“And do you still love romantic comedies?”
“I make jewelry. I drink caramel machiattos. I wear Hello Kitty to bed. Of course I love romantic comedies,” she said, and the second she spoke those last few words, I knew I had to seize the moment. To somehow turn these afternoons at the theater into the possibility of a real date. I’d deal with the barriers. I’d find a way to tell her brother. I knew I was treading in dangerous waters, but I was too far gone to swim back to shore.
I cleared my throat. “I think there’s a romantic-comedy we haven’t seen at the theater. Do you want to go again tomorrow?”
“I have to take care of some things for school in the morning, so I won’t be working. Can you do the store solo and I can meet you at the theater?”
“I would love that.”
“Me too.”
Chapter Four
I couldn’t sleep that night. I lay awake staring at the ceiling. The door was shut to the guest room I was staying in, and I was literally practicing the words out loud.
“Hey, Nate. So, buddy, listen. I kind of have a thing for your sister.”
Then I’d try to imagine his response, but I came up short. Sure, there was part of me that feared the worst, the No Way in Hell answer. I had to be upfront though and tell him. Besides, he was my closest friend. I wasn’t some jerk asking to date her. I was the guy he’d roomed with. But I couldn’t be in the same house with him, call him a friend, and willingly head into the cinema with his sister tomorrow knowing I wasn’t taking her as Nate’s sister. I was taking her as the woman I wanted to date.
I breathed in deeply, picturing the air filling my lungs, giving me the confidence I needed to do the right thing
When Nate burst into the store the next day for the afternoon shift, I was ready. He was grinning from ear to ear, holding up his hands in victory.
“What is it?”
“I got the final interview!” He said, then punched the air.
“That’s awesome, dude. I’m psyched for you,” I said and clapped him on the back. “When is it?”
“In two weeks. At the advertising technology firm I’ve been talking to.”
“You’re gonna nail it. I can feel it,” I said, tapping my chest.
“I better. I do not want to be one of those jobless MBAers.”
“You’re not. You’ll be a working stiff like me any day now.”
He walked behind the counter to get ready to take over for the afternoon. I gulped. This was the moment. I needed to tell him now. “So I’m heading out to – ”
“–How was business today? Everything go okay?” he asked, cutting me off from saying the movies. Then he held up a hand and shook his head. “Wait. Don’t tell me. If it was bad I don’t want to know. Actually, just tell me everything was great because that’s all I want to hear for the next two weeks. No bad news. I only want good happy news that’ll keep me in a good happy mood til I nail this job. Okay?”
“Um, sure,” I said tentatively.
“That means whenever I come in and ask how business was, all I want to hear is the word great.”
“Okay,” I said with a laugh. “It was great.”
“Nothing to bring me down. Got that?”
The weight in my stomach both lifted and grew heavier. I wanted to tell him. I should have told him. But he needed not to know. I didn’t want to be the reason he didn’t get the job he wanted.
Besides, Kat and I were grown-ups. We could handle going to the movies.
* * *
Kat
Kiss Her Now.
I wanted to shout it at the screen. Instead, I said it under my breath as the scene played out in the film. After a missed email, and a missed text, and a missed phone call, the hero and heroine were still on unsure footing. I was damn near ready to walk up to screen, grab the back of his head, and the back of her head and press their lips together.
Except for the little bitty fact that they were only two-dimensional actors on a screen. But I needed them to kiss so badly. I practically wanted to chant it. I could feel their need for a kiss deep in my bones, and all throughout my body.
At last, the hero pushed the button on the elevator, rode up to her floor, marched down the hall, took that deep breath, and knocked hard on the door. When she opened it, her eyes lit up. At last, he’d come to tell her how he felt.
“I’m so crazy for you, and if I don’t kiss you now I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life,” he said.
“I don’t believe in regret. I believe in kisses,” she said and the moment their lips made contact, champagne tingles raced through my body, from my cheeks, down to my chest and all the way to my toes, making me feel bubbly and buzzy. My stomach flipped, and my skin felt hot. I stole a glance at Bryan, wishing for what they were having on the screen. Wishing for it with him. He was already looking at me and his eyes were searching mine, as if he was checking to see if I was having the same reaction.
“Hi,” he whispered in that low and husky voice he used sometimes just with me.
“Hi.”
We weren’t alone, but the theater wasn’t crowded. The nearest patrons were many rows ahead, and that made me feel as if we were all alone in the back. But honestly, even if we’d been surrounded by crowds, I wouldn’t have waited. I couldn’t wait. I wanted so badly to be kissed by him.
He reached his hand toward me first, and I watched the whole time as if it were happening in slow motion as his fingers slid through mine. My shoulders rose and fell as he made contact, and there it was. The moment that we became more than friends. He kept his eyes on me, and at some point I nodded, as if I were telling him I wanted more, that he had all the permission he’d ever need to do what the hero had done to the heroine on screen. Kiss her deeply and passionately.
With his other hand, he laced his fingers through my dark hair, and I gasped lightly at the feel of his touch. So soft, so warm. So inviting. Then he dropped his mouth to me, his lips brushing gently across mine, and I wanted nothing more than for this kiss to last for the longest time. It was my movie kiss, it was the heroine falling into the hero’s arms, it was the world around me ceasing to exist, and all that mattered was this softness, this sweetness, the feel of his lips and his tongue dancing with mine.
I knew then, without a shadow of a doubt, that not only had I never been kissed like this, but that I never would be kissed like this by anyone else. This was the benchmark, the gold standard. Nothing would ever compare.