his mouth and watched you for a second.

“Be quiet!”

“You’re the one talking,” he laughed.

“Well she’s asleep now, but we can’t bring her back yet or she’ll wake up.”

“How long do we have to sit like this?”

“A while,” you told him with certainty. “This is called parenting.”

But he did, he sat on the floor on the side of the bed, watched you watch her and eventually, he picked her up from the mattress and followed you down the hall to her room. She softened into him, head on his shoulder and arms around his neck. The sight of it made you want to replay the earlier scene in your head over and over.

She didn’t stir, a few heavy sighs when you pulled the comforter back up to her shoulders, and once the door was shut behind you both, you smirked up at him.

“I think you should go back to your room.”

“Really? After all of that?”

“After almost getting caught by my six-year-old? Yes.”

He laughed and rolled his eyes playfully, crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine, but maybe we can do that again at some point and have it end differently.”

You nodded. “I think that sounds doable.”

He leaned forward, kissed you quickly, and then turned to head for his own room. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight, Harry.”

Harry came home from his house tour with good and bad news. The plumbing was fixed, which sped up their timeline, and yet the painters and interior decorator had gotten behind because of it, pushing the timeline out a few weeks.

You weren’t sure which part was good and which part was bad, because by now you were having trouble imagining what your house would feel like without him in it.

You got the news when he strolled in, athletic shorts and a baseball hat on his head when Jeff clapped him on the back. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Harry eyed him suspiciously, reached into the fridge for a juice box. “I live here…”

“Oh, I know you live here.”

“Hello, hi,” you waved at Jeff. “Please do not be weird.”

“That’s all he knows how to be,” Harry offered you a fake-apologetic look.

“That’s all he knows how to be,” Jeff mocked him. “Actually, I know how to be cool and not weird about the fact that my childhood best friend and my adult best friend-slash-artist are now, you know, involved.”

Your stomach did a somersault at his wording, a quick look in Harry’s direction, sure that he would deny the accusation or play it all down.

You found it hard to believe that Harry would be in support of labeling this as anything. Why on earth would a guy like him want to be tied to you with any sort of label or phrasing or word?

“Moving on,” Harry said with a nod. “Are we down to meet up with Tom and Sam tomorrow?”

“Yeah, and we have to do that phone call on Tuesday to go over tour dates.”

Maeve ran in then, a smile on her face when she looked up at Harry. “I have something to tell you.”

“Yeah?”

“I learned a new chord on the guitar. By myself.”

“You did?” He acted way more excited about it than he likely was.

Jeff smiled and then told Maeve: “If you learn enough chords maybe you can be his guitarist.”

“Really?!” She beamed.

“No,” you shook your head.

“Of course you would say that.”

“Maeve--you’re a kid, you can’t go on tour.”

“She’s right,” Harry said with a sweet smile, “You’re a bit too young for life on the road.”

“I’m eleven now, though!”

“I know! And very mature for eleven,” he complimented. “I’ll tell you what. You can for sure come visit and come back stage and maybe even bring a friend if your mother lets you.”

She looked to you quickly, excitement in her eyes when they all waited for your response. “Yeah--we can go at some point...see a show or something.”

“Hayley is going to die, oh my god!” She squealed with delight and then moved to sit at a stool beside Jeff.

He had half a sandwich on a plate, one he picked up on his way over for a boring Sunday afternoon of lounging by the pool. Maeve reached for a chip from the bag in front of him.

“By the way, mom, she invited me over Wednesday after school to work on a project, so can you bring me?”

“I have to bring CeCe to dance, sweetie.”

“Well I need you to bring me to the store to get supplies for this stupid poster-board thing we have to make! And Hayley’s mom said she had a question about Luna--something about a moisturizer or something.”

“I can take CeCe to dance,” Harry shrugged, almost like an onlooker in the room. “S’not a big a deal.”

“Are you sure?”

Jeff and Maeve crunched on chips between you, watching the exchange.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll just need to put her booster seat in my car.”

“And bring her a snack for after--she’s always cranky and hungry.”

He laughed, “I can manage that.”

“What would we do without you, Harry?” Maeve asked, a smile on her face.

Jeff put his chin in his hands, teasing. “Yeah, what would we do without you?”

“No one would get anywhere, people would seriously be missing out on my chicken tacos, and this house would be a lot less fun to live in.”

Maeve nodded in agreement, another chip stolen from Jeff. “True, true, and true.”

A few nights later it dawned on you that Maeve and Harry were as close as ever, spending evenings in your dad’s old office while Maeve tried to wrap her arms around a guitar long enough to strum a few chords.

CeCe didn’t seem to feel too left out, she was more than happy to be an audience for Maeve when she’d come running into the living room: Harry taught me a G chord!

On Tuesday night after school it was CeCe’s idea to go for pizza, she chirped about it in the backseat the entire way home, and after learning that the body wash production was behind schedule, you weren’t in the mood to cook.

You took Harry’s car--showed him how to strap the booster seat in and make sure it wouldn’t budge. He wore a hat and sunglasses which both girls found hilarious, but to you it was almost disheartening. What did it mean for him to be seen out with your family?

He sat beside CeCe and cut her pizza into tiny bites so it would cool off, Maeve sipped Mountain Dew from a straw and filled you in on the latest with Hayley. This week was going well, though Hayley said something annoying in the cafeteria.

It felt normal, not weird for him to be sitting across from you, his feet against yours beneath the table and a smirk in your direction every once in a while.

Both Tristan and Zoey had been dying to hear more details. It slipped out one day in the office that okay...maybe it wasn’t just a one time thing, and now the group chat you had with them was blowing up every day.

They were excited for you, rooting for your comeback and rebound and eager for you to just admit that there was something there. But you weren’t able to do that, especially not when everything in your heart wanted to.

By the time you’d all finished eating, he dipped out the back to pull the car around front. You pointed at Maeve and told her to watch CeCe while you went up to the counter to pay for the pizza.

The woman behind the register smiled when you approached. Long acrylic nails, wrinkles at the corner of her eyes made it obvious that she could have been your mother.

“We had one large plain and one small with pepperoni,” you told her.

“Oh, you’re all set, sweetie, your boyfriend paid on his way out.”

Your head pulled back in surprise. “Oh--he’s--we’re not,”

She let out a laugh at your hesitance. “He was just as taken back when I told him he had a beautiful family--said they're not his, though."

You forced a laugh, if only to match the humor in her voice when you turned on your heels to head back to your booth. The thoughts started spinning when Maeve and CeCe climbed into the back of Harry’s car.

He smiled at you when you slid in, patted you on the thigh before he turned around to make sure both girls were settled--Maeve clicked CeCe’s buckle into place and then he put the car into gear.

Sleeping with Harry was mostly meaningless, right? He was attractive and living in your house and clearly you both got something out of it. Convenient, easy, fun. Most of your brain had you convinced that there’d never be any more to it. There was no way that Harry would be interested in sticking around: two kids, a business to run. You didn’t exactly come with no strings attached.

And he corrected the woman too--not my kids, not my family, not my wife, not my anything. Had she settled on the next step down when she called him your boyfriend, or had he offered the label to avoid an awkward encounter?

It felt immature, your heart beating with urgency as you thought about it the whole way home, beads of sweat along your hairline and not from the warm weather. He sensed it, eyed you from behind his sunglasses when he parked in the driveway. Maeve and CeCe raced to the backyard, leaving the two of you alone.

“Everything alright?”

“Yeah, all good,” you offered a small smile, the same response you gave to one of the girls if they caught you on a bad day.

He followed you inside, kept his eyes trained on you when you dropped your purse on the counter. “What?”

“You seem off.”

“I’m fine,” you lied again. What were you supposed to say? The woman behind the register at the pizza place is making me question the relationship we have and what it means?

You weren’t 17. You were 32. He was 24. All of these numbers swirled in your head when he took a few steps closer to you, eyes out the window quickly to make sure neither of the girls were watching you through the sliding doors.

He pushed a piece of hair behind your ear, lips turned down when he looked over your face. “You can talk to me, you know.”

“I know,” you caught his wrist and held on for a second, like if you let go he’d disappear and take everything between the two of you with him. You closed your eyes, knew better but still said: “the woman behind the counter called you my boyfriend.”

He let out a laugh, unaware that your words were actually a confession. “She called you my wife, said the girls were cute. I told her I couldn’t take credit.”

“Yeah,” you forced another smile.

“Is that--are you, did that bother you?”

“No,” you shook your head. “I just didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

“I’m not,” he said, eyes still on you like he wasn’t quite sure where your head was at. He pressed a confusing kiss to your forehead but then said something about calling his sister. You checked work emails and night faded into morning like it always did, no matter how uncertain life was, you always had that.

The next afternoon you brought Maeve to Hayley’s, dropped her off with glue sticks and markers and a plethora of project supplies. A yoga class after that, had her home and with dinner on the stove by 6pm.

Eventually, CeCe burst through the door with a smile on her face. Her pink tutu was around her waist, her legs clad in light pink tights and her hair in a messy ponytail on top of her head. “I had the greatest time at ballet!”

You turned around in the kitchen, eager to hear about her day. “You did?”

“I did,” she nodded confidently. Harry came in the front door behind her, sunglasses on his face and CeCe’s unicorn backpack in hand. Maeve was sat at the counter with a pencil, growing angrier with fractions by the minute.

“Why’s that?”

“We danced to a fun song, and we played a fun game, and everyone loved Harry!”

Your eyebrows rose at that, eyes caught his when he lifted the sunglasses. “They did?”

“Moms, not the six-year-olds.”

This caught Maeve’s attention--she sounded almost disgusted. “Moms?”

“I guess ballet pick-up is typically a mom thing?”

You shrugged. “I mean--I don’t see a lot of dads there, so yeah.”

CeCe shimmied out of her tutu and then climbed up to a stool beside Maeve. Harry walked to hang her backpack on a hook by the backdoor, you questioned if it was even worth asking.

“Were they, like, hitting on you?”

“I mean, not really.”

“Not really?”

He walked over to the island and leaned on it, the dimple in his left cheek let you know he liked the hint of jealousy in your voice. “Maybe a little.”

Dinner simmered on the stove, evening sun brought a glow to the kitchen that made his eyes even more green than usual. When you didn’t reply he broke your gaze, let out a sigh and said: “I’m going to shower before dinner, yeah?”

“Sounds good,” you nodded quickly, embarrassed by the silliness of your question. Of course the moms were hitting on him, of course they were intrigued by his presence and of course they couldn’t help but say hi or even ask for a photo. It shouldn’t have surprised you in the slightest.

He was up the stairs and out of sight quickly, CeCe picked up an extra pencil of Maeve’s and started doodling on her agenda book. You pushed sautéed veggies around in a frying pan and pretended that all of this was normal.

“Hey mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you like Harry?”

You turned around quickly, Maeve’s eyes were inquisitive but not judgmental.

“Do I like Harry? Of course--he’s nice.”

“No, I mean do you like like Harry?”

CeCe didn’t seem too interested in your answer, she hummed to herself and kicked her feet back and forth. Maeve, though, waited patiently while you tried to piece together words that wouldn’t make the roof blow off of your house.

“Harry and I are friends, sweetie.”

“You’re not answering my question.”

You let out a forced laugh. “What is making you ask this?”

“You seemed jealous about the other moms.”

“I wasn’t jealous,” you defended. Were you really about to get into it with your eleven-year-old? Would you really defend yourself and make this the hill on which you'd die?

She watched you for a second, looked back down at the worksheet in front of her. “You seemed jealous.”

You were thankful for the fact that she wasn’t making any eye contact now. You let out a sigh and decided that not responding was your best option. Adrenaline coursed through your veins, had it been that obvious? Was she old enough to pick up on the undertones of your relationship?

You turned back to the stove, watched the vegetables sizzle in the pan as your mind started to cave in on itself. All of this was getting out of control, right? First the woman yesterday and the dizziness that overtook you when she said the word boyfriend. Now Maeve sitting at the counter with a curiosity in her that you couldn’t really blame her for.

The doorbell rang, CeCe’s head popped up in excitement. “Who is that?!”

“I don’t know,” you said. She hopped off her stool and took off the door as you followed behind her. You hadn’t planned on a visit from Jeff, maybe Tristan needed last minute approval on a product.

But when CeCe yanked the door open with both hands and an excited smile on her face, you didn’t expect to see Luke, hands in his pockets and eyebrows raised high.

“Daddy!”

“Hi sweetie,” he knelt down on one knee, wrapped his arms around her when Maeve made a noise of excitement before rushing over. She crashed into him, pushing her way into their hug.

“What are you doing here?” she asked excitedly.

“I wanted to visit, I was in the neighborhood,” he said with a shrug, eyes glancing up to you.

It was bullshit, he’d always been good at talking his way out of things or coming up with an explanation, smile sweet and words even sweeter. He backed away from them when they let go, stood back up and smiled at you, a quick nod in greeting.

“How’ve you been?”

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zoeylcwrence · 3 years ago

Photo

MEET ZOEY LAWRENCE!

Works at Merrock’s state park. Artisan candlemaker. Loves handwritten letters, riding her Schwinn bicycle, and collecting wooden figurines.

HER BIOGRAPHY!

Many people would describe Zoey as independent, nonconventional, empathetic, and a smidge pretentious. She mostly wants to see the good in other people, but she’s also learned from the moments in her life that burned her. Because of that, she tends to keep to herself a bit and is very slow to open up, but once she lets you in, you’re in for life. She's a goofy, smiley, supportive person who grew up in a tight knit family. Through her heartbreaks, successes, losses, gains, and adventures - she’s built a life she’s proud of.

HER PINTEREST!

HER CANDLE SHOP!

HER HOUSE!

HER STATS!

BASICS

FULL NAME: zoey jean lawrence

NICKNAME: zoey

GENDER: cis woman, she/her pronouns

DATE OF BIRTH: october 21, 1982

AGE: 40

HOMETOWN: ashford, connecticut

OCCUPATION: state park guide, artisan candlemaker

RELIGION: reform jewish

ETHNICITY: ashkenazi jewish, sephardi jewish

LOCATION: merrock, maine

HOUSING: lives in a small apartment in the historical downtown district

RELATIONSHIPS

PARENTS

FATHER: henry lawrence

MOTHER: ellen lawrence

SIBLINGS

BROTHER: spencer lawrence

BROTHER: bryan lawrence

SIBLING: -

CHILDREN: N/A

OTHER FAMILY: some extended family

PETS: frankie, her dog. poppy and peach, her cats.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: bisexual

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: biromantic

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: single

CURRENT PARTNER: none

PAST PARTNERS: high school boyfriend, graham

PERSONALITY

POSITIVE TRAITS: intelligent, talkative, caring, innovative, adventurous, confident, incisive, empathetic, gentle, loyal, creative, clever, ambitious, social, determined, protective

NEGATIVE TRAITS: sarcastic, arrogant, aloof, absent-minded, proud, secretive, stubborn, melancholic, moody, competitive, impatient, disorganized, clumsy, impulsive

THINK OF: leslie knope (parks and rec), rory gilmore (gilmore girls), joey tribbiani (friends), eleanor shellstrop (the good place), kat stratford (10 things i hate about you)

FAVORITE MOVIE: what ever happened to baby jane?

FAVORITE SONG: both sides now by joni mitchell

FAVORITE EMOJI: 😻

FAVORITE ANIMAL: foxes

FAVORITE PERSON: her mother, ellen

FAVORITE HOBBIES: collecting her cats whiskers once they fall out, riding her bicycle during the warm months, learning bread recipes, going thift shopping

LIKES: books, bubble baths, baking, chanel perfume, watching college basketball, fuzzy socks, cuddling, popcorn, karaoke, hot chocolate, having her hair played with, bad dancing, fireworks, the beach, small towns, singing, loud music, fresh cut grass, hay bales, night time, renaissance faires, museums

DISLIKES: onions, tardiness, coffee stained teeth, humid weather, high heels, thunder storms, sad movies, aluminum foil, huge bugs, small spaces, traffic, ambulance sirens, spiders, misinformtion, back pain

FUN FACTS ABOUT HER

Owns a 2012 Volkswagen Beetle named Paul. Always has candy wrappers and fast food bags on the floor of her car. Doesn’t run as smoothly as it used to, but she loves it too much to get a new car.

