Airel - Aaron Patterson [15]
“Boy movie? What’s a boy movie?” Michael asked, tossing the keys to his truck to James. Clearly, he intended to ride with me.
“Glad you asked. It’s an action shoot-em-up with pointless gore and violence. Guys like it because it makes them feel like the dominant male they all wish they could be.” I smiled and looked at him and shoved my hands in my back pockets.
Michael didn’t even hesitate. “Or, we could see a girl movie. In case you were wondering, that’s a movie with a sappy love story where two people hate each other, fall in love, then one betrays the other—in most cases the guy is the jerk—then they have fifteen minutes of sad time where they reflect on their relationship. Then they get back together in the end. Girls like it because it makes them feel like there’s a dream man out there for them, and one day they’ll fall in love just to be disappointed to find that in reality there is no perfect guy. But who wants to think about that?” Michael smirked with challenging playfulness.
There was a lengthy silence as we all looked at each other.
“Comedy!” James and Kim said in unison.
I laughed, and for the tenth time today I actually felt good. It was nice to be with friends, old and new.
Chapter VIII
We made it to the theater before anything disastrous could happen. After I parked, Michael opened my door for me, and on the way to the ticket booth, he grabbed my hand and held it, and would not let go. I was glad, but terrified. On one side of this shiny new coin, he was not shy about his affection for me, and didn’t feel like he needed to ask permission for anything. On the other side, what the heck was he doing holding my hand without asking permission?
We bought our tickets and went in to the theater, but not before Kim and I had a conference in the bathroom to compare notes. She insisted on digging for all the dirt on me and Michael from the five minute trip over to the theater and dished me all the dirt that I didn’t really want to know about her and James.
“Guess what? Guess who his favorite band is? Just guess!” She was giddy. It was cute. They were both crazy about the exact same music. We walked out holding hands and giggling. Luckily, that discouraged any more handholding by Michael as we found our seats. But, of course, I let him sit next to me. I couldn’t be rude. Besides, I wanted to sit by him.
Darkness filled the movie theater as the previews started rolling. It was girl, girl, boy, boy, Kim on my left, Michael on my right and James next to Michael. Kim didn’t seem to mind or maybe she just didn’t care. Michael was making jokes about the different movies that were coming out and leaned over, whispering in my ear, “Do you want anything? Popcorn or a drink?”
Just the sound of his voice in my ear made the hair on my arms stand up again. Not to mention the goose bumps. “Sure. Diet Pepsi and popcorn. Thanks, Michael.”
“No problem.” He slipped out and James followed..
“They went for a junk food run,” I whispered to Kim
“Good, I’m starved.” Then she changed gears again, almost giving me whiplash. “So. I see you and Michael are getting friendly…” She had a glint of sarcasm in her voice.
“He’s nice, but he’s a little out of my league, if you know what I mean.” I didn’t dare even think about anything more with Michael other than friendship... even with the handholding. It could have been a fluke. Or maybe I’m being neurotic.
If there’s one thing I’d learned about guys, it was that they can hurt. I was going to be as cautious as possible about all of this. Michael was friendly with everyone, anyway, and I had no reason to believe he was seriously considering me as one of his many, many options.
“Come on, he likes you. Anyone can see that. Don’t worry about anything, just leave it to me.” I gave her that don’t even think about it look and hit her in the arm. “Ow, so mean!”
“Ha! You deserved it. Now don’t try anything or I’ll tell James you’re a stalker.”
“So? I am.” Kim laughed, adjusting her purse. She flipped