“Ridiculous,” Gabe said. “It should at least be in the top three.”
I shook my head. It felt very, very heavy.
“It should be number one.” I made a wide, swooping gesture with my finger.
I was definitely drunk.
“It should be,” Gabe said, but I could tell he was placating me a bit. Teasing me.
I didn’t mind.
The heavy slope of his eyes indicated that he was getting toasted too, but he seemed to be a quiet, introspective drunk, while I was an exuberant, loudmouthed one.
“You know what the worst part about that list was?” I asked.
He smiled.
“I don’t,” he said. “But I hope you’ll tell me.”
“I will!” I said, finger still extended. “The worst part of that list was that it was full of not-funny movies made by not-funny people. Pulp Fiction is not a comedy! And don’t even get me started on Annie Hall.”
Interest sparked in Gabe’s eyes. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, arms crossed. If I leaned forward, our noses could touch.
“Why?” he asked. “What’s wrong with Annie Hall?”
I knew I should stop talking. Instead, I took another long gulp of my drink and just kept right on going.
“Well, okay, I’ve never seen it—”
“You’ve never seen Annie Hall?” Gabe asked.
“Woody Allen sucks,” I said. “I won’t watch his movies.”
“Wow,” Gabe said. “What did he ever do to you?”
“Woody Allen is a creep,” I said, warming up to my own indignation. “He hates women. Obviously has some fucked-up obsession with girls, given that he routinely casts himself—a grown-ass man—opposite teenagers and, oh yeah, married his girlfriend’s daughter! And even if you ignored all of that—which you shouldn’t—his movies are bad and boring. They’re the same thing over and over, gross wish fulfillment where he gets to monologue about how weird and awkward he is while young blond girls fall in love with him for literally no reason at all. Plus, he hates Jewish women. He uses his movies to promote him and make himself the arbiter of Jewish humor and talent while perpetuating hateful stereotypes about how Jewish women are shrill and controlling. He’s not clever, he’s not interesting, and he’s not talented.”
There I went again. Gabe was just trying to talk about movies and I had to go off on some feminist rant about how much I hated Woody Allen （which I did）。
Before I could apologize, Oliver appeared at the end of our table. His tie was loose, his top button undone, and he’d lost his vest someplace between the premiere and the after-party. He still looked devastatingly handsome.
“What are you two talking about?” he asked.
“Why Woody Allen is a piece of shit,” Gabe said.
I barely resisted putting my face in my hands. Who knew what Oliver thought about the director? Maybe he had worked with him or wanted to work with him in the future. Maybe he knew him. Or admired him. Most people loved him—or at least, they loved his work and ignored all the other stuff.
“Oh,” Oliver said.
There was a long, long pause.
“He is a piece of shit, isn’t he?”
I stared at him. It seemed I’d gone from dangerous dirtbag to trash-talking confidante with dizzying speed. Not that I was complaining.
“Shove over,” he said to Gabe, who did as requested.
After all, this was Oliver’s night.
We shifted to make room, Oliver sliding into the booth until he was directly across from me, Gabe’s knee pushing up against mine. I resisted the urge to wrap my leg around his like a vine.
“What did it for you?” Oliver asked. “His overrated movies or the faux timidity he calls a personality?”
“Both?”
Oliver laughed, slapping a hand down on the table.
When people turned to stare, he leaned forward, putting a finger to his lips as if I had been the one making the noise.
We all leaned forward, closer to the candle, as if we were conducting a secret meeting. If someone had told my teen self that the thing that would endear me to Oliver Matthias, the Darcy of my dreams, would be how much I hated Woody Allen, I would have thought they were insane.
As it was, I still wasn’t sure this whole thing wasn’t a drawn-out fever dream brought on by staring at shirtless pictures of Gabe before going to bed each night.
“We should keep that on the down low, though,” Oliver said, looking around conspiratorially. “You never know when the Woody fans will attack with their battle cry of ‘separate the art from the artist.’？” He looked a bit sour at that. “Of course, people only care about defending terrible people making terrible art.”