Food is one of Zoey’s love languages. She doesn’t cook as much as she used to being in Merrock, as she did back in California, but with the her kitchen being pretty nice, she has been excited to get back into it. Handwritten recipe cards fill a few binders that she’s put together, and nothing makes Zoey feel more at home than her family’s handwriting. As much as she’s been trying to get back into cooking, she’s not the best at it. There’s a reason Bryan’s the chef in the family.

Despite not being a good cook, being in the kitchen and baking has been sort of a therapy for her. She loves trying new recipes and baking at random hours, especially at night. She likes to pretend she’s on Nailed It! or any other baking show.

From a young age Zoey's hobby has been art. From drawing on the walls in crayon to making sculptures with mud from the backyard, she was always looking for ways to fuel her creativity. She can’t really draw, but she can analyze a painting and come up with the meaning behind it. This moved into her creating and making candles, and she’s very into inventing new scents and fragrance combinations.

She has the thing for Polaroids, always having a camera in her bag in case she was to save a moment. Her scrapbooks are filled with pictures from her childhood to her recent years in Merrock.

Always is drinking coffee, whether it’s a fresh brew or an iced coffee, she’s always got a tumbler around. She has to have at least one cup or she can’t function for the day ahead. Her go to order is an iced vanilla caramel latte with oat milk.

She is a vegan. She went meatless when she was thirteen after a bad experience at a farm during a field trip. And she stopped eating dairy when she developed an intolerance to lactose.

She’s at her happiest when she gets to be in the garden and grow things. She has lectured all of her siblings at least once about not recycling properly.

She’s kind of fake deep. She’s very much a “this is a sign” person and will ask you about your star sign. She is obsessed with horoscopes and will literally not sleep with a person because “the stars are not aligned”.

Can play acoustic guitar really well, a little bit of piano but would like to learn the drums at some point. She has tried before and lacks the coordination needed to play, so it’s always a sight to see when she attempts to play.

She believes she’s the master of birthdays. She’s always planning them in advance to make sure they’re absolutely perfect and enjoyable for everyone in attendance.

She’s not the mom friend, but she’s definitely a mom friend. She makes sure she’s always got snacks in her bag and in her apartment, probably carries those mini bottles of water in her bag.

She tries to go to the gym every other week and just kind of stands there watching people, sometimes she hits a punching bag around or hops onto a treadmill, but it's mostly just the staring people thing. She finds it relaxing, for some reason. Everyone else probably finds it weird, though.

Only sports she really follows is college basketball and she loves the Big Ten conference (unless it’s Purdue or Ohio State). Doesn’t mind baseball if it’s the Red Sox or the Cubs.

She loves people, but she is not always the best with them. She sometimes lacks the ability to pick up on social cues, and she is often way too blunt and crass for 'civilized society'. She curses like a sailor, and is prone to giving out way too much information about pretty much every aspect of her life.

She does not have any immediate plans to leave Merrock. Especially now that two of her siblings have returned, and Zoey is happy to stay near her family.

PLOTTING FOR ZOEY!

An approximate timeline for Zoey!

TBA!

Zoey is drawn to people. Her expertise is talking to people. It’s what her job really entails, anyway. She is one of those people who knows how to make the right first impression. One of her biggest strengths is her loyalty and if she calls you a friend, you'll have her in your corner for a long time to come. actually the friendliest of friendly people. She’s only been in town for three years, but she isn't entirely new. She has spent summers here and there since her adoptive grandmother did live in town. So there will be old friends as well as new, but they will be plentiful. I’d like her to have some neighbors, because they’re the people she sees on an almost daily basis, and probably has a close relationship with. It’s not a hard job to befriend Zoey. She’s outgoing and friendly, and as long as you’re a decent human being, she’ll respect you. Things you can be prepared for as Zoey’s friend; showing up out of the blue with a gallon of homemade orange juice, being slightly mothered, life advice, and a smack upside the head if you say something especially stupid. Sure, she’s a little bit impulsive, but you can count on this girl to tell you what’s right.

It’s usually really hard to make Zoey mad but if you manage it, she can hold a grudge for the rest of her life, sometimes even if it wasn’t necessarily your fault. She has a hard time admitting when she’s wrong. She hates confrontation. She hates violence. So she will very rarely, if ever, physically fight someone. However, she's very sarcastic and sly so she will run her mouth until hell freezes over, but if she goes too far and someone wants to kick her ass, then she runs to get one of her brothers.

She has passion in spades. Zoey loves intensely, recklessly and wholeheartedly - which is why it has only happened a few times in her life. As of right now, romance is almost entirely out of the question for the brunette, as she hates the idea of growing to love someone in a romantic sense and then losing them. After having her heart broken twice, the idea of relationships causes her to cringe, and she will almost immediately reject any form of flattery or flirtation that is not simply a shallow gesture. She likes one night stands, short term relationships, and has a problem with sleeping with her friends? So long as both parties are aware that it's just sex, she views it as an extension of friendship. She's adventurous, in every sense of the word. Since she used to visit when she was younger, it might be fun for her to have had a summer fling? I’m not fussed about the gender, considering that Zoey's accepted that she was bisexual as soon as she learned the meaning of the word.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

HELP! I NEED SOMEBODY! - Zoey was upset when she discovered that her cat had gotten out of her apartment somehow. She searched locally without any success so she posted up flyers. A few days later, she got a call from this character and met up with them to pick up her cat. Not only did Zoey get her cat back but she picked up a new friend in the process.

PARTNER IN CRIME - The Ann to her Leslie. These two are physically and emotionally inseparable. Basically her best friend in Merrock (outside of her siblings). They know everything about her past and don’t mince their words around her.

ONLINE PEN PALS - These two are best friends but don’t know who the other is. It all started with a random text to the wrong number, and somehow blossomed into a really strong friendship. They know a lot about each other, but they agreed from the beginning not to use real names or send pictures of themselves for mystery sake. They know that they live in the same town but that just makes it more fun, the fact that they could see each other everyday and not know.

NEIGHBORS TURNED FRIENDS - Zoey and this character are neighbors, they didn’t know much about each other before Zoey needed their help. But one night Zoey knocked at their door at an ungodly hour wondering if this character could kill a giant spider in her apartment for her.

UH OH - Zoey and this character hooked up when she first arrived in Merrock three years ago, and it was pretty awkward afterwards for whatever reason. - NARI

THIS IS WHY WE CAN‘T HAVE NICE THINGS - Zoey and this character used to be so close that people knew that when they invited one, they invited both. That was until the two got into a fight over something (we can plot that out!). Now, when they get into the same room, it’s almost instantaneous back and forth. They are both set on taking the other down gloriously and for good.

TO THE MOON AND BACK - With her adopted grandmother living in Merrock, the Lawrence kids spent countless summers in town. Perhaps Zoey had a childhood best friend in town. Maybe they’re still friends or maybe they’re not.

BIG ENEMIES - Not that Zoey has too many enemies in town, there’s just that one person that they can’t stand no matter what. Maybe it was based off of a bad first impression or maybe their personalities clash.

BUDDY SYSTEM - With so many events and parties there are in the world and many of them offering alcohol, Zoey would want to have a buddy who stays sober during those events as well. Someone she can confide in and hang out with when everyone else is getting buzzed.- JOSH

SHE’S ALL I WANNA BE - Whether it was someone from her teen days or someone from town now, I would love to have Zoey be jealous of a character for whatever reason.

BREAKFAST FOR DINNER - This is a self indulgent wanted connection because I would love to have a Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson type of friendship. They’re unlikely friends but get along and are there for each other. They always make it a tradition to go get breakfast for dinner at least one a month.

BOARD GAME BUDDIES - Someone she can play Scrabble or Catan with! She really loves playing games at house parties or when she’s hanging out with friends, so someone she can play a game or two with.

CANDLE CLIENTS - People who often buys the candles or wax melts that she makes, maybe even make a few requests for custom candles and wax melts.

BUSINESS MENTOR - Zoey has hopes of making her candle shop a physical store someday, a daydream she’s had ever since she started her small business. However, she has no experience in what it takes to open an actual store with finding a space to rent or figuring out what it would take to make it a reality. She would be appreciative of having someone help guide her through the process as she ponders the idea of having her own shop in town. - RAFAEL

HIGH SCHOOL BOYFRIEND - Going to put a wanted connection for this in the future, but I’d love to play out Zoey’s high school boyfriend being in town.

#hc • secrets from a girl who's seen it all.

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rookie-ramsey · 4 years ago

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Eclipse, Chapter 2 (Ethan X MC)

Description: Five years after the birth of their unexpected twins, Ethan and Olivia are expecting their third child. Even if they planned the pregnancy this time around, they learn that not everything goes as planned.

Rating: PG-13

Preview: Ethan’s hand brushed against her warm forehead. “You’re not nauseous from the pregnancy. Zoey and Jonah are both sick. They’re throwing up and have temperatures of 100 and 100.2.”

Olivia sighed. “I should’ve thought of that. The stomach bug is going through their school. They can sleep in here if they want to. You should sleep somewhere else so we don’t give you the plague.”

Ethan shook his head. “I haven’t had a stomach virus since I was ten.”

“Oh, yeah. You’re the Dr. Infallible Ramsey, immune to all human ailments. You have a golden immune system.”

Previous Chapter

On Sunday afternoon, Ethan read a book on the couch while the kids played and Olivia was out for lunch with Sienna. He looked up when he heard footsteps and saw Jonah and Zoey walking into the living room, both wearing their little lab coats and carrying their toy doctor’s kit.

“Daddy, can you play with us?”

Ethan set his book aside and nodded. “Sure.”

“What are your symptoms, Daddy?” Zoey grabbed a stethoscope, one of Ethan’s old ones, and knelt next to him on the couch. She touched the stethoscope to his chest and listened.

Playing along, Ethan pressed his lips in thought. “I have a terrible headache. Can you take care of it?”

“Yep! Jonah, get the Band-Aids!”

Jonah grabbed a box of bandages from their bag. “Got em!”

Zoey dug a Cookie Monster Band-Aid out of the box and unwrapped it. She stuck it to Ethan’s forehead and nodded in approval. “Okay. We’re done with you.”

Ethan feigned a frown. “A Band-Aid for a headache? Don’t you think you should be more thorough?”

“It’s a Cookie Monster Band-Aid,” Zoey supplied, shaking her head as she put the package back in their bag.

Jonah wrote some numbers on a piece of construction paper. With a mischievous smile, he handed it to his father. “Here’s your bill! That’s gonna be two hundred eleven dollars and… eight cents.”

“Did you even try to bill my insurance?”

“We don’t do that here!”

Ethan arched a brow. “I think this clinic is corrupt. I come in with a severe headache and I don’t even get an MRI?”

“Nope,” Jonah responded, trying to contain a laugh.

“Hmm. Why should I pay this bill?”

Zoey shrugged. “Okay, then. If you don’t pay, you can’t keep the Band-Aid.” With a giggle, she peeled the bandage off his forehead and tossed it aside.

“I think I’d like to see your medical licenses.”

Jonah shook his head. “I lost mine!”

“And you’re still practicing?”

“I’m just the bill person now.” Jonah shrugged. “I get to be the doctor next.”

Zoey handed him another sheet of construction paper with her name scrawled on it. “See? It says Doctor Zoey Ramsey on it!”

“Hmm. I still think this is medical negligence.”

Both kids laughed. Jonah took the stethoscope from his sister and leaned against Ethan’s knee. “Alright, I’m the doctor now. Make up a new sickness.”

When the front door opened, the twins looked up and waved. “Hi, Mommy!”

“Hi there. What’s going on in here?”

Jonah held up their doctor’s kit. “Medical negligence!”

“You can’t have a fun Sunday afternoon without that.”

“How was your lunch?” Ethan asked as she sat down next to him.

“Good. The baby made me eat tacos. We’ll see if they make a reappearance later. So far, I’ve only violently puked three times this pregnancy.”

“Here you go!” Jonah opened the Band-Aid box and stuck a Big Bird one to her abdomen.

“Huh. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be amused or offended at the Big Bird implication.” Olivia ran her hand over her stomach when she felt a soft kick.

“Is our sister kicking?” Jonah asked.

“Uh huh.” Olivia took each of their hands and guided them to her stomach. “Feel it?”

“Yeah!” Zoey’s brow pinched in concentration. “It tickles my hand.”

“You two kicked a lot, but you didn’t start it until a little later. I’m pretty sure you were trying to kick each other.”

They laughed and picked up their toys before they left to play in their playroom. Olivia rested her feet on the table and leaned against Ethan, making herself comfortable.

“How are you feeling?”

“Alright. For now I just want to focus on controlling what I can. Even if she has to have a major heart surgery, we don’t have all the answers yet. Worrying 24/7 won’t change that.”

Ethan slipped his arm around her. “We’ll find out more at your next appointment.”

She nodded and gave his hand a squeeze. “Aside from being treated by five-year-old doctors, how was your day?”

He chuckled. “Uneventful. They asked for chicken tonight.”

“I agree with that.”

That evening, she helped Ethan fix dinner. Even though the chicken and potatoes looked and smelled mouth-watering, Olivia could feel the beginnings of nausea and she ate lightly to avoid unsettling her stomach.

Some time after they’d gone to bed, she awoke with an uncomfortable churning in her stomach. She grimaced and curled up on her side, willing the feeling to pass.

It didn’t, and she lurched out of bed when bile rose in her throat. She made it to their bathroom just in time and dropped to her knees in front of the toilet. A gag escaped her as she emptied the contents of her stomach.

Awoken by the noise, Ethan joined her in the bathroom. He held her hair back and rubbed her back with his other hand.

Olivia groaned. “I think I jinxed myself. Morning sickness just struck at one in the morning.”

“It happened like that last time. It’s not common for morning sickness to start in the second trimester, but it’s not unheard of.”

“It should be.” Olivia cringed and wiped at her mouth. She brushed her teeth to get the bitter taste out, then yawned and sleepily made her way back to bed. “Can you get me some water?”

Ethan retrieved a bottle of water from the kitchen and took it to Olivia. “Here. Keep yourself hydrated.”

Olivia sipped slowly from the water and yawned. “I guess the baby decided she doesn’t like tacos. Or chicken and potatoes.”

In the hallway, a door swung open. Ethan heard footsteps darting into the hallway bathroom. He left their room to investigate and found Jonah hunched over the toilet, throwing up.

Uh oh.

Suspecting that they were in fact not dealing with morning sickness, Ethan followed his son into the bathroom. His expression softened when Jonah looked up with a sad frown. “Feeling bad?”

“Yeah…” Jonah made a face as he leaned over the toilet again. Ethan knelt next to him and pressed his hand to his forehead, finding it warm to the touch.

Zoey ran into the bathroom with her hands clasped over her mouth. Seeing her brother leaning over the toilet, she dropped to her knees and retched into the trash can. “Yuck…”

Ethan found the thermometer and checked their temperatures. They were elevated, but not badly, to his relief. “Let’s get back to bed.”

He picked them up and carried Jonah to his room first. He tucked him into bed and moved his trash can next to his bed in case he threw up again. “Here you go. I’m going to get your sister to bed, and then I’ll bring you something to drink.”

“Okay…”

Ethan repeated the process with Zoey and made sure both kids were settled before he returned to his bedroom.

Olivia emerged from the bathroom, her expression sour. “I thought I was empty, but apparently not.”

Ethan’s hand brushed against her warm forehead. “You’re not nauseous from the pregnancy. Zoey and Jonah are both sick. They’re throwing up and have temperatures of 100 and 100.2.”

