Every Other Weekend(58)
This time it was all him. His warm skin against mine, the gentle squeeze that I somehow felt in my heart. I could swear I even felt his pulse echoing the rapid beat of my own.
“It’s still a rough cut but...you like it?” I asked, in a voice that almost came out timid except I knew my body wasn’t capable of being timid.
Adam’s hand increased its pressure and sent tingling waves rippling through me. “It’s the best thing anyone ever gave me.”
I told myself that he was just being nice, kind in the way he always was without even trying, but his hand and his eyes and his voice all said it was more than that.
“This is what you’ve been filming, but how did you do it? I mean, with the pictures...?”
The film—and I was using the term loosely—had been a compilation of the pictures we’d taken together and all the footage I had shot of us taking the pictures. Plus, some random footage of us. I’d started with the footage and then inserted the still photos at the exact same angle—they’d been a huge pain to match. I’d layered the still images on top of each other, using some of our outtakes to blend the transitions between moving images and the final still photos, letting the background movie continue so that there was always movement.
Like us.
There wasn’t a story exactly from just the photos, but I’d created one from the additional pictures and videos I’d taken that he hadn’t known about. Thanks to a kindly janitor who happily opened a door for me, I’d even gotten some of the security footage from the recently installed cameras outside so I’d have footage of both of us arriving and leaving the apartment complex over and over again, showing unguarded expressions with each other and the opposite with everyone else.
It was a love story. Not romantic exactly, but the kind of love that maybe lasts beyond passion and heartache. It was a story of friendship, with all its possibilities laid out in front of it.
That was what Adam and I had.
I slid my hand free from his to eject the flash drive and close the laptop, because it felt like too much in the moment, touching him.
“I feel like my gift sucks now.”
My head snapped up. “Are you kidding? It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever owned.” No joke. I glanced at the gift that had been too big to wrap. Instead, Adam had stuck a giant gold ribbon on it.
It was an old director’s chair that he’d found at a yard sale and spent weeks restoring. It looked like it had come off the set of a movie from the ’50s. My heart swelled at the sight of it, but looking at Adam wasn’t any better.
“You’re gonna use this for your film program application, right? You have to.”
“I was thinking about it. It still needs work, but...you don’t mind?”
“Mind?” Adam glanced at the flash drive as I handed it to him. “You’re gonna make me famous.”
I laughed. “Merry early Christmas, Adam.”
“Merry early Christmas, Jo.”
IN BETWEEN
Jolene:
Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal.
Adam:
I know that one. Home Alone, right?
Jolene:
They only run it on TV for the entire month of December. Though technically it’s from the sequel.
Adam:
Merry Christmas to you, too.
Jolene:
I just ate a bag of Christmas candy corn. I’m gross.
Adam:
Oh, I finally found out about the movie critic in the building.
Jolene:
Sweet!
Adam:
He does live there but I guess he travels a lot and he’s gonna be gone until February.
Jolene:
I don’t have to send in the application until the end of April, so that’s okay. Thanks for finding out. You asked your dad?
Adam:
I needed something to say to him.
Jolene:
Then I guess you’re welcome for the topic...?
Adam:
How did it go at your dad’s?
Jolene:
The whole bag of Christmas candy corn, Adam. Between my mom calling me every hour because Tom spent the day with family and my dad texting delay after delay to Shelly, it was my most magical Christmas ever.
Adam:
Jo...
Jolene:
You don’t get to do that.
Adam:
Sorry. I wish I’d gotten to see you.
Jolene:
Blame our stupid parents for splitting the day the opposite ways.
Adam:
Yeah.
Jolene:
Tell me your Christmas was better.
Adam:
My mom put presents for Greg under the tree. Each year she adds to the ones that she wrapped the year before, so it’s like digging through land mines.
Jolene:
Adam...
Adam:
What happened to not doing that?
Jolene:
Are you at your dad’s now?
Adam:
Yeah. It was basically the same only with less crying from my dad and no attempted smile from me.
Jolene:
I’m thinking about eating another bag of Christmas candy corn in your honor.
Adam:
Don’t. I hate those things.
Jolene:
Then tell me something good from today.
Adam:
Now. Talking to you.