I saw a faint blush on his cheeks. “I like her so much, Mr. Bailey,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure she likes you too,” I said.
“It’s not as easy for me as it is for you, though,” Zach said. “I can’t just invite her over for a sleepover.”
“I’m sure if you wanted Sophia to come over for a sleepover, your dad would be okay with her sleeping on the couch,” I said.
Zach gave me a sideways glance. “Because we all know that if you’re on the couch, you won’t sneak off into someone’s bedroom in the night.”
My cheeks flared hot. “What?”
“I’m just saying,” Zach said. “I’m not an idiot. You weren’t on the couch when I got up to pee in the middle of the night.”
I clenched my jaw, adrenaline surging through me. “I was just getting something from—”
“You don’t have to make up some story,” Zach said. “I don’t care if you were… sleeping in the same bed as my dad, or whatever. I mean, it’s weird, but I don’t care.
I was having so many simultaneous emotions that I thought I might explode.
“Anyway. I guarantee you that my dad wouldn’t let Sophia stay over, even on the couch. He’s way too paranoid about me getting a girl pregnant too young like he did. Even though I obviously wouldn’t do that. I’m too scared to even hold her hand.”
“I think… you should talk to your dad about all this,” I said, trying to keep myself from hyperventilating. Zach was being nonchalant about everything, but I knew for a fact that if Mitch heard what his son was saying, he’d freak out, too.
And Mitch couldn’t hear any of this secondhand from me.
“He’s just gonna be weird about it,” Zach said, starting to walk back toward the shelter. “I’m going to go find Sophia.”
Zach certainly was a smart kid. Mitch was going to be weird about it if Zach told him he knew I wasn’t sleeping on the couch.
I sure as hell felt weird about it already.
18
Mitch
Needed: one person to fill the empty side of my bed. One man, actually. An Evan Bailey-shaped man.
Because I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sleep without him by my side anymore.
The Amberfield Fourplex really was exactly the same as when I’d last been inside. It was like stepping into a time-capsule back to my childhood as Zach and I walked into the small movie theater for an early afternoon showing of the new Brad Pitt sci-fi flick.
“Are you sure this is a movie theater?” Zach asked me quietly. “It’s tiny.”
“Amberfield’s finest,” I said, leading him toward the tiny concession stand near the back of the lobby. Nobody was there, and we had to ring a tiny metal bell to get someone to come out.
“Not like any movie theater I’ve ever seen,” Zach said.
The lobby was a small room with purple walls, and four simple doors to each of the screens. In the far right corner there were a few ancient arcade games, the exact same units that Evan and I used to play all the time as kids. An older couple walked into one of the rooms, but other than that, the place was mostly empty this early in the afternoon.
“You’re used to the huge, 20-screen multiplexes in the city,” I said. “This is our biggest one here.”
“Well, hello and howdy, there, you two!” an old woman said, emerging from the back after hearing the bell. She couldn’t have been taller than five feet, and she hunched over as she walked. She smiled wide, her skin wrinkling up around her eyes.
“Good afternoon,” I said. “Are you… is your name Marigold, by chance?”
“It sure is, darlin’!” she said, peering up at me. “Have we had the pleasure of meeting before?”
“Wow. Wow,” I said. “I used to come here when I was a teenager—so long ago, I’m sure you don’t remember. I’m Mitch Price.”
She stared at me like she was solving a complex puzzle in her head, trying to recall who I was. “Mitch Price…” she said. “Can’t say I know many people in Amberfield with the last name Price….”
“My dad skipped town before I was even born, so I may well be the only Price in Amberfield,” I said.
“Did you come around here with the scrawny Bailey kid? Evan?”
“I did,” I said. “Your memory is amazing, Marigold.”
“I don’t tend to forget much,” she said. “You two were a hoot. Though I seem to recall Evan trying to climb up into the projector room once.”
I snorted. “I forgot about that.”
She raised an eyebrow, but a smirk was still on her face. “I don’t forget it,” she said. “Evan hasn’t been here in a while. Tell him to come see me and watch a movie sometime.”
After introducing Marigold to Zach, we got a packet of Raisinettes, a root beer, and a small popcorn and made our way into the theater. The movie was long and action-packed, and I even glimsped a stunt double who I’d trained once for a couple of weeks. Zach and I both left the theater energized and he seemed a lot happier than he’d been before.