Ethan shook his head. “I haven’t had a stomach virus since I was ten.”

“Oh, yeah. You’re the Dr. Infallible Ramsey, immune to all human ailments. You have a golden immune system.”

He shrugged. “Either way, I’ve already been exposed to all three of you. There’s not much point in isolating myself now.”

“Fair enough.”

Ethan left the room to check on the kids, finding them both awake and purely miserable. He carried them to their bedroom and set them down on the bed. They immediately ducked under the covers. When Ethan lay down, Zoey and Jonah snuggled in between their parents and closed their eyes.

“I think a king-sized bed was the right choice,” Olivia yawned, closing her eyes and pulling the covers up to her chin.

“Are we gonna have to take medicine?” At the thought, Zoey wrinkled her nose.

Ethan shook his head. “It wouldn’t help a stomach virus. All you can do is stay hydrated and try to rest as much as possible.”

“Okay. Are you gonna get sick, too?”

“No.”

“Daddy never gets sick,” Jonah reminded his sister.

Olivia snorted. “We’ll see if that theory is true in a few hours.”

By four in the morning, they had a pile of vomit-soiled clothes and sheets. Eventually, after a few hours and cups of ginger ale, they drifted off to sleep and slept through the early morning hours without waking up to throw up.

Despite the long night, Ethan’s internal alarm woke him moments before sunlight spilled through the window blinds. He stifled a yawn and gently untangled himself from Jonah’s arm thrown across his chest and Zoey’s leg draped across his stomach.

He gathered the pajamas and bedding and started the washing machine, then emptied all of the trash cans and put clean bags in them in case they had a round two of last night’s occurrences.

An hour later, Olivia yawned as she joined him in the living room. “Did you call in?”

“Mm hmm. For both of us, and I called the school.”

“I’m lucky to have someone who’s programmed to run off of two minutes of sleep. I refuse to wake up before the sun when I have a day off.”

“Habit. I try, but my brain isn’t wired to sleep in on days I’m used to going to work.”

Olivia nodded as she opened the fridge and poured a small glass of ginger ale. She took a tentative sip, drinking it slowly in case her stomach decided to expel that, too. “The kids are still out cold. None of us have thrown up for over three hours.”

“The worst of it is probably over.”

“Well, we did have a doctor who made a night-long house call,” she chuckled. “Even if it meant letting three contagious people sleep in his bed all night.”

Ethan laughed quietly. “Sounds like a good doctor.”

Zoey and Jonah shuffled into the kitchen, both yawning and wearing Ethan’s old tee shirts from Hopkins. They climbed into their seats at the table. Ethan didn’t want them to risk unsettling their stomachs again, so he gave them each a cup of Pedialyte and some toast to try.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and raised the mug to his lips. When the scent of freshly brewed coffee hit his senses, he paused. Normally the smell was inviting in the morning, but today it made him blanch.

Olivia gave him a curious glance. “You look like I did last night.”

“I think I feel that way, too.” Cringing, he set the mug down and poured a glass of ginger ale instead. He took a few sips, only to set it down moments later. Olivia followed him when he left the room and found him throwing up in their bathroom.

“I’d say I told you so, but I know that would be a little harsh right now,” she teased gently, laying her hand on his back.

Ethan winced in disgust and took a swig of mouthwash to get rid of the taste. “I suppose my ego had me convinced I wouldn’t get sick. I stand corrected.”

She squeezed his shoulder. “Well, I’m feeling better than I did last night, so I think I can manage Zoey and Jonah for now. They’ll probably just nap most of the day.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am.” Taking over, Olivia gripped his shoulders and steered him toward the bed. She urged him to lie down and pulled the covers over him. “Let me get the kids settled in and I’ll be right back.”

“Alright.”

She made her way to their bedroom door and paused, glancing back at him with an accusatory frown. “Oh, and by the way…. I told you so.”

Next Chapter

Tags, part 1

@princess-geek / @lapisreviewsstuff / @msjpuddleduck / @silverlitskies / @paulfwesley / @dr-brianna-casey-valentine / @junehiratas / @choicesstanblog / @trappedinfandoms / @justanotherrookie / @bellcat2010 / @desmaranj / @lion-ess24 / @nooruleman / @caseyvalentineramsey / @xee-na / @edith-eggs1 / @oofchoices / @schnitzelbutterfingers / @tefigranger / @jlynn12273 / @laceandlula / @crazy-loca-blog / @somegdchoices / @sanchita012 / @forthebrokenheartedthings / @lilyvalentine / @parkerattano / @drramseysownsme / @misswhit12 / @drethanfreakingramsey / @juneiswriting / @macy-ray85 / @swimmingauthordreamerbonk // @myusualnerdyself / @siaramsey / @takemyopenheart / @queencarb

#open heart #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #tw: pregnancy complications #pregnancy complications tw

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offtopicoverload · 5 years ago

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Bad at Sleeping Alone

A late night ficlet for the real Queen B, Zoey, that I didn't actually write at night this time. But here it is anyway, since I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Starts at Chapter 10

Zoey x MC (Bea Hughes)

~3k words

Zoey and Bea are bad at sleeping alone. Like, really bad at it. Like, so bad that they just... can’t. Not unless there’s someone with them. But that someone can only be each other, mind you. And the weirdest part of it? They’ve never had this problem before, never needed someone there, one person specifically. And, actually, maybe the weirdest part is that it really didn’t even start happening until the whole Benji incident took place.

Bea had been shaken to her core after it happened, glassy eyed and numb to the world as Zoey hugged her and comforted her, turning on her favorite movies and shows, ordering pizza and her favorite snacks, and burying Bea in a mountain of fluffy blankets on the couch. They’d stayed up all of that night, to the point that Zoey was almost falling asleep in her classes the next day while taking her notes.

Zoey had spent the night laughing at the bad movies they always loved, and Bea would force a smile whenever Zoey glanced at her, but not a single one of them reached her eyes that night. Zoey had gorged on sweets and snacks all night, nearly making herself sick on pizza and ice cream, but the most Bea managed was a single slice, only taking bites when Zoey asked if she was feeling okay.

The night was long and odd, and Zoey tried her best to make it normal, but it just couldn’t be, not when Bea still had a haunted look in her eyes and refused to let Zoey turn off even a single light; it was like she was suddenly afraid of the tiniest amount of darkness. But Bea Hughes wasn’t afraid of anything, least of all something so trivial and childish as the dark.

But Zoey obliged all the same, she even went around and flicked on every single light in their dorm, even ones they couldn’t see when night fell, the darkness seeping through the windows that Bea checked were locked three or four times before sitting down. Every time she sat down. If she got up to the bathroom she turned on her phone’s flashlight, even with every lightbulb on its brightest setting, and made her rounds of every window and the front door, checking and testing the locks until she was satisfied.

And to make things even weirder, Bea didn’t even want to sleep when Zoey asked, shaking her head furiously and stumbling over an explanation, an excuse that she was just having fun. So neither of them slept a wink, even though they were sat directly next to one another the whole time, Bea inching closer as the hours dragged on.

---

Zoey offered to binge whatever Bea wanted the next night, too, but Bea refused, saying she should get some sleep, so Zoey conceded. She went to bed easily, wrapped up in her comforter and sheets as Bea sat down the hall, laying in bed with as much light as she could create and staring at the ceiling blankly, until she couldn’t take it anymore. She sat up, grabbed her phone and earbuds and blasted music until she couldn’t hear anything, until she could scroll her phone and get lost in social media and pointless rivalries that kicked her while she was down.

When the sun started to rise, she dragged herself from under the layers and stalked into the common area, settling herself in the corner of the kitchen, back to the counter so she could keep an eye on the entirety of the massive open space until Zoey woke up. And she did, after an hour or so, joining Bea in drinking coffee with a smile.

Bea forced a smile back, finishing off her third cup of coffee quickly, and left to get ready for the day, automatically feeling better with Zoey nearby. Maybe it helped because Zoey had threatened him with stilettos and kitchen knives numerous times, and of all people, Zoey was most likely to actually go through with it on Bea’s behalf.

The cycle repeated itself the next night, Bea attempting to drown out and hide from the shadows that her worst nightmare could be lurking in while Zoey slept soundly in the same dorm. Bea downed five cups the next morning, grabbing more throughout the day to get through her classes and keep her mind sharp enough to avoid the devil incarnate and her mindless minions.

On the fourth day, Bea planned to continue her routine, even if the bags under her eyes had been begging for release from under pounds of concealer. Except for one thing, one disastrous thing: Cutiepie had gotten her earbuds and destroyed them. Both pairs, too, bluetooth and wired.

She sunk to the floor, staring at the mess of wires before her and felt pressure building at the back of her eyes, the last few days finally catching up to her, finally feeling real and scary and like she was hopelessly, absolutely, without a doubt alone. A few tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, sliding down her cheeks before she wiped them away with her sleeve.

It was already late, she had stayed on the couch with the TV on as long as she could, letting cheesy television fill the room until the empty space became too much to bear and she bolted for her room, praying she hadn’t woken Zoey with how panickedly she slammed her door. And now her one defense has been ripped to shreds by her stupidly cute dog.

She sniffled and wiped at her eyes, banishing the tears away and struggled to her feet. She dusted herself off, already dressed in pajamas since she got home and knew she didn’t want to leave, not unless she has to, and slipped under the covers. She wanted to sleep, she really did. But she felt as if it would make her so vulnerable, being unaware and unconscious. She felt as if it would make his job easier, that he could slip in and she’d never see, that she’d die alone, not even with her own thoughts to accompany her.

She curled in on her side, pulling the comforter over her head as she tried to block out the world, but when she opened her eyes, it was so dark beneath the fabric. Too dark. She threw the comforter back, the lights of the room bathing her in yellow, yellow she never wanted to be without. She took a deep breath to calm herself, searching the room for anything out of the ordinary. And, satisfied that there truly wasn’t anything, she fell back to her pillow, snuggled into the sheets, and stared at her wall, her hammering heart slowing in her chest the whole while.

Crash.

Something fell or was smashed or broke or Bea didn’t even know what, but something loud exploded, and it sounded like it came from right outside her window. She jumped out of bed, nearly slipping on the floor as she glanced around wildly, looking for the source of the noise. She didn’t find anything, though whether that was because of her blurred vision or the fact that there was nothing, she wasn’t sure.

That was it, she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t try to sleep and she couldn’t be alone. She just couldn’t do this.

She huffed, ran her hands through her hair, and squeezed her eyes shut tight, willing something to change. Maybe if she squeezed hard enough she’d open her eyes and find out nothing had ever happened, that he didn’t exist or she never even went to Belvoire in the first place. No, that’s stupid, because then she never would have met Zoey.

Zoey. That’s been her lifeline, right? That’s who was always there for her, even when she had no reason to be? Oh god, Bea’s a nuisance, isn’t she? A pest, unwanted and irritating.

But she had no other options, not anymore, not when she’s scared out of her skin and exhausted, not when even copious amounts of caffeine hadn’t been able to keep her coherent and fully awake these past few days.

She heaved a deep sigh, grabbed a blanket off her bed, and trudged out of her room in the direction of Zoey’s own. She steeled herself before entering, heaving another deep sigh and turned the handle, nerves eating away at her.

---

“Zoey?” A quiet voice called out into the dark, small and worried as it floated over to the sleeping woman wrapped in her sheets.

“Hmm?” she hummed, shifting and pressing her face further into her pillow, sleepy and not even a quarter awake.

The voice grew bolder, louder as it echoed in the dark, “Are you awake?”

Zoey forced her eyes open, finding darkness ahead of her. She blinked into it, working to clear her sleep-induced haze, and turned over her shoulder, finding a shadowed halo of Bea with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders standing in the doorway, mass amounts of light filtering in the room. “Bea?” she called into the dark.

The shadow nodded, “I’m sorry, I just…” she took a deep breath, “I can’t sleep,” she whispered into the dark, pulling her blanket tighter around herself and dipping her head.

Zoey sat up, shifting to face Bea better, “How come, babe? What’s wrong?” Her voice was worn down by sleep, but she still forced it out.

“It’s… I haven’t been able to sleep since the whole... thing,” Bea murmured quietly.

Zoey’s mind whirred as her awareness grew, eyes nearly bugging out of her head as she did the math, “It’s been four days! Bea, have you not slept in four days?!” she couldn’t help the incredulous from her voice.

The shadow nodded, the light from behind it shifting with it. Zoey balked into the dark, bewildered and confused about how Bea could go four days without sleeping, and even more confused how she could go four days without telling her.

“Can I stay in here tonight?” Bea’s quiet, small, wavering and nervous voice called into the dark again, the shadowed figure shuffling awkwardly in the doorway.

Zoey had to stop herself from laughing in pure disbelief, “Yes!” She wrangled her volume, “Yes. Of course. Are you kidding? Get over here,” Zoey shifted across the mattress, leaving plenty of space for Bea to crawl in beside her.

And she did just that, slipping beneath the covers as Zoey held them open for her, laying on her side to face Zoey in the dark, the door still open. But Zoey knew enough not to comment, and simply wiggled closer, throwing her arm across Bea’s side.

She cuddled into Zoey, her head pressing into her chest as Zoey’s arm tightened around her, holding her tighter and softly combing through her hair, the shifting rhythm of Bea’s breath raising her chest with each inhale. Zoey glanced down after a long moment, only to find Bea’s eyelids shut and her breathing slow and steady as she dozed off.

---

Then it started happening more regularly, Bea slipping into Zoey’s room in the middle of the night, nudging her awake until she let Bea in. Until Bea stopped asking, just crossing to the other side and cuddling up to a fast asleep Zoey. And Zoey didn’t mind those nights when she went to sleep alone and woke up to Bea beside her, because Zoey found it a little amusing and Bea needed it.

Zoey knew it helped, that she felt better being with someone, that it was probably the only way she could even sleep for a while. But she also knew that Bea didn’t want to talk about it, not when the conversation would inevitably circle back to why she couldn’t sleep on her own in the first place. So Zoey never brought it up, simply got out of bed and started her day, greeting Bea in the kitchen after she slipped out.

Except one night, after maybe three weeks of this routine, Bea didn’t sneak into Zoey’s room, didn’t slip under the covers, and didn't wrap herself around Zoey quietly. Zoey woke up to cold sheets, red flags flying before her eyes before she was even fully conscious. She glanced to her alarm clock, 3:06 printed in red block letters on it.

She slipped out from under the covers, padding across her room and out the open door until she reached Bea’s room, carefully pulling the door open. Bea was stretched out on her comforter, head buried in her arm with textbooks and papers strewn about and Cutiepie sprawled at the foot of the bed.

Zoey sighed, stepping further into the room and walked to the bed, gathering papers and textbooks and set them on Bea’s desk until the bed was cleared, save for Cutiepie and Bea. She pulled the sheets back from beneath Bea, pulling them over her sleeping form when they were clear of her body.

She turned, scratching Cutiepie on the head before leaving the room and walked back to her own, slipping under her covers. She faced the dark ceiling for what felt like an eternity, urging her body to just slip from consciousness. It didn’t work, her mind wide awake, even as she forced her eyes shut and tossed and turned incessantly.

She huffed, sat up and stared into the dark in frustration before she left her room for the second time tonight, right back to Bea’s, too. She scratched Cutiepie on the head again as she passed him, stopping on the opposite side to Bea. She crawled under the comforter, squirmed close to Bea, and buried her face in the loose hair haloed around her head, falling asleep sooner than she did earlier in the night, exactly as she expected.

---

And so it continues, Zoey and Bea switching between their rooms every night, adding the couch on weekends when they spent hours staring at the television screen. They always woke up in different positions, their limbs tangled together from their sleep.

Bea curled into Zoey’s side seemed to be the most common, their arms flung around each other and draped across laps. Sometimes Zoey was leaned against Bea, her head on her shoulder and arms wrapped around her bicep tightly, a vice grip on Bea. Sometimes one of their heads landed in the other’s lap, fingers combing through their hair until they drifted off. Sometimes they woke up stacked on top of each other, Bea curled up with her head on Zoey’s chest or Zoey with her face buried in the crook of Bea’s shoulder.

