Chapter Four ~ Chloe
1058 Words
Chapter Four ~ Chloe
Over the years I’d gotten used to either doing things by myself, with Chris, or with Zoey. Since both Zoey and Chris were over the moon in love with Gabe, I’d been doing a lot more stuff by myself. Not because they didn’t invite me along, but because I was not the fourth wheel in their happy little family.
Not to sound bitter … at least, not much. I was happy for all of them, truly, but I realized that this was now my reality.
So, since I’d said no when they invited me along with them, I was now heading into the local Cineplex by myself to watch the new Star Wars movie.
Zoey was the one who’d actually gotten me into Star Wars. Even before she’d become a successful writer, Zoey had always been into comics, movies, and anything that took her mind away on an adventure. At first, I’d been reluctant to watch, but she’d literally sat on me until I’d agreed to at least give the first movie a shot.
We’d been kids, and since I was the oldest, and our parents were never that involved, hence Zoey’s need to disappear into fictional worlds, I’d usually been more interested in hanging out with my friends than my weird little sister. But that day I’d agreed, and it had become a thing we did together. Any time a movie based on a comic book, graphic novel, or basically anything with a fandom, came out, we’d go and see it together. First, the two of us, then the three of us.
As I took the popcorn from the movie theater employee, I thought that maybe it had been childish of me to refuse to go with them to see the movie with Gabe, but it was our tradition, so I’d said no, then sulked about it.
The movie had been out for a while now, so the theater wasn’t that packed.
I selected a seat near the back, in the center, and put my Icee in the cup holder as I leaned back into the seat and prepared to watch the previews.
I saw someone sitting down the aisle in my peripheral and turned my head slightly, then tried to sink farther into my seat when I noticed it was Reardon.
God, how pathetic is he going to think I am, going to a movie by myself?
“Chloe?” I heard him whisper/shout from down the aisle, and knew I’d been spotted and there was no getting out of it, so I sat up in my seat and turned with what I hope looked like a genuine smile.
“Oh, hey, Reardon,” I replied lamely, then my heart pounded nervously when he stood up and came down the aisle toward me.
“Hey,” he said, looking around me at the empty seat next to me, then around the theater. “You here alone?”
I swallowed, then gave a slight nod.
“Me too,” Reardon admitted, and I swear it looked like he swallowed nervously too, before asking, “You mind if I join you?”
“Oh, ah, sure,” I replied, wondering where his girlfriend was and why he always seemed to make me so nervous.
Then I thought back to how sweet he’d been at the party the other night, and decided, maybe he was becoming more of an ally than a foe.
“I didn’t peg you for a Star Wars fan,” he said quietly as he unfurled his long legs as much as he could in the small space of the movie theater.
Reardon was seriously huge.
Zoey had jokingly called him a Viking, but looking at him trying to fit that long body into this regular-sized space had me thinking she was right on the money.
Crazy tall, with blond, perfectly styled hair and bright-blue eyes, Reardon Lewis was not a hard man to look at. In fact, sometimes I would catch sight of him and my body would react in a completely unexpected way.
Kind of like it is now…
I was aware of the heat coming off his body, his shoulders so large that they were barely a centimeter away from mine, as he slouched into the seat, probably trying to reach some level of comfort. His hands were palm down on his thighs, and were so very large that just looking at them seemed to cause something inside of me to start twitching.
Then there was his smell.
Good Lord on earth, it was heavenly.
I’d caught a whiff every now and then, but at this proximity the bright, clean smell of him seemed to wrap around me in a warm hug.
“Chloe?” he asked, and I snapped out of my scent-induced stupor, and realized he’d asked me something.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked, hoping he didn’t suspect that I was having a physical reaction to his presence. I clenched my thighs together and started counting to twenty, hoping to make the tingle go away.
“I asked if this is the first time you’re seeing it.”
“Seeing what?” I asked dumbly.
“Star Wars,” he replied with a chuckle, then narrowed his eyes at me. “Are you okay?”
Giving a nervous giggle, I tried to play it off.
“Oh, yeah, sorry, my mind just wandered for a minute. No, I haven’t seen it yet. You?”
“Yeah, a couple times.”
The way he replied, his tone a little embarrassed as he turned his face back toward the screen, had me asking, “How many?”
Reardon cleared his throat, then rolled his eyes toward me and said, “Twelve.”
“Twelve? You’ve already seen it twelve times? And, you’re here for number thirteen?”
“Yeah.”
“Aren’t you a lawyer?” I asked jokingly. “When do you find the time?”
“It’s kind of what I do to unwind,” Reardon replied sheepishly. “Rather than go home and sit in front of the TV, I like to come to the movies.”
“That makes sense,” I replied, then couldn’t help but tease him a little. “Do they give you a punch card or something? Do you get a Wookie for thirteen punches?”
“I wish,” he replied, and he sounded so wistful that I had to laugh.
The lights dimmed, and our conversation stopped for the next two hours and sixteen minutes.
During that time, I cheered, laughed, and cried, and when the credits began to roll, I turned to Reardon with a smile and thought how much I had enjoyed sharing this experience with him, and how I didn’t want it to end.
So, without even thinking, I asked, “You want to go grab a bite and talk about the movie?”
- Writer
