Page 40 of Not You Again
“Gotcha,” Carly said. “Hitting Record starting now.”
He didn’t mind how close they were. She didn’t seem to mind, either. At one point, her body swayed and touched his.
“Wow, there they are,” she said with all the reverence you’d reserve for something beautiful.
Adam usually thought they were beautiful, too, but he also realizedCarlywas beautiful: dark hair falling in a curtain across the side of the camera, her excited half grin and the faint dimple in her cheek. Her skin was cool against his forearm and he itched to drape his jacket over her shoulders. But there was no time. “Ready, set, go,” Adam said as the sun vanished. He glanced at the time on his watch to keep track.
“They’re gone,” Carly said.
“Keep recording to see the shadow bands reemerge,” he said. “They’ll pop again just after the eclipse ends.”
And they waited, with Adam’s forearm touching Carly’s. When Adam stopped the time on the watch, a cool breeze kicked up.
“There are the shadow bands again, those sneaky minxes,” she joked.
But his attention was elsewhere.
And Carly must’ve clocked this, as she asked, “What’s happened?”
“Three minutes and forty-seven seconds,” he said. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
She smiled. “Fifteen seconds shorter.”
The shortening made no sense. What could’ve possibly made the time reduce even more? He already knew that Carly would chalk this up to their kiss. She might even suggest they up the ante and make out.
He gave her a sideways glance, briefly imagining his hands in her long, dark hair, her hips pressing into him, and her soft lips parting for him. He hardened and had to adjust his stance to hide the evidence of his thoughts.
“Okay, shadow bands have officially vanished.” Carly ended the recording, put the cap back on the camera lens and stored it in the bag. “I’m not going to gloat. I would like to, but I won’t. Because, as you said, maybe you’re on to something with your theory, too.”
“Thanks,” Adam said. He clenched his jaw. It’s not that he didn’t want Carly to be right. He just still sensed her theory wasn’t wholly correct. “Let’s review the footage while we can, then we can time the sunset, and the shooting star and the end of the loop, and tomorrow we can regroup on a strategy.”
“Okay.” Carly had a warm look that told him she really wasn’t gloating. “We can still pursue multiple angles, in my opinion. Especially considering mine takes very little time.”
Her angle was touching him, and he wasn’t sure “very little time” was how he wanted to approach that one, but kept the thought to himself.
“As long as our goal is ending this loop, it doesn’t matter how we get there, right?” She asked.
And he supposed she was right. They should pursue all the angles. He swallowed down his concern that maybe he was just going along with her theory to feel her lips against his again, and said, “Yeah.”
So they watched the footage. Adam took a tape measure to the actual area where the bands appeared, then comparedthem to the screen and was able to parse out the size of the bands compared to the ground. When the bands reversed just after the eclipse ended, they were smaller in size, more frenetic in movement and lasted half as long. He wrote the facts down in his notebook, hoping to commit them to memory.
They stayed at his parents’ house to watch and time the sunset, then the shooting star. When the day was nearly done, there were no other significant changes Adam could see. The only change, really, was that he didn’t want this loop to end, because he was, despite himself, enjoying being with Carly.
Chapter 15
Carly
Day 247
Carly smelled worn books and dust immediately upon entering the sliding doors of the Julian Public Library, the kind of comforting scent that brought her back to childhood trips with her dad to their local Buena Vista Library in Burbank. The little blip of nostalgia distracted her just enough that she tripped over the olive green carpet. Adam, to his credit, caught her elbow before she fully fell. And she managed to utter a muffled “thank you” as she righted herself.
“What was that?” Adam’s red hair had fallen over his eyes and he watched Carly through the fiery curtain. “I couldn’t hear you. Was that athank you?”
“It’s about to turn into afuck youif you keep that up.” She gave him her widest, most insincere smile and was delighted when he laughed.
The loop reset had been fairly normal. But Adam had insisted they take a trip to the library to do research.
Which was fine. She could focus on Adam’s shadow bands, and that would buy her time to figure out an organic, non-embarrassing way to ask Adam if he was all right with yetanother awkward kiss. Awkward because, apparently, she had no idea how to kiss someone, as evidenced by the way she’d planted her face onto his and nearly bitten his lower lip off in the last loop.