One time Zoey had fallen asleep stretched out on the couch before Bea got home, the TV still playing faintly before her as she faded off, wrapped tight in a blanket. She woke up in the middle of the night to Bea sitting in front of the couch, her head dropped back against the couch cushions in front of Zoey’s chest, her mouth hanging open as she slept. Zoey stuck her finger in her gaping mouth until Bea woke up and started gagging while Zoey laughed hysterically until she couldn’t breathe.

The next time it happened, Bea’s mouth was shut, her side against the front of the couch as she slept with her legs bent at the knee and arms curled before her chest. Zoey had woken up in the early morning, the sky just beginning to lighten as she blinked the sleep from her eyes and sat up. She glanced around, looking for something to keep her occupied and decided on playing with Bea’s hair to wake her up, gently this time, so they could get their weekly Saturday breakfast.

---

The week after Poppy’s sick and twisted human sacrifice, neither Bea nor Zoey got any decent sleep, and most of what they did manage was simply the result of pure exhaustion and frustration. At one point or another, each of them stood outside the other’s door in the middle of the night, contemplating turning the handle beneath their palm. But Zoey didn’t want to give in and Bea didn’t even know what to do if she did turn it, so they both turned away and slunk back to their own room.

After the first few sleepless nights, Bea starts spending every night on the couch, praying she’ll catch Zoey somehow and miraculously find the words to tell her how sorry she is and how stupid she was for thinking she would have had time, for thinking things would turn out okay at that godforsaken party. She sits with Cutiepie in her lap, scratching his belly and working through all the papers she needs to grade for Kingsley or all her stupid assignments that just keep piling up.

But not once does she spot Zoey, does she find an opportunity to weasel her way back into her life. And every time she thinks about it like that, she can’t help but feel like a pest again, and then all she wants to do is apologise profusely for everything and leave Zoey alone for good. But she actually has to figure out how to say all that, as well as find her chance, and so the cycle repeats, a vicious, cruel, constant cycle.

To make matters worse, Zoey knows how to avoid her, even if she hates doing it, even if she hates that she has to, and even if she loathes that she’d gotten to the point where she couldn’t even sleep without Bea being there. She spends most of her time in her room, studying even though she doesn’t need to, scrolling her phone and noting a clear absence of anything Bea-related, and binging shows that were on her and Bea’s combined to-watch list.

Zoey knows Bea’s schedule, knows her classes and how early she leaves every morning. She knows when she sneaks back into the dorm thinking she’ll catch Zoey out of her room, knows what classes she’s willing to skip if it means finding Zoey sitting at the kitchen counter.

She knows everything about Bea, even the bad and annoying things, like how she hates raspberries and won’t drink hot coffee. How she mumbles in her sleep and refuses to wear socks to bed even though her feet are always freezing. Zoey knows Bea and Bea knows Zoey.

Bea knows how to crack at her walls, knows the stupid little things that warm her heart, like leaving an iced coffee for Zoey before she leaves every morning and pinning notes to Cutiepie’s collar about how sorry she is whenever Zoey agrees to watch him. And she knows how to win Zoey back, too. She knows to shriek along to a boombox in the courtyard to prove herself, and she knows to hug Zoey tighter than ever when she finally lets her.

Bea knows everything about Zoey, even the embarrassing things, like how she sings musicals in the shower and screams at every single scare in horror movies, even the ones that aren’t scary. She knows that Zoey hates spending time getting ready but loves the finished product, she knows that screaming along to the radio while they do their hair and makeup always makes it better.

They know each other inside and out, better than anyone else on the planet, and at times more than they know themselves. They know each other, and they know to fall back into their previous routine after the fallout, to order pizza and pour wine and laugh at stupidly awful movies until they pass out, Bea’s head on Zoey’s shoulder, with her own on top of Bea’s.

And they know just how bad at sleeping alone they are, how much they hated it and how much they never want to do it again. They know how easy it’s been to fall back into their routine, sneaking into each other’s rooms when it’s dark and leaving as the sun rises, a walk of shame with no reason to be ashamed.

They know it’s slowly changing, too, that they’ve started sneaking in earlier and earlier to talk and vent and just stare at the ceiling together. And they’ve started talking about it, joking in the mornings that Bea doesn’t bring breakfast in bed to impress and apologise for the thousandth time. Some days they don’t even sneak, they just stride into one of their rooms together and collapse on the bed, talking and talking until they decide to get changed and go to sleep, words still filling the space between them until they drift off, wrapped around each other every single night, because they are really, really, really bad at sleeping alone.

#queen b #zoey x mc #zoey wade #choices fanfic #qb basa #first time writing them but i think ill do it again lol #late night ficlet

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ahouseoflies · 4 years ago

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The Best Films of 2020

I can’t tell you anything novel or insightful about this year that has been stolen from our lives. I watched zero of these films in a theater, and I watched most of them half-asleep in moments that I stole from my children. Don’t worry, there are some jokes below.

GARBAGE

93. Capone (Josh Trank)- What is the point of this dinner theater trash? It takes place in the last year of Capone's life, when he was released from prison due to failing health and suffered a stroke in his Florida home. So it covers...none of the things that make Al Capone interesting? It's not historically accurate, which I have no problem with, but if you steer away from accuracy, then do something daring and exciting. Don't give me endless scenes of "Phonse"--as if the movie is running from the very person it's about--drawing bags of money that promise intrigue, then deliver nothing in return.

That being said, best "titular character shits himself" scene since The Judge.

92. Ammonite (Francis Lee)- I would say that this is the Antz to Portrait of a Lady on Fire's A Bug's Life, but it's actually more like the Cars 3 to Portrait of a Lady on Fire's Toy Story 1.

91. Ava (Tate Taylor)- Despite the mystery and inscrutability that usually surround assassins, what if we made a hitman movie but cared a lot about her personal life? Except neither the assassin stuff nor the family stuff is interesting?

90. Wonder Woman 1984 (Patty Jenkins)- What a miscalculation of what audiences loved about the first and wanted from the sequel. WW84 is silly and weightless in all of the ways that the first was elegant and confident. If the return of Pine is just a sort of phantom representation of Diana's desires, then why can he fly a real plane? If he is taking over another man's soul, then, uh, what ends up happening to that guy? For that matter, why is it not 1984 enough for Ronald Reagan to be president, but it is 1984 enough for the president to have so many Ronald Reagan signifiers that it's confusing? Why not just make a decision?

On paper, the me-first values of the '80s lend themselves to the monkey's paw wish logic of this plot. You could actually do something with the Star Wars program or the oil crisis. But not if the setting is played for only laughs and the screenplay explains only what it feels like.

89. Babyteeth (Shannon Murphy)- In this type of movie, there has to be a period of the Ben Mendelsohn character looking around befuddled about the new arrangement and going, "What's this now--he's going to be...living with us? The guy who tried to steal our medication? This is crazy!" But that's usually ten minutes, and in this movie it's an hour. I was so worn out by the end.

88. You Should Have Left (David Koepp)- David Koepp wrote Jurassic Park, so he's never going to hell, but how dare he start caring about his own mystery at the hour mark. There's a forty-five minute version of this movie that could get an extra star from me, and there's a three-hour version of Amanda Seyfried walking around in athleisure that would get four stars from me. What we actually get? No thanks.

87. Black Is King (Beyonce, et al.)- End your association with The Lion King, Bey. It has resulted in zero bops.

ADMIRABLE FAILURES

86. Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (Cathy Yan)- There's nothing too dysfunctional in the storytelling or performances, but Birds of Prey also doesn't do a single thing well. I would prefer something alive and wild, even if it were flawed, to whatever tame belt-level formula this is.

85. The Turning (Floria Sigismondi)- This update of The Turn of the Screw pumps the age of Miles up to high school, which creates some horny creepiness that I liked. But the age of the character also prevents the ending of the novel from happening in favor of a truly terrible shrug. I began to think that all of the patience that the film showed earlier was just hesitance for its own awful ending.

I watched The Turning as a Mackenzie Davis Movie Star heat check, and while I'm not sure she has the magnetism I was looking for, she does have a great teacher voice, chastening but maternal.

84. Bloodshot (David Wilson)- A whole lot of Vin Diesel saying he's going to get revenge and kill a bunch of dudes; not a whole lot of Vin Diesel actually getting revenge and killing a bunch of dudes.

83. Downhill (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash)- I was an English major in college, which means I ended up locking myself into literary theories that, halfway through the writing of an essay, I realized were flawed. But rather than throw out the work that I had already proposed, I would just keep going and see if I could will the idea to success.

So let's say you have a theory that you can take Force Majeure by Ruben Ostlund, one of the best films of its year, and remake it so that its statement about familial anxiety could apply to Americans of the same age and class too...if it hadn't already. And maybe in the first paragraph you mess up by casting Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, people we are conditioned to laugh at, when maybe this isn't that kind of comedy at all. Well, don't throw it away. You can quote more--fill up the pages that way--take an exact shot or scene from the original. Does that help? Maybe you can make the writing more vigorous and distinctive by adding a character. Is that going to make this baby stand out? Maybe you could make it more personal by adding a conclusion that is slightly more clever than the rest of the paper?

Or perhaps this is one you're just not going to get an A on.

82. Hillbilly Elegy (Ron Howard)- I watched this melodrama at my mother's encouragement, and, though I have been trying to pin down her taste for decades, I think her idea of a successful film just boils down to "a lot of stuff happens." So in that way, Ron Howard's loss is my gain, I guess.

There is no such thing as a "neutral Terminator."

81. Relic (Natalie Erika James)- The star of the film is Vanessa Cerne's set decoration, but the inert music and slow pace cancel out a house that seems neglected slowly over decades.

80. Buffaloed (Tanya Wexler)- Despite a breathless pace, Buffaloed can't quite congeal. In trying to split the difference between local color hijinks and Moneyballed treatise on debt collection, it doesn't commit enough to either one.

Especially since Zoey Deutch produced this one in addition to starring, I'm getting kind of worried about boo's taste. Lot of Two If by Seas; not enough While You Were Sleepings.

79. Like a Boss (Miguel Arteta)- I chuckled a few times at a game supporting cast that is doing heavy lifting. But Like a Boss is contrived from the premise itself--Yeah, what if people in their thirties fell out of friendship? Do y'all need a creative consultant?--to the escalation of most scenes--Why did they have to hide on the roof? Why do they have to jump into the pool?

The movie is lean, but that brevity hurts just as much as it helps. The screenplay knows which scenes are crucial to the development of the friendship, but all of those feel perfunctory, in a different gear from the setpieces.

To pile on a bit: Studio comedies are so bare bones now that they look like Lifetime movies. Arteta brought Chuck & Buck to Sundance twenty years ago, and, shot on Mini-DV for $250,000, it was seen as a DIY call-to-bootstraps. I guarantee that has more setups and locations and shooting days than this.

78. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (David Dobkin)- Add Dan Stevens to the list of supporting players who have bodied Will Ferrell in his own movie--one that he cared enough to write himself.

Like Downhill, Ferrell's other 2020 release, this isn't exactly bad. It's just workmanlike and, aside from the joke about Demi Lovato's "uninformed" ghost, frustratingly conventional.

77. The Traitor (Marco Bellochio)- Played with weary commitment by Pierfrancesco Favino, Tomasso Buscetta is "credited" as the first informant of La Cosa Nostra. And that sounds like an interesting subject for a "based on a true story" crime epic, right? Especially when you find out that Buscetta became a rat out of principle: He believed that the mafia to which he had pledged his life had lost its code to the point that it was a different organization altogether.

At no point does Buscetta waver or even seem to struggle with his decision though, so what we get is less conflicted than that description might suggest. None of these Italian mob movies glorify the lifestyle, so I wasn't expecting that. But if the crime doesn't seem enticing, and snitching on the crime seems like forlorn duty, and everything is pitched with such underhanded matter-of-factness that you can't even be sure when Buscetta has flipped, then what are we left with? It was interesting seeing how Italian courts work, I guess?

76. Kajillionaire (Miranda July)- This is another movie so intent on building atmosphere and lore that it takes too long to declare what it is. When the protagonist hits a breaking point and has to act, she has only a third of a film to grow. So whispery too.

Gina Rodriguez is the one to inject life into it. As soon as her motormouth winds up, the film slips into a different gear. The atmosphere and lore that I mentioned reeks of artifice, but her character is believably specific. Beneath a basic exterior is someone who is authentically caring but still morally compromised, beholden to the world that the other characters are suspicious of.

75. Scoob! (Tony Cervone)- The first half is sometimes clever, but it hammers home the importance of friendship while separating the friends.

The second half has some positive messaging, but your kids' movie might have a problem with scale if it involves Alexander the Great unlocking the gates of the Underworld.

My daughter loved it.

74. The Lovebirds (Michael Showalter)- If I start talking too much about this perfectly fine movie, I end up in that unfair stance of reviewing the movie I wanted, not what is actually there.* As a fan of hang-out comedies, I kind of resent that any comedy being made now has to be rolled into something more "exciting," whether it's a wrongfully accused or mistaken identity thriller or some other genre. Such is the post-Game Night world. There's a purposefully anti-climactic note that I wish The Lovebirds had ended on, but of course we have another stretch of hiding behind boats and shooting guns. Nanjiani and Rae are really charming leads though.

*- As a New Orleanian, I was totally distracted by the fake aspects of the setting too. "Oh, they walked to Jefferson from downtown? Really?" You probably won't be bothered by the locations.

73. Sonic the Hedgehog (Jeff Fowler)- In some ways the storytelling is ambitious. (I'm speaking for only myself, but I'm fine with "He's a hedgehog, and he's really fast" instead of the owl mother, teleportation backstory. Not everything has to be Tolkien.) But that ambition doesn't match the lack of ambition in the comedy, which depends upon really hackneyed setups and structures. Guiding Jim Carrey to full alrighty-then mode was the best choice anyone made.

72. Malcolm & Marie (Sam Levinson)- The stars move through these long scenes with agility and charisma, but the degree of difficulty is just too high for this movie to reach what it's going for.

Levinson is trying to capture an epic fight between a couple, and he can harness the theatrical intensity of such a thing, but he sacrifices almost all of the nuance. In real life, these knock-down-drag-outs can be circular and indirect and sad in a way that this couple's manipulation rarely is. If that emotional truth is all this movie is trying to achieve, I feel okay about being harsh in my judgment of how well it does that.

71. Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov)- Elusive in how it refuses to declare itself, forthright in how punishing it is. The whole thing might be worth it for a late dinner scene, but I'm getting a bit old to put myself through this kind of misery.

70. The Burnt Orange Heresy (Giuseppe Capotondi)- Silly in good ways until it's silly in bad ways. Elizabeth Debicki remains 6'3".

69. Everybody’s Everything (Sebastian Jones and Ramez Silyan)- As a person who listened to Lil Peep's music, I can confidently say that this documentary is overstating his greatness. His death was a significant loss, as the interview subjects will all acknowledge, but the documentary is more useful as a portrait of a certain unfocused, rapacious segment of a generation that is high and online at all times.

68. The Witches (Robert Zemeckis)- Robert Zemeckis, Kenya Barris, and Guillermo Del Toro are the credited screenwriters, and in a fascinating way, you can see the imprint of each figure on the final product. Adapting a very European story to the old wives' tales of the American South is an interesting choice. Like the Nicolas Roeg try at this material, Zemeckis is not afraid to veer into the terrifying, and Octavia Spencer's pseudo witch doctor character only sells the supernatural. From a storytelling standpoint though, it seems as if the obstacles are overcome too easily, as if there's a whole leg of the film that has been excised. The framing device and the careful myth-making of the flashback make promises that the hotel half of the film, including the abrupt ending, can't live up to.

