“Can we get the movie going?” Scott asked, wiping his hands on his pants and leaving behind dark water marks where he touched. “I don’t want to be out too late tonight.”
“Why?” Zack asked, peering at him with snarky amusement. “You afraid of the dark or are you gonna start going to bed early like an old man?”
“Yep,” Scott said with a nod as he slid back onto the couch in front of my widescreen TV, “I am going to bed early tonight. I want to be in bed by nine so I can be back out again before ten.”
“Why would you go to bed just so you can get back up again?” Kat asked with a frown. “That doesn’t make any sense— oh.” The rest of us remained silent as her hand came up to her face, covering it from sight.
“Movie?” Scott asked again, a Cheshire smile twisting his lips into a grin as he turned his head around to look at me, still at the table.
After starting the movie, I settled down and let myself begin to relax, my preparations done. The couches were set up in a right angle in the little pit that was my living room. Scott and Kat sat on one couch, Kat’s head resting on Scott’s shoulder, her blond hair entangled in his brown, fuzzy mohair-looking sweater. I pondered that fashion statement until I realized she was wearing a similar one and that she had picked the ensemble out for both of them.
Reed sat next to me, slouching against the big, overstuffed armrest. He turned his head to give me a casual look. I didn’t blame him for keeping his distance; after all, a brush of skin contact with me for more than a few seconds was painful. I returned his smile and watched him lean his head against the back of the couch, his focus back on the TV screen where Keanu Reeves was running into a flip off a pillar as bullets tore the lobby of the building apart around him, gray stone turning to dust and flashing through the air as he moved in slow motion.
“I could do that,” I said under my breath. The bullets fly around Keanu and his billowing black trench coat as he kicked a black-clad guard so hard the man flew through the air.
“That looks so fake,” Scott said. “How old is this movie, anyway?”
“1999,” Zack said. “I was in middle school at the time, and it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen when my dad rented it for us to watch.”
“You’re kinda like that creepy thirty-year old guy that waits for his teenage girlfriend outside the local high school,” Scott said, shaking his head.
“Excuse me?” I said with a raised eyebrow. “He’s twenty-five and I’m eighteen. Your girlfriend had a centennial.”
“What?” Kat’s ears perked up. “Yeah, but I don’t remember any of it. I’m just as mature as you guys.”
“Setting the bar kinda low there, Princess,” Reed said under his breath.
I saw Scott laugh, his face split into a wide grin. “She may not remember any of it, but I’m telling you she’s got muscle memory from—”
Kat slapped him on the shoulder, her mouth open in faux outrage. “Shush!”
“I rest my case,” Reed said with an upturned eyebrow.
It got quiet again after that and the noise of the onscreen action took over. I leaned my head against Zack’s arm, and felt his heavy sweater against the back of my neck. I lolled my head to look at him as he watched the movie, focused intently on the screen. He was handsome, still as much so as the first time I had seen him. His spiked sandy blond hair and brown eyes were winning combination to me. My eyes followed his smooth jawline, and I found myself wanting to reach out and run my fingers over his face, no glove, but I resisted. I settled against his arm and watched the movie, feeling warm. The smell of the food and the light dab of my boyfriend’s cologne combined into a single, hearty, familiar aroma that put me at ease.