If nothing else, Anne Hathaway is a real contender for Most On-One Performance of the year.

67. Irresistible (Jon Stewart)- Despite a sort of imaginative ending, Jon Stewart's screenplay feels more like the declarative screenplay that would get you hired for a good movie, not a good screenplay itself. It's provocative enough, but it's clumsy in some basic ways and never evades the easy joke.

For example, the Topher Grace character is introduced as a sort of assistant, then is re-introduced an hour later as a polling expert, then is shown coaching the candidate on presentation a few scenes later. At some point, Stewart combined characters into one role, but nothing got smoothed out.

ENDEARING CURIOSITIES WITH BIG FLAWS

66. Yes, God, Yes (Karen Maine)- Most people who are Catholic, including me, are conflicted about it. Most people who make movies about being Catholic hate it and have an axe to grind. This film is capable of such knowing wit and nuance when it comes to the lived-in details of attending a high school retreat, but it's more concerned with taking aim at hypocrisy in the broad way that we've seen a million times. By the end, the film is surprisingly all-or-nothing when Christian teenagers actually contain multitudes.

Part of the problem is that Karen Maine's screenplay doesn't know how naive to make the Alice character. Sometimes she's reasonably naive for a high school senior in 2001; sometimes she's comically naive so that the plot can work; and sometimes she's stupid, which isn't the same as naive.

65. Bad Boys for Life (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah)- This might be the first buddy cop movie in which the vets make peace with the tech-comm youngs who use new techniques. If that's the only novelty on display here--and it is--then maybe that's enough. I laughed maybe once. Not that the mistaken identity subplot of Bad Boys 1 is genius or anything, but this entry felt like it needed just one more layer to keep it from feeling as basic as it does. Speaking of layers though, it's almost impossible to watch any Will Smith movie now without viewing it through the meta-narrative of "What is Will Smith actually saying about his own status at this point in his career?" He's serving it up to us.

I derived an inordinate amount of pleasure from seeing the old school Simpson/Bruckheimer logo.

64. The Gentlemen (Guy Ritchie)- Look, I'm not going to be too negative on a movie whose crime slang is so byzantine that it has to be explained with subtitles. That's just me. I'm a simple man. But I can tell you that I tuned out pretty hard after seven or eight double-crosses.

The bloom is off the rose a bit for Ritchie, but he can still nail a music cue. I've been waiting for someone to hit "That's Entertainment" the way he does on the end credits.

63. Bad Hair (Justin Simien)- In Bad Hair, an African-American woman is told by her boss at a music video channel in 1989 that straightening her hair is the way to get ahead; however, her weave ends up having a murderous mind of its own. Compared to that charged, witty logline, the execution of the plot itself feels like a laborious, foregone conclusion. I'm glad that Simien, a genuinely talented writer, is making movies again though. Drop the skin-care routine, Van Der Beek!

62. Greyhound (Aaron Schneider)- "If this is the type of role that Tom Hanks writes for himself, then he understands his status as America's dad--'wise as the serpent, harmless as the dove'--even better than I thought." "America's Dad! Aye aye, sir!" "At least half of the dialogue is there for texture and authenticity, not there to be understood by the audience." "Fifty percent, Captain!" "The environment looks as fake as possible, but I eventually came around to the idea that the movie is completely devoid of subtext." "No subtext to be found, sir!"

61. Mank (David Fincher)- About ten years ago, the Creative Screenwriting podcast spent an hour or so with James Vanderbilt, the writer of Zodiac and nothing else that comes close, as he relayed the creative paces that David Fincher pushed him through. Hundreds of drafts and years of collaborative work eventuated in the blueprint for Fincher's most exacting, personal film, which he didn't get a writing credit on only because he didn't seek one.

Something tells me that Fincher didn't ask for rewrites from his dead father. No matter what visuals and performances the director can coax from the script--and, to be clear, these are the worst visuals and performances of his career--they are limited by the muddy lightweight pages. There are plenty of pleasures, like the slippery election night montage or the shakily platonic relationship between Mank and Marion. But Fincher hadn't made a film in six years, and he came back serving someone else's master.

60. Tesla (Michael Almereyda)- "You live inside your head." "Doesn't everybody?"

As usual, Almereyda's deconstructions are invigorating. (No other moment can match the first time Eve Hewson's Anne fact-checks something with her anachronistic laptop.) But they don't add up to anything satisfying because Tesla himself is such an opaque figure. Driven by the whims of his curiosity without a clear finish line, the character gives Hawke something enigmatic to play as he reaches deep into a baritone. But he's too inward to lend himself to drama. Tesla feels of a piece with Almereyda's The Experimenter, and that's the one I would recommend.

59. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)- I can't oversell how delicately beautiful this film is visually. There's a scene in which Vitalina lugs a lantern into a church, but we get several seconds of total darkness before that one light source carves through it and takes over part of the frame. Each composition is as intricate as it is overpowering, achieving a balance between stark and mannered.

That being said, most of the film is people entering or exiting doors. I felt very little of the haunting loss that I think I was supposed to.

58. The Rhythm Section (Reed Morano)- Call it the Timothy Hutton in The General's Daughter Corollary: If a name-actor isn't in the movie much but gets third billing, then, despite whom he sends the protagonist to kill, he is the Actual Bad Guy.

Even if the movie serves up a lot of cliche, the action and sound design are visceral. I would like to see more from Morano.

57. Red, White and Blue (Steve McQueen)- Well-made and heartfelt even if it goes step-for-step where you think it will.

Here's what I want to know though: In the academy training sequence, the police cadets have to subdue a "berserker"; that is, a wildman who swings at their riot gear with a sledgehammer. Then they get him under control, and he shakes their hands, like, "Good angle you took on me there, mate." Who is that guy and where is his movie? Is this full-time work? Is he a police officer or an independent contractor? What would happen if this exercise didn't go exactly as planned?

56. Wolfwalkers (Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart)- The visuals have an unfinished quality that reminded me of The Tale of Princess Kaguya--the center of a flame is undrawn white, and fog is just negative space. There's an underlying symmetry to the film, and its color palette changes with mood.

Narratively, it's pro forma and drawn-out. Was Riley in Inside Out the last animated protagonist to get two parents? My daughter stuck with it, but she needed a lot of context for the religious atmosphere of 17th century Ireland.

55. What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (Rob Garver)- The film does little more than one might expect; it's limited in the way that any visual medium is when trying to sum up a woman of letters. But as far as education for Kael's partnership with Warren Beatty or the idea of The New Yorker paying her for only six months out of the year, it was useful for me.

Although Garver isn't afraid to point to the work that made Kael divisive, it would have been nice to have one or two interview subjects who questioned her greatness, rather than the crew of Paulettes who, even when they do say something like, "Sometimes I radically disagreed with her," do it without being able to point to any specifics.

54. Beastie Boys Story (Spike Jonze)- As far as this Spike Jonze completist is concerned, this is more of a Powerpoint presentation than a movie, Beastie Boys Story still warmed my heart, making me want to fire up Paul's Boutique again and take more pictures of my buddies.

53. Tenet (Christopher Nolan)- Cool and cold, tantalizing and frustrating, loud and indistinct, Tenet comes close to Nolan self-parody, right down to the brutalist architecture and multiple characters styled like him. The setpieces grabbed me, I'll admit.

Nolan's previous film, which is maybe his best, was "about" a lot and just happened to play with time; Tenet is only about playing with time.

PRETTY GOOD MOVIES

52. Shithouse (Cooper Raiff)- "Death is ass."

There's such a thing as too naturalistic. If I wanted to hear how college freshmen really talked, I would hang out with college freshmen. But you have to take the good verisimilitude with the bad, and good verisimilitude is the mother's Pod Save America t-shirt.

There are some poignant moments (and a gonzo performance from Logan Miller) in this auspicious debut from Cooper Raiff, the writer/director/editor/star. But the second party sequence kills some of the momentum, and at a crucial point, the characters spell out some motivation that should have stayed implied.

51. Totally Under Control (Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, Suzanne Hillinger)- As dense and informative as any other Gibney documentary with the added flex of making it during the pandemic it is investigating.

But yeah, why am I watching this right now? I don't need more reasons to be angry with Trump, whom this film calmly eviscerates. The directors analyze Trump's narcissism first through his contradictions of medical expertise in order to protect the economy that could win him re-election. Then it takes aim at his hiring based on loyalty instead of experience. But you already knew that, which is the problem with the film, at least for now.

50. Happiest Season (Clea Duvall)- I was in the perfect mood to watch something this frothy and bouncy. Every secondary character receives a moment in the sun, and Daniel Levy gets a speech that kind of saves the film at a tipping point.

I must say though: I wanted to punch Harper in her stupid face. She is a terrible romantic partner, abandoning or betraying Abby throughout the film and dissembling her entire identity to everyone else in a way that seems absurd for a grown woman in 2020. Run away, Kristen. Perhaps with Aubrey Plaza, whom you have more chemistry with. But there I go shipping and aligning myself with characters, which only proves that this is an effective romantic comedy.

49. The Way Back (Gavin O’Connor)- Patient but misshapen, The Way Back does just enough to overcome the cliches that are sort of unavoidable considering the genre. (I can't get enough of the parent character who, for no good reason, doesn't take his son's success seriously. "Scholarship? What he's gotta do is put his nose in them books! That's why I don't go to his games. [continues moving boxes while not looking at the other character] Now if you'll excuse me while I wait four scenes before showing up at a game to prove that I'm proud of him after all...")

What the movie gets really right or really wrong in the details about coaching and addiction is a total crap-shoot. But maybe I've said too much already.

48. The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu)- Porumboiu is a real artist who seems to be interpreting how much surveillance we're willing to acknowledge and accept, but I won't pretend to have understood much of the plot, the chapters or which are told out of order. Sometimes the structure works--the beguiling, contextless "high-class hooker" sequence--but I often wondered if the film was impenetrable in the way that Porumboiu wanted it to be or impenetrable in the way he didn't.

To tell you the truth, the experience kind of depressed me because I know that, in my younger days, this film is the type of thing that I would re-watch, possibly with the chronology righted, knowing that it is worth understanding fully. But I have two small children, and I'm exhausted all the time, and I kind of thought I should get some credit for still trying to catch up with Romanian crime movies in the first place.

47. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner)- I laughed too much to get overly critical, but the film is so episodic and contrived that it's kind of exhausting by the end--even though it's achieving most of its goals. Maybe Borat hasn't changed, but the way our citizens own their ugliness has.

46. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)- Despite how little happens in the first forty minutes, First Cow is a thoughtful capitalism parable. Even though it takes about forty minutes to get going, the friendship between Cookie and King-Lu is natural and incisive. Like Reichardt's other work, the film's modest premise unfolds quite gracefully, except for in the first forty minutes, which are uneventful.

45. Les Miserables (Ladj Ly)- I loved parts of the film--the disorienting, claustrophobic opening or the quick look at the police officers' home lives, for example. But I'm not sure that it does anything very well. The needle the film tries to thread between realism and theater didn't gel for me. The ending, which is ambiguous in all of the wrong ways, chooses the theatrical. (If I'm being honest, my expectations were built up by Les Miserables' Jury Prize at Cannes, and it's a bit superficial to be in that company.)

If nothing else, it's always helpful to see how another country's worst case scenario in law enforcement would look pretty good over here.

44. Bad Education (Cory Finley)- The film feels too locked-down and small at the beginning, so intent on developing the protagonist neutrally that even the audience isn't aware of his secrets. So when he faces consequences for those secrets, there's a disconnect. Part of tragedy is seeing the doom coming, right?

When it opens up, however, it's empathetic and subtle, full of a dry irony that Finley is already specializing in after only one other feature. Geraldine Viswanathan and Allison Janney get across a lot of interiority that is not on the page.

43. The Trip to Greece (Michael Winterbottom)- By the fourth installment, you know whether you're on board with the franchise. If you're asking "Is this all there is?" to Coogan and Brydon's bickering and impressions as they're served exotic food in picturesque settings, then this one won't sway you. If you're asking "Is this all there is?" about life, like they are, then I don't need to convince you.

I will say that The Trip to Spain seemed like an enervated inflection point, at which the squad could have packed it in. The Trip to Greece proves that they probably need to keep doing this until one of them dies, which has been the subtext all along.

42. Feels Good Man (Arthur Jones)- This documentary centers on innocent artist Matt Furie's helplessness as his Pepe the Frog character gets hijacked by the alt-right. It gets the hard things right. It's able to, quite comprehensively, trace a connection from 4Chan's use of Pepe the Frog to Donald Trump's near-assuming of Pepe's ironic deniability. Director Arthur Jones seems to understand the machinations of the alt-right, and he articulates them chillingly.

The easy thing, making us connect to Furie, is less successful. The film spends way too much time setting up his story, and it makes him look naive as it pits him against Alex Jones in the final third. Still, the film is a quick ninety-two minutes, and the highs are pretty high.

41. The Old Guard (Gina Prince-Bythewood)- Some of the world-building and backstory are handled quite elegantly. The relationships actually do feel centuries old through specific details, and the immortal conceit comes together for an innovative final action sequence.

Visually and musically though, the film feels flat in a way that Prince-Bythewood's other films do not. I blame Netflix specs. KiKi Layne, who tanked If Beale Street Could Talk for me, nearly ruins this too with the child-actory way that she stresses one word per line. Especially in relief with one of our more effortless actresses, Layne is distracting.

40. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin)- Whenever Sacha Baron Cohen's Abbie Hoffman opens his mouth, the other defendants brace themselves for his dismissive vulgarity. Even when it's going to hurt him, he can't help but shoot off at the mouth. Of course, he reveals his passionate and intelligent depths as the trial goes on. The character is the one that Sorkin's screenplay seems the most endeared to: In the same way that Hoffman can't help but be Hoffman, Sorkin can't help but be Sorkin. Maybe we don't need a speech there; maybe we don't have to stretch past two hours; maybe a bon mot diffuses the tension. But we know exactly what to expect by now. The film is relevant, astute, witty, benevolent, and, of course, in love with itself. There are a handful of scenes here that are perfect, so I feel bad for qualifying so much.

A smaller point: Daniel Pemberton has done great work in the past (Motherless Brooklyn, King Arthur, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), but the first sequence is especially marred by his sterile soft-rock approach.

GOOD MOVIES

39. Time (Garrett Bradley)- The key to Time is that it provides very little context. Why the patriarch of this family is serving sixty years in prison is sort of besides the point philosophically. His wife and sons have to move on without him, and the tragedy baked into that fact eclipses any notion of what he "deserved." Feeling the weight of time as we switch back and forth between a kid talking about his first day of kindergarten and that same kid graduating from dentistry school is all the context we need. Time's presentation can be quite sumptuous: The drone shot of Angola makes its buildings look like crosses. Or is it X's?

At the same time, I need some context. When director Garrett Bradley withholds the reason Robert's in prison, and when she really withholds that Fox took a plea and served twelve years, you start to see the strings a bit. You could argue that knowing so little about why, all of a sudden, Robert can be on parole puts you into the same confused shoes as the family, but it feels manipulative to me. The film is preaching to the choir as far as criminal justice goes, which is fine, but I want it to have the confidence to tell its story above board.

38. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (Turner Ross and Bill Ross IV)- I have a barfly friend whom I see maybe once a year. When we first set up a time to meet, I kind of dread it and wonder what we'll have to talk about. Once we do get together, we trip on each other's words a bit, fumbling around with the rhythm of conversation that we mastered decades ago. He makes some kind of joke that could have been appropriate then but isn't now.

By the end of the day, hours later, we're hugging and maybe crying as we promise each other that we won't wait as long next time.

That's the exact same journey that I went on with this film.

37. Underwater (William Eubank)- Underwater is a story that you've seen before, but it's told with great confidence and economy. I looked up at twelve minutes and couldn't believe the whole table had been set. Kristen plays Ripley and projects a smart, benevolent poise.

36. The Lodge (Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala)- I prefer the grounded, manicured first half to the more fantastic second half. The craziness of the latter is only possible through the hard work of the former though. As with Fiala and Franz's previous feature, the visual rhymes and motifs get incorporated into the soup so carefully that you don't realize it until they overwhelm you in their bleak glory.

Small note: Alicia Silverstone, the male lead's first wife, and Riley Keough, his new partner, look sort of similar. I always think that's a nice note: "I could see how he would go for her."

35. Miss Americana (Lana Wilson)- I liked it when I saw it as a portrait of a person whose life is largely decided for her but is trying to carve out personal spaces within that hamster wheel. I loved it when I realized that describes most successful people in their twenties.

34. Sound of Metal (Darius Marder)- Riz Ahmed is showing up on all of the best performances of the year lists, but Sound of Metal isn't in anyone's top ten films of the year. That's about right. Ahmed's is a quiet, stubborn performance that I wish was in service of more than the straight line that we've seen before.

In two big scenes, there's this trick that Ahmed does, a piecing together of consequences with his eyes, as if he's moving through a flow chart in real time. In both cases, the character seems locked out and a little slower than he should be, which is, of course, why he's facing the consequences in the first place. To be charitable to a film that was a bit of a grind, it did make me notice a thing a guy did with his eyes.

33. Pieces of a Woman (Kornel Mundruczo)- Usually when I leave acting showcases like this, I imagine the film without the Oscar-baiting speeches, but this is a movie that specializes in speeches. Pieces of a Woman is being judged, deservedly so, by the harrowing twenty-minute take that opens the film, which is as indulgent as it is necessary. But if the unbroken take provides the "what," then the speeches provide the "why."

This is a film about reclaiming one's body when it rebels against you and when other people seek ownership of it. Without the Ellen Burstyn "lift your head" speech or the Vanessa Kirby show-stopper in the courtroom, I'm not sure any of that comes across.

I do think the film lets us off the hook a bit with the LaBoeuf character, in the sense that it gives us reasons to dislike him when it would be more compelling if he had done nothing wrong. Does his half-remembering of the White Stripes count as a speech?

32. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe)- This is such a play, not only in the locked-down location but also through nearly every storytelling convention: "Where are the two most interesting characters? Oh, running late? They'll enter separately in animated fashion?" But, to use the type of phrase that the characters might, "Don't hate the player; hate the game."

Perhaps the most theatrical note in this treatise on the commodification of expression is the way that, two or three times, the proceedings stop in their tracks for the piece to declare loudly what it's about. In one of those clear-outs, Boseman, who looks distractingly sick, delivers an unforgettable monologue that transports the audience into his character's fragile, haunted mind. He and Viola Davis are so good that the film sort of buckles under their weight, unsure of how to transition out of those spotlight moments and pretend that the story can start back up. Whatever they're doing is more interesting than what's being achieved overall.

31. Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg)- It's definitely the film that Vinterberg wanted to make, but despite what I think is a quietly shattering performance from Mikkelsen, Another Round moves in a bit too much of a straight line to grab me fully. The joyous final minutes hint at where it could have gone, as do pockets of Vinterberg's filmography, which seems newly tethered to realism in a way that I don't like. The best sequences are the wildest ones, like the uproarious trip to the grocery store for fresh cod, so I don't know why so much of it takes place in tiny hallways at magic hour. I give the inevitable American remake* permission to use these notes.

*- Just spitballing here. Martin: Will Ferrell, Nikolaj (Nick): Ben Stiller, Tommy: Owen Wilson, Peter: Craig Robinson

30. The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell)- Exactly what I wanted. Exactly what I needed.

I think a less conclusive finale would have been better, but what a model of high-concept escalation. This is the movie people convinced me Whannell's Upgrade was.

29. On the Rocks (Sofia Coppola)- Slight until the Mexican sojourn, which expands the scope and makes the film even more psychosexual than before. At times it feels as if Coppola is actively simplifying, rather than diving into the race and privilege questions that the Murray character all but demands.

As for Murray, is the film 50% worse without him? 70%? I don't know if you can run in supporting categories if you're the whole reason the film exists.

28. Mangrove (Steve McQueen)- The first part of the film seemed repetitive and broad to me. But once it settled in as a courtroom drama, the characterization became more shaded, and the filmmaking itself seemed more fluid. I ended up being quite outraged and inspired.

27. Shirley (Josephine Decker)- Josephine Decker emerges as a real stylist here, changing her foggy, impressionistic approach not one bit with a little more budget. Period piece and established actors be damned--this is still as much of a reeling fever dream as Madeline's Madeline. Both pieces are a bit too repetitive and nasty for my taste, but I respect the technique.

Here's my mandatory "Elisabeth Moss is the best" paragraph. While watching her performance as Shirley Jackson, I thought about her most famous role as Peggy on Mad Men, whose inertia and need to prove herself tied her into confidence knots. Shirley is almost the opposite: paralyzed by her worldview, certain of her talent, rejecting any empathy. If Moss can inhabit both characters so convincingly, she can do anything.

26. An American Pickle (Brandon Trost)- An American Pickle is the rare comedy that could actually use five or ten extra minutes, but it's a surprisingly heartfelt and wholesome stretch for Rogen, who is earnest in the lead roles.

25. The King of Staten Island (Judd Apatow)- At two hours and fifteen minutes, The King of Staten Island is probably the first Judd Apatow film that feels like the exact right length. For example, the baggy date scene between a gracious Bill Burr and a faux-dowdy Marisa Tomei is essential, the sort of widening of perspective that something like Trainwreck was missing.

It's Pete Davidson's movie, however, and though he has never been my cup of tea, I think he's actually quite powerful in his quiet moments. The movie probes some rare territory--a mentally ill man's suspicion that he is unlovable, a family's strategic myth-making out of respect for the dead. And when Davidson shows up at the firehouse an hour and fifteen minutes in, it feels as if we've built to a last resort.

24. Swallow (Carlo Mirabella-Davis)- The tricky part of this film is communicating Hunter's despair, letting her isolation mount, but still keeping her opaque. It takes a lot of visual discipline to do that, and Claudio Mirabella-Davis is up to the task. This ends up being a much more sympathetic, expressive movie than the plot description might suggest.

(In the tie dispute, Hunter and Richie are both wrong. That type of silk--I couldn't tell how pebbled it was, but it's probably a barathea weave-- shouldn't be ironed directly, but it doesn't have to be steamed. On a low setting, you could iron the back of the tie and be fine.)

23. The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson)- I wanted a bit more "there" there; The film goes exactly where I thought it would, and there isn't enough humor for my taste. (The predictability might be a feature, not a bug, since the film is positioned as an episode of a well-worn Twilight Zone-esque show.)

But from a directorial standpoint, this is quite a promising debut. Patterson knows when to lock down or use silence--he even cuts to black to force us to listen more closely to a monologue. But he also knows when to fill the silence. There's a minute or so when Everett is spooling tape, and he and Fay make small talk about their hopes for the future, developing the characters' personalities in what could have been just mechanics. It's also a refreshingly earnest film. No one is winking at the '50s setting.

I'm tempted to write, "If Andrew Patterson can make this with $1 million, just imagine what he can do with $30 million." But maybe people like Shane Carruth have taught us that Patterson is better off pinching pennies in Texas and following his own muse.

22. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)- At first this film, adapted from a picaresque novel by Jack London, seemed as if it was hitting the marks of the genre. "He's going from job to job and meeting dudes who are shaping his worldview now." But the film, shot in lustrous Super 16, won me over as it owned the trappings of this type of story, forming a character who is a product of his environment even as he transcends it. By the end, I really felt the weight of time.

You want to talk about something that works better in novels than films though? When a passionate, independent protagonist insists that a woman is the love of his life, despite the fact that she's whatever Italians call a wet blanket. She's rich, but Martin doesn't care about her money. He hates her family and friends, and she refuses to accept him or his life pursuits. She's pretty but not even as pretty as the waitress they discuss. Tell me what I'm missing here. There's archetype, and there's incoherence.

21. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles)- Certain images from this adventurous film will stick with me, but I got worn out after the hard reset halfway through. As entranced as I was by the mystery of the first half, I think this blood-soaked ensemble is better at asking questions than it is at answering them.

20. Let Them All Talk (Steven Soderbergh)- The initial appeal of this movie might be "Look at these wonderful actresses in their seventies getting a movie all to themselves." And the film is an interesting portrait of ladies taking stock of relationships that have spanned decades. But Soderbergh and Eisenberg handle the twentysomething Lucas Hedges character with the same openness and empathy. His early reasoning for going on the trip is that he wants to learn from older women, and Hedges nails the puppy-dog quality of a young man who would believe that. Especially in the scenes of aspirational romance, he's sweet and earnest as he brushes his hair out of his face.

Streep plays Alice Hughes, a serious author of literary fiction, and she crosses paths with Kelvin Kranz, a grinder of airport thrillers. In all of the right ways, Let Them All Talk toes the line between those two stances as an entertaining, jaunty experiment that also shoulders subtextual weight. If nothing else, it's easy to see why a cruise ship's counterfeit opulence, its straight lines at a lean, would be visually engaging to Soderbergh. You can't have a return to form if your form is constantly evolving.

19. Dick Johnson Is Dead (Kirsten Johnson)- Understandably, I don't find the subject as interesting as his own daughter does, and large swaths of this film are unsure of what they're trying to say. But that's sort of the point, and the active wrestling that the film engages in with death ultimately pays off in a transcendent moment. The jaw-dropping ending is something that only non-fiction film can achieve, and Johnson's whole career is about the search for that sort of serendipity.

18. Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)- Delroy Lindo is a live-wire, but his character is the only one of the principals who is examined with the psychological depth I was hoping for. The first half, with all of its present-tense flourishes, promises more than the gunfights of the second half can deliver. When the film is cooking though, it's chock full of surprises, provocations, and pride.

17. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittmann)- Very quickly, Eliza Hittmann has established herself as an astute, empathetic director with an eye for discovering new talent. I hope that she gets to make fifty more movies in which she objectively follows laconic young people. But I wanted to like this one more than I did. The approach is so neutral that it's almost flat to me, lacking the arc and catharsis of her previous film, Beach Rats. I still appreciate her restraint though.

GREAT MOVIES

16. Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)- I don't think the Dardennes have made a bad movie yet, and I'm glad they turned away from the slight genre dipping of The Unknown Girl, the closest to bad that they got. Young Ahmed is a lean, daring return to form.

Instead of following an average person, as they normally do, the Dardenne Brothers follow an extremist, and the objectivity that usually generates pathos now serves to present ambiguity. Ahmed says that he is changing, that he regrets his actions, but we never know how much of his stance is a put-on. I found myself wanting him to reform, more involved than I usually am in these slices of life. Part of it is that Idir Ben Addi looks like such a normal, young kid, and the Ahmed character has most of the qualities that we say we want in young people: principles, commitment, self-worth, reflection. So it's that much more destructive when those qualities are used against him and against his fellow man.

15. World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime (Don Hertzfeldt)- My dad, a man whom I love but will never understand, has dismissed modern music before by claiming that there are only so many combinations of chords. To him, it's almost impossible to do something new. Of course, this is the type of thing that an uncreative person would say--a person not only incapable of hearing the chords that combine notes but also unwilling to hear the space between the notes. (And obviously, that's the take of a person who doesn't understand that, originality be damned, some people just have to create.)

Anyway, that attitude creeps into my own thinking more than I would like, but then I watch something as wholly original as World of Tomorrow Episode Three. The series has always been a way to pile sci-fi ideas on top of each other to prove the essential truths of being and loving. And this one, even though it achieves less of a sense of yearning than its predecessor, offers even more devices to chew on. Take, for example, the idea that Emily sends her message from the future, so David's primitive technology can barely handle it. In order to move forward with its sophistication, he has to delete any extraneous skills for the sake of computer memory. So out of trust for this person who loves him, he has to weigh whether his own breathing or walking can be uninstalled as a sacrifice for her. I thought that we might have been done describing love, but there it is, a new metaphor. Mixing futurism with stick figures to get at the most pure drive possible gave us something new. It's called art, Dad.

14. On the Record (Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering)- We don't call subjects of documentaries "stars" for obvious reasons, but Drew Dixon kind of is one. Her honesty and wisdom tell a complete story of the #MeToo movement. Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering take their time developing her background at first, not because we need to "gain sympathy" or "establish credibility" for a victim of sexual abuse, but because showing her talent and enthusiasm for hip-hop A&R makes it that much more tragic when her passion is extinguished. Hell, I just like the woman, so spending a half-hour on her rise was pleasurable in and of itself.

This is a gut-wrenching, fearless entry in what is becoming Dick and Ziering's raison d'etre, but its greatest quality is Dixon's composed reflection. She helped to establish a pattern of Russell Simmons's behavior, but she explains what happened to her in ways I had never heard before.

13. David Byrne’s American Utopia (Spike Lee)- I'm often impressed by the achievements that puzzle me: How did they pull that off? But I know exactly how David Byrne pulled off the impish but direct precision of American Utopia: a lot of hard work.

I can't blame Spike Lee for stealing a page from Demme's Stop Making Sense: He denies us a close-up of any audience members until two-thirds of the way through, when we get someone in absolute rapture.

12. One Night in Miami... (Regina King)- We've all cringed when a person of color is put into the position of speaking on behalf of his or her entire race. But the characters in One Night in Miami... live in that condition all the time and are constantly negotiating it. As Black public figures in 1964, they know that the consequences of their actions are different, bigger, than everyone else's. The charged conversations between Malcolm X and Sam Cooke are not about whether they can live normal lives. They're way past that. The stakes are closer to Sam Cooke arguing that his life's purpose aligns with the protection and elevation of African-Americans while Malcolm X argues that those pursuits should be the same thing. Late in the movie, Cassius Clay leaves the other men, a private conversation, to talk to reporters, a public conversation. But the film argues that everything these men do is always already public. They're the most powerful African-Americans in the country, but their lives are not their own. Or not only their own.

It's true that the first act has the clunkiness and artifice of a TV movie, but once the film settles into the motel room location and lets the characters feed off one another, it's gripping. It's kind of unfair for a movie to get this many scenes of Leslie Odom Jr. singing, but I'll take it.

11. Saint Frances (Alex Thompson)- Rilke wrote, "Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us." The characters' behavior in Saint Frances--all of these fully formed characters' behavior--made me think of that quotation. When they lash out at one another, even at their nastiest, the viewer has a window into how they're expressing pain they can't verbalize. The film is uneven in its subtlety, but it's a real showcase for screenwriter and star Kelly O'Sullivan, who is unflinching and dynamic in one of the best performances of the year. Somebody give her some of the attention we gave to Zach Braff for God's sake.

10. Boys State (Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine)- This documentary is kind of a miracle from a logistical standpoint. From casting interviews beforehand, lots of editing afterwards, or sly note-taking once the conference began, McBaine and Moss happened to select the four principals who mattered the most at the convention, then found them in rooms full of dudes wearing the same tucked-in t-shirt. By the way, all of the action took place over the course of one week, and by definition, the important events are carved in half.

To call Boys State a microcosm of American politics is incorrect. These guys are forming platforms and voting in elections. What they're doing is American politics, so when they make the same compromises and mistakes that active politicians do, it produces dread and disappointment. So many of the boys are mimicking the political theater that they see on TV, and that sweaty sort of performance is going to make a Billy Mitchell out of this kid Ben Feinstein, and we'll be forced to reckon with how much we allow him to evolve as a person. This film is so precise, but what it proves is undeniably messy. Luckily, some of these seventeen-year-olds usher in hope for us all.

If nothing else, the film reveals the level to which we're all speaking in code.

9. The Nest (Sean Durkin)- In the first ten minutes or so of The Nest, the only real happy minutes, father and son are playing soccer in their quaint backyard, and the father cheats to score on a children's net before sliding on the grass to rub in his victory. An hour later, the son kicks the ball around by himself near a regulation goal on the family's massive property. The contrast is stark and obvious, as is the symbolism of the dead horse, but that doesn't mean it's not visually powerful or resonant.

Like Sean Durkin's earlier film, Martha Marcy May Marlene, the whole of The Nest is told with detail of novelistic scope and an elevation of the moment. A snippet of radio that mentions Ronald Reagan sets the time period, rather than a dateline. One kid saying "Thanks, Dad" and another kid saying, "Thanks, Rory" establishes a stepchild more elegantly than any other exposition might.

But this is also a movie that does not hide what it means. Characters usually say exactly what is on their minds, and motivations are always clear. For example, Allison smokes like a chimney, so her daughter's way of acting out is leaving butts on the window sill for her mother to find. (And mother and daughter both definitely "act out" their feelings.) On the other hand, Ben, Rory's biological son, is the character least like him, so these relationships aren't too directly parallel. Regardless, Durkin uses these trajectories to cast a pall of familial doom.

8. Sorry We Missed You (Sean Durkin)- Another precisely calibrated empathy machine from Ken Loach. The overwhelmed matriarch, Abby, is a caretaker, and she has to break up a Saturday dinner to rescue one of her clients, who wet herself because no one came to help her to the bathroom. The lady is embarrassed, and Abby calms her down by saying, "You mean more to me than you know." We know enough about Abby's circumstances to realize that it's sort of a lie, but it's a beautiful lie, told by a person who cares deeply but is not cared for.

Loach's central point is that the health of a family, something we think of as immutable and timeless, is directly dependent upon the modern industry that we use to destroy ourselves. He doesn't have to be "proven" relevant, and he didn't plan for Covid-19 to point to the fragility of the gig economy, but when you're right, you're right.

7. Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen)- swear to you I thought: "This is an impeccable depiction of a great house party. The only thing it's missing is the volatile dude who scares away all the girls." And then the volatile dude who scares away all the girls shows up.

In a year short on magic, there are two or three transcendent moments, but none of them can equal the whole crowd singing along to "Silly Games" way after the song has ended. Nothing else crystallizes the film's note of celebration: of music, of community, of safe spaces, of Black skin. I remember moments like that at house parties, and like all celebrations, they eventually make me sad.

6. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (Nicole Newnham and James Lebrecht)- I held off on this movie because I thought that I knew what it was. The setup was what I expected: A summer camp for the disabled in the late '60s takes on the spirit of the time and becomes a haven for people who have not felt agency, self-worth, or community anywhere else. But that's the right-place-right-time start of a story that takes these figures into the '80s as they fight for their rights.

If you're anything like my dumb ass, you know about 504 accommodations from the line on a college syllabus that promises equal treatment. If 2020 has taught us anything though, it's that rights are seized, not given, and this is the inspiring story of people who unified to demand what they deserved. Judy Heumann is a civil rights giant, but I'm ashamed to say I didn't know who she was before this film. If it were just a history lesson that wasn't taught in school, Crip Camp would still be valuable, but it's way more than that.

5. Palm Springs (Max Barbakow)- When explaining what is happening to them, Andy Samberg's Nyles twirls his hand at Cristin Milioti's Sara and says, "It's one of those infinite time-loop scenarios." Yeah, one of those. Armed with only a handful of fictional examples, she and the audience know exactly what he means, and the continually inventive screenplay by Andy Siara doesn't have to do any more explaining. In record time, the film accelerates into its premise, involves her, and sets up the conflict while avoiding the claustrophobia of even Groundhog Day. That economy is the strength that allows it to be as funny as it is. By being thrifty with the setup, the savings can go to, say, the couple crashing a plane into a fiery heap with no consequences.

In some accidental ways, this is, of course, a quarantine romance as well. Nyles and Sara frustratingly navigate the tedious wedding as if they are play-acting--which they sort of are--then they push through that sameness to grow for each other, realizing that dependency is not weakness. The best relationships are doing the same thing right now.

Although pointedly superficial--part of the point of why the couple is such a match--and secular--I think the notion of an afterlife would come up at least once--Palm Springs earns the sincerity that it gets around to. And for a movie ironic enough to have a character beg to be impaled so that he doesn't have to sit in traffic, that's no small feat.

4. The Assistant (Kitty Green)- A wonder of Bressonian objectivity and rich observation, The Assistant is the rare film that deals exclusively with emotional depth while not once explaining any emotions. One at a time, the scrape of the Kleenex box might not be so grating, the long hallway trek to the delivery guy might not be so tiring, but this movie gets at the details of how a job can destroy you in ways that add up until you can't even explain them.

3. Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)- In her most incendiary and modern role, Carey Mulligan plays Cassie, which is short for Cassandra, that figure doomed to tell truths that no one else believes. The web-belted boogeyman who ruined her life is Al, short for Alexander, another Greek who is known for his conquests. The revenge story being told here--funny in its darkest moments, dark in its funniest moments--is tight on its surface levels, but it feels as if it's telling a story more archetypal and expansive than that too.

An exciting feature debut for its writer-director Emerald Fennell, the film goes wherever it dares. Its hero has a clear purpose, and it's not surprising that the script is willing to extinguish her anger halfway through. What is surprising is the way it renews and muddies her purpose as she comes into contact with half-a-dozen brilliant one- or two-scene performances. (Do you think Alfred Molina can pull off a lawyer who hates himself so much that he can't sleep? You would be right.)

Promising Young Woman delivers as an interrogation of double standards and rape culture, but in quiet ways it's also about our outsized trust in professionals and the notion that some trauma cannot be overcome.

INSTANT CLASSICS

2. Soul (Pete Docter)- When Pete Docter's Up came out, it represented a sort of coronation for Pixar: This was the one that adults could like unabashedly. The one with wordless sequences and dead children and Ed Asner in the lead. But watching it again this week with my daughter, I was surprised by how high-concept and cloying it could be. We choose not to remember the middle part with the goofy dog stuff.

Soul is what Up was supposed to be: honest, mature, stirring. And I don't mean to imply that a family film shouldn't make any concessions to children. But Soul, down to the title, never compromises its own ambition. Besides Coco, it's probably the most credible character study that Pixar has ever made, with all of Joe's growth earned the hard way. Besides Inside Out, it's probably the wittiest comedy that Pixar has ever made, bursting with unforced energy.

There's a twitter fascination going around about Dez, the pigeon-figured barber character whose scene has people gushing, "Crush my windpipe, king" or whatever. Maybe that's what twitter does now, but no one fantasized about any characters in Up. And I count that as progress.

1. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman)- After hearing that our name-shifting protagonist moonlights as an artist, a no-nonsense David Thewlis offers, "I hope you're not an abstract artist." He prefers "paintings that look like photographs" over non-representational mumbo-jumbo. And as Jessie Buckley squirms to try to think of a polite way to talk back, you can tell that Charlie Kaufman has been in the crosshairs of this same conversation. This morose, scary, inscrutable, expressionist rumination is not what the Netflix description says it is at all, and it's going to bother nice people looking for a fun night in. Thank God.

The story goes that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, when constructing Raiders of the Lost Ark, sought to craft a movie that was "only the good parts" with little of the clunky setup that distracted from action. What we have here is a Charlie Kaufman movie with only the Charlie Kaufman moments, less interested than ever before at holding one's hand. The biting humor is here, sometimes aimed at philistines like the David Thewlis character above, sometimes at the niceties that we insist upon. The lonely horror of everyday life is here, in the form of missed calls from oneself or the interruption of an inner monologue. Of course, communicating the overwhelming crush of time, both unknowable and familiar, is the raison d'etre.

A new pet motif seems to be the way that we don't even own our own knowledge. The Young Woman recites "Bonedog" by Eva H.D., which she claims/thinks she wrote, only to find Jake's book open to that page, next to a Pauline Kael book that contains a Woman Under the Influence review that she seems to have internalized later. When Jake muses about Wordsworth's "Lucy Poems," it starts as a way to pass the time, then it becomes a way to lord his education over her, then it becomes a compliment because the subject resembles her, then it becomes a way to let her know that, in the grand scheme of things, she isn't that special at all. This film jerks the viewer through a similar wintry cycle and leaves him with his own thoughts. It's not a pretty picture, but it doesn't look like anything else.

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choicesenthusiast · 5 years ago

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Queen B, Ch. 14 AKA Verbal Evisceration

What happened this week:

Recruit Chloe to your posse, completing the whole set, because she just wants to be acknowledged for once in her life, which is actually really sad. Her tragic backstory is unfortunately middle-child syndrome. Y’know, you’re all probably tired of the Mean Girls references, but she’s an interesting blend of both Gretchen Wieners and Karen Smith.

A day of planning for the gala with Poppy, during which you do no actual planning. I smell a diamond option coming along. We’ll see.

After Poppy literally looks over your shoulder and notices you sending suspiciously incriminating texts to the professor, she leaves you alone in the office, allowing you time to send especially incriminating sexts to the professor. Because, again, professionalism.

You and Zoey have full reign to absolutely verbally eviscerate Poppy in a roast battle reminiscent of the one you had on your first day, except it’s a little better because the two of you get to flame her together, and come out on top while you're at it.

Ah, I was right. Pay to deck out the venue in prom-esque decor, and have your posse make an appearance all together since you first paid to recruit them then.

The night before the gala, at the talent show rehearsal, discover that Carter can sing (as if he weren’t incredible already), and either heckle Poppy’s awful dancing or cheer on Chloe in her recreation of the Miss Congeniality wine glasses talent scene. Sorry, Chloe, but nobody can compare to Sandra Bullock.

I WAS SO READY TO VERBALLY EVISCERATE POPPY WHEN THIS COCKSUCKING BITCH SHOWS UP GO AWAY I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU. Ahem, if you haven’t picked it up already Kingsley barges into the hall and interrupts our rehearsal set to “talk”, because they’re impatient and cannot take a hint. They obviously know we’re busy planning this gala. So why can’t they just wait a few hours longer? Well, we’ll have to wait another week to find out what’s bugging them so much. Someone better be dying.

Thoughts:

If PB doesn’t give us a full comedy roast set better than the preview of MC and Zoey then what was it all for? Judging by the amount of evidence on Poppy they’ve presented us in the book, her takedown is going to be absolutely brutal. I can’t wait. I’m so ready to drag her ass down.

What’s Kingsley playing at here? If you’re not romancing them, spamming your TA with texts even after MC replied that she was busy, then barging into rehearsal and announcing “we need to talk” is rather creepy. If you are romancing them, doing so just seems suspicious to everyone else. How much thought was put into this plan? I assume none. On that note, what the fuck is this behaviour??? Aren’t they the adult in this “relationship”? One would think that they would behave with more maturity (especially if they stripped down in their office to sext a student, where anyone could’ve knocked on the door any second). There are no words to express the loathing I have for this relationship.

I thought the hate crimes were enough but let’s add threatening to slap Chloe for offering help in a dance routine to the list of reasons I can’t stand Poppy’s ass anymore. And poor Chloe’s still looking for some sort of rekindling. There are no words to express the loathing I have for this relationship either. Oh, pre-Ch. 8 me was so naive to think I could ever get something out of this.

#this week on choices #playchoices #choices stories you play #queen b

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let-me-write-shit · 5 years ago

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Somebody To You: 16

Friendly reminder to please Like and/or Reblog. It helps more than you think! :)

Word Count: 4,322

Click Here For Previous Chapter & Other Completed Stories

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

Zoey never considered herself to be a city girl, but the longer she lived here, the more accustomed she became. Of course, there were perks she missed living in the suburbs. Yards, gardening, a better sense of security. She missed those nights where she could sit on her back porch, listen to the crickets chirping, and watch the lightning bugs dance around the lawn. Hearing the trees rustle in the darkness was a calm she could never quite replicate.

But city life was exciting. There was always something to do or something to see. People were on every corner and energies were always high. It was never boring. Downtown LA was bustling with people, especially for a Sunday afternoon. Andy had taken her on a little shopping spree after brunch. He said he wanted to buy a whole new wardrobe to ‘reinvent himself’. She hadn’t planned on buying anything, but he wasn’t having that. They stopped in a bunch of little boutiques, trying on all sorts of dresses, bathing suits, and shoes. There were so many hidden gems in the way of local small businesses in the area. And the store owners were always kind.

“I can’t wait to bring my sister out here one day,” Zoey held up a cute graphic tee, “Katie would love these shops.”

“Do you two talk a lot?” Andy asked.

Zoey re-folded the shirt and placed it back, “I try to, but not nearly enough. I miss her.”

“Didn’t you say you weren’t really close growing up?”

“Yeah. We didn’t start getting close until right before I moved. It made leaving harder. She’s getting ready to start college soon. I think my parents are starting to freak out a bit that she’s moving on campus. Empty nest syndrome.”

“Little bird’s gotta learn to fly,” Andy spoke, earning a nod from Zoey.

The two decided to grab some crepes to go and ate them on a bench, watching strangers pass them by on the street, catching up on all their work stories, and talking about how awkward her date was the other day. Nancy’s friend was nice, alright, but clearly hadn’t been in a relationship before and had no clue how to communicate with women. He had potential if he found someone with patience, but she just wasn’t prepared to baby someone at the moment. She recalled Harry getting a kick out of it when she told him about it, but Zoey just felt bad. She made sure to let him down gently.

Eventually, they got on the topic of Zoey’s birthday coming up in three days. She had already told Andy that she wanted to go to the beach, but he made it a point to remind her that it was a birthday, therefore they needed to celebrate all day. They discussed having dinner at a nice restaurant with all of her friends, bar hopping afterward, and ending the night with a karaoke club. She started to get excited, especially since she just bought the perfect outfit to wear.

“What about Brett? Is he invited, or are he and Rory not speaking?”

“I didn’t tell you?!” Zoey exclaimed, turning towards him and swallowing her mouthful of crepe, “he asked Rory out last night! They’re official.”

“No fucking way!” Andy exclaimed, covering his mouth, “Bitch! Imagine the babies they’d make!”

“Cute little foreign babies!” Zoey cooed, laughing.

“Does Harry know about them yet?”

Zoey pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, “I haven’t told him yet, so probably not.”

Andy went wide-eyed, an interested smirk stretching across his face, “Wonder how he’ll react when he finds out.”

Zoey shrugged her shoulders, looking down at her food. She didn’t know. She was getting these weird mixed signals from Harry. He’s been back in England for a week now and even with the dramatic time difference, they’ve talked more this week than they did when he was on tour. She’d attribute that to him finally having some time off from work, but she knew that he’d been in the studio and had a few meetings, so even that wasn’t necessarily true.

But the increase in communication wasn’t what she was confused about. It’s the conversations themselves. At first, she thought Harry was handling the ‘Rory situation’ pretty well. He had confided in her that he wasn’t sure he wanted to be with her to begin with, which she had suspected. He had told Zoey about how his friends keep making jokes about how they think he likes her. At first, Zoey laughed it off. Her and Harry? That would never happen. She just simply wasn’t his type. And he made that very clear.

But then there would be moments. Subtle. But enough to catch her attention. A tone in his voice, an expression on his face, an extra-long silence where there didn’t need to be. Maybe she was reading into it after what he told her. Maybe she was reading into it because she secretly hoped it was true, which killed her. He was her best friend. She finally met someone whom she could be herself around without feeling uncomfortable. Someone she could confide in about anything and everything, and that meant even more to her now that Jess was gone.

She didn’t want to jeopardize that by saying or acting on some stupid puppy love crush she had on Harry fucking Styles of all people. He doesn’t like her like that. And even if he did, how could they even attempt to make that work? Especially after he and Rory had a thing. What, so now they’re just swapping sexual partners? Even if Zoey was fine with her friend dating and sleeping with a fling of hers, it doesn’t mean that Aurora was. She couldn’t risk ruffling her roommate’s feathers. She didn’t want to lose her friendship or make things awkward at home, either. So, for now, she’d just keep her mouth shut while this little phase passes.

The two finished up eating when Andy checked his phone and suggested they start heading back to her place to get ready for work tonight. “Get ready? We’ve still got three hours before we have to leave!”

“Yes, but you need a shower and I want to show Nancy and Rory these clothes I got!” he shot back.

“Alright, alright! Fine!”

The ride back to the condo was like any other ride between the two friends: filled with painfully tone-deaf singing and dramatic dance. Nothing was out of the ordinary as the two rode the elevator to the twenty-second floor and discussed the predictions for the turnout at the bar tonight. Nothing seemed different as she punched her code into the front door and stepped inside. Except, instead of the typical scene she’d see, she walked in to see Nancy and Rory standing in the middle of the living room with huge smiles on their beautiful faces, surrounded by several large rolling luggage. One of which she noticed was her own.

“What are you doing?” Zoey asked them, turning to see Andy’s eager grin. Her eyes furrowed, confused, “What’s going on?”

“We’re taking you away for your birthday,” Nancy’s smile grew, stepping out from behind the luggage and walking towards her. Aurora followed closely behind.

“What? Where are we going?” Zoey asked, her heartbeat rising.

“That’s a surprise. ” Nancy grinned.

Zoey laughed skeptically, eyebrows raising, “This is a joke, right?” Everyone shook their head no and she asked, “What about work? What about Binx? Where are we going?”

Andy spoke up, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her into a hug, “I had our manager put in vacation time for us for almost a month now. We’ve had this planned for a while now.”

“And don’t worry about Binx. Brett’s going to watch him while we’re gone,” Aurora grinned, “We think we packed everything you’ll need, but if Nancy and I forgot anything, we’ll just get it while we’re there. Now come on! We need to go before we’re late!”

Overwhelmed, Zoey shoved the new clothes she just bought into her suitcase, double-checking her pockets to make sure she had her wallet and ID on her. Quickly, she grabbed a hoodie and they were off, making sure to grab Andy’s suitcase from his car before getting into Rory’s and heading to the airport.

The whole way she was trying to make guesses as to where they were going, but none of them faltered. They had managed to get to the airport, check their luggage, and go through security with her being none the wiser. She wasn’t allowed to look at her ticket. Nancy was always beside her, holding onto Zoey’s documents and explaining to TSA agents and any airport employee they encountered that she was going on a surprise birthday trip, asking them to please not ruin it for her until they got to the gate. Most of them got a kick out of it. Finally, when they reached the gate, there, above the seating area, with Nancy recording her reaction, is where she found out where they were going.

Zoey gasped, her hands shooting up to her mouth and her legs giving out, she crumbled to the ground, tears forming in her eyes, “Rome?!” Her friends stood around her, laughing, smiling, and tearing up at her reaction. “You’re taking me to Rome?!”

Andy put a hand out for her, “You better get your ass up off this dirty-ass floor,” he choked, pulling her to her feet.

“Are you serious?” She repeated, holding onto him for support.

“You said you’ve always wanted to come here,” Aurora reminded her, wrapping her arms around her friend, “You deserve it.”

Nancy came over and they all had a group hug, onlookers staring at them with smiles on their faces when they realized what was going on. “You guys, this is crazy!” Zoey laughed, wiping the tears that ran down her cheeks.

“Well, it’s a long flight. A little over seventeen hours,” Nancy warned her, “and because of the time difference, we technically won’t be arriving until tomorrow night around 5 PM. But we made sure to bring a bunch of snacks and games to play while we’re on board.”

“And bitch, we’re in first class!” Andy squealed, jumping up and down.

Zoey’s eyes widened, her mouth dropping again as she processed everything that was going on. “How the hell did you guys manage all of this? I have a passport? How did you get me a passport? Does Harry know about this? He had something to do with this, didn’t he?”

“We had help to get your passport,” Aurora admitted, “We had to snoop and call your parents to get all of your documents.”

“My parents know I’m going to Italy?!”

“And I’m a little offended you think Harry must have had some involvement in this! What, we couldn’t do this for you on our own?” Nancy feigned disappointment.

“No, I’m sorry, I just-”

“I’m kidding. He totally planned this,” Nancy laughed, “It was his idea to do this. We all just helped make it happen.”

“You guys!” Zoey smiled, pulling them into another long hug before they found a few empty seats in the corner of the seating area before they got ready to board. Zoey took the opportunity to Facetime Harry. It must have been a little before midnight, but she could bet that he’d still answer. And just like she suspected, the screen enlarged just in time to see the dark surrounding of Harry’s room illuminate when he switched on the lamp on his side table.

He rubbed his eyes and squinted. When he saw the expression on Zoey’s face, his mouth stretched in a smile, “Surprised?” he asked.

Zoey shook her head, there was no hiding her grin, “How could you keep this a secret?”

“Because of that look, right there,” Harry pointed at her face, through the screen.

Nancy leaned over Zoey’s shoulder, “I’ll send you her reaction. It was amazing!”

“You’re going to be there, right?” Zoey asked, her eyes hopeful.

Harry nodded, “Yeah, I head out in the morning. It’s a short flight for me. I’ll be there before you land.”

“Okay. I’ll let you get some sleep then. I’ll see you tomorrow!” she grinned.

“Safe travels,” Harry smiled.

Just before he could end the call she managed to say, “Oh, and Harry? Thank you.”

Harry nodded, winking before the call went blank. It was hard for him to sleep after that. He was too excited. She still had no clue what was to come.

Nancy wasn’t kidding. The flight was long. Excruciatingly long. Even in first class, it was hard to get comfortable. Her legs felt like jello and she had no feeling in her butt anymore. Her neck was so stiff that it was hard to move it. She had read an entire novel by the end of the first half of the flight, and she and Andy had gotten bored of playing cards. There was nothing else to do but sleep.

And sleep, she did. Until the discomfort of depressurization in the cabin made her ears painfully pop and woke her from her sleep. She looked out of the window to see a large city in the distance, slowly coming closer and closer. A chime throughout the airplane sounded, waking Andy beside her, and the pilot’s voice had announced their descent into Rome, followed up by a few other languages.

Quickly, Zoey’s exhaustion was replaced with exhilaration, excitedly staring out the window as the plane collided with cement and sped down the runway towards their gate. They couldn’t get off fast enough. She thanked the pilots and the flight attendants on the way out, skipping down the hallways with her friends, grabbing their bags, and heading out to the car rental lot to pick up an SUV for the weekend, which Aurora gladly drove, as she was used to European roads, having traveled to Italy a few times before.

The air in Italy was different. Cleaner. Less pollutant. It had a faint smell of lemon and roasted coffee that felt so dreamy. Rory plugged their destination into the GPS and Zoey pressed her nose against the window, staring out at the scene. The architecture was grand. Old. Historical. Beautiful. Her heart skipped a beat whenever she recognized something from the endless hours of research she had done on the history of Rome. She was simply mesmerized.

They rode for twenty minutes as the sun began to cast a golden glow across the sky, still brightly illuminating the streets below, the streets lined with tall cypress trees and stone walls that separated property lines from large estates to which you could barely see from the road when they finally pulled up to a grand, cast-iron gate. Zoey watched as Rory looked at her phone, punched a code into the call box, and the gate slowly started to open.

As soon as they pulled into the white gravel driveway, they noticed the vineyard that stretched the length of the grounds on either side of the driveway that separated them leading up to a huge water feature that sat in the center of the wraparound drive situated in front of a massive seven thousand square foot elegant Italian villa.

“Holy shit,” they all muttered, clamoring out of the car and gawking up at the building.

“This whole thing is ours for a week?” Andy exclaimed, dumbstruck.

“That’s what Harry said,” Aurora said, opening the trunk door.

One by one they began to pull their luggage out when a whistle caught their attention. They turned to see Harry standing barefoot on the stone landing wearing wool cream-colored pants, a white tank top with an unbuttoned white short sleeve shirt over top, and yellow sunglasses. His arms were outstretched and he smiled, shouting, “Finally! Took you long enough.”

The four of them ran up, dropping their bags to give him a huge hug, shouting out various greetings and shouts of thanks.

He turned to Zoey, grabbing the handle of her suitcase with one hand and wrapping an arm around her shoulder with the other. Her heart fluttered at his touch. He looked and smelled different in Italy. It suited him. Harry’s arm pressed down on the end of his ponytail as he pulled Zoey closer to him and he said aloud, “Now, we are going to make this the best week of your life. But to do that, we have one other surprise for you. So if you’d be so kind as to follow me inside…”

“...What is going on?” Zoey asked, suspiciously following the singer with her friends behind her, Nancy, again, filming her reaction.

Harry grinned as he took her hand, leading her into the home. Everyone took in the scene, gaze scanning the beautiful Tuscan terracotta flooring up the Venetian plastered walls lined with beautiful Italian paintings and artwork and the elegant staircase with wrought iron railing. He noticed she took a deep breath and turned to him.

“Is that food? Are you cooking us dinner?” Zoey asked.

Harry had them stop just before entering what she could see was the kitchen and said, “Well, it’s funny you should mention that. Yes, I’m cooking. But I had a little help. You can come out!” he shouted.

And he watched Zoey’s face change from confusion to absolute shock as she screamed, letting go of his hand and running to her little sister. “Oh my God, Katie!” she screamed, pulling her little sister into a tight embrace, both of them beginning to cry as they looked each other up and down and wiped each other’s tears, muttering incoherent words of sentiment to each other.

Harry knew how much Katie meant to her, but to see it firsthand almost felt like a privilege. And to think, he almost didn’t think to invite her. She only just turned eighteen. It took a lot of convincing for her parents to let her go. He had offered to pay for the entire trip, but her parents didn’t care about that. He had to Facetime and call them several times, promise to keep them updated at every point of the trip, make sure Katie called them every night before bed, send a general itinerary of the week's events, and give emergency numbers to all in attendance, which everyone was glad to give. He picked Katie up from the airport himself, arriving only two hours before the rest of them.

“You knew, too?” Zoey breathed, finally pulling away from her little sister, her words shaking along with her hands as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

Harry felt a lump in his throat begin to rise as soon as he noticed Zoey’s chin quivering from the emotions and Katie nodded, explaining everything that Harry had done.

Zoey shook her head, overwhelmed, and took a deep breath, motioning towards her friends. “Have you met these guys yet, then?” When Katie shook her head again, she introduced the three, “This is Andy. He’s my amazing friend and coworker. And these two are my roommates. Nancy and Rory.”

The three of them pulled the shy Katie away from her older sister, giving her hugs and showering her with compliments while Zoey turned her attention to Harry. He noticed her red, puffy eyes and grinned, pulling her into a tight hug that she could sink into. It’s only been a little over a week, but it could have been longer for all he knew. Facetime was hardly enough.

When Zoey pulled away, she walked back over to her little sister, running a hand through her sister’s long brown hair and smiling. Seeing them side-by-side he could see the similarities in their features if he looked hard enough.

“Alright,” Harry announced, “We have about fifteen minutes until dinner is done, so how about a quick tour of the villa while we wait?” Everyone cheered words of approval, grabbing their bags and following Harry as he walked through the house, “There are seven bedrooms here and a few convertible offices, so everyone gets their own bedroom with more to spare. There are three bedrooms on this floor and four more upstairs. Katie already claimed her bedroom down here. Nice choice, might I add,” he winked at Katie who held onto Zoey’s arm as they peaked into Katie’s room which overlooked the vineyard. “I left the master bedroom upstairs for Zoey since it’s her birthday week. I also picked a room upstairs, so everything else is up for grabs.”

As they roamed throughout the house, everyone began picking rooms. Andy had picked a bedroom adjacent to Katie that had a walkout to the oversized Mediterranean terrace that housed an outdoor seating area with a firepit and a grapevine covered trellis with hanging outdoor chandeliers overtop of a long outdoor dining table, while Aurora and Nancy picked the last two bedrooms upstairs with Harry and Zoey, leaving their bags in their rooms before visiting the two large living rooms, the library, formal dining room, chef’s kitchen, and more. Finally, dinner was ready. Everyone helped take plates, utensils, and glassware out to the table on the back terrace while Harry carefully brought out the large serving plate filled with Chicken Tetrazzini and two bottles of wine tucked in his arms.

They each filled up their plates as Harry passed the wine around. “You’re legal to drink here,” Zoey grinned, filling up her sister’s glass.

“Oooh! You’re going to have so much fun while you’re here!” Andy cooed, smirking at Katie. “Don’t tell your mama on us!”

“Definitely not!” Katie assured her, taking her first sip of wine, and smiling.

Dinner was wonderful, and the view made it even better as the sun began to set. The villa sat up on a hill, overlooking miles and miles of beautiful land with an abundance of pine, fig, cherry, pear, and apple trees. The pool sat yards away with lounge chairs surrounding it. She couldn’t have dreamt up a more beautiful place if she tried.

After dinner, Harry made up a fire in the firepit and everyone sat around with their glass of wine, laughing and enjoying each other's company. One by one they began dropping like flies, heading inside to take a shower or get some rest until there were three left. Harry sat with his back against the view of the yard while Zoey sat opposite him, Katies’ head resting on her lap, sleeping, as her big sister braided and unbraided her hair.

Harry grinned adoringly, “You’re not what I expected.”

Zoey snorted, looking up from her sister, “What does that mean?”

He shifted in his seat, cocking his head to the side, her face illuminating in the reflection of the dancing flames, “Well, you’re a bartender. And for some reason, whenever I think of a bartender, I think of a badass, tattoo-covered, wild child, tough girl. And I don’t mean to stereotype, but you’re nothing like that. I mean, yeah you can handle yourself. But you’ve got no tattoos, you’re so sweet, and you’re almost like the mom of the group, always making sure everyone else is happy first.”

“I think most bartenders are like me, we just have to put on a tough act in front of customers so they take us seriously,” Zoey said before grinning, “And I do have tattoos.”

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed, “You do? Where?”

She winked, taking a sip of her wine, “Don’t worry about it.”

His mouth dropped, inadvertently scanning her, wondering where her tattoos could be hidden and what on earth they could even be. He hadn’t pegged her for the type to even have a tattoo, let alone in a suggestive spot.

He watched as Zoey raised her wine glass to her lips once more, taking the smallest sip. The way that the light illuminated her features gave her a romantic and sultry glow, hitting the highs of her cheekbone and accentuating the shadows and curves of her collarbone. He decided he’d had enough wine and would end it there for the night.

“We should get to bed before jetlag gets us,” Harry suggested.

Zoey nodded in agreement, lightly shaking her sister awake. Harry put out the fire and reminded Katie to send her parents a quick text as they sent her off to bed and the two began to climb the steps, his arm over her shoulders, turning off lights along the way, passing Nancy and Aurora’s room before reaching Harry’s next. They stopped for a moment as he backed up to his door, slowly dragging his arm off of her shoulders. Apart of him wanted to invite her in. He didn’t want the night to end, he wanted to stay up for a few more hours and talk. He still had so much he wanted to tell her. But the more he looked at her, the more he heard his friends taunting him in the back of his mind. ‘You love her’ ‘You’re blind’ ‘By the end of this trip you’ll realize it.’ They weren’t right. He couldn’t let them be right.

“Night,” he grinned, opening his door.

Zoey’s expression looked uncertain for a moment, hesitating which caused Harry to freeze, almost in a panic, before she blinked and smiled, looking up at him, “Night. See you in the morning.”

He watched as she disappeared into her room, closing the door behind her, achingly wondering what she was thinking about.

Zoey leaned her back against the closed door, closing her eyes tightly and sighing before standing up straight and flipping her suitcase open, pulling out the contents and placing her clothes in the proper drawer or hanging them in the closet before putting her toiletries away in her en suite. Anything to distract herself from the absolute embarrassment she almost just made of herself. How much wine did she drink to think that it might be okay to kiss him?

KEEP READING

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Taglist for Somebody To You:

@thurhomish , @stilljosiegrossie , @odetostep , @apples2019 , @stylesmioamore

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