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what do you want to see?”
    “Uh—what?” Great, I’m stuttering like an idiot. “Oh. The movie?” Yeah, duhhh…
    “Yeah, what did you want to see?” He had a small smile on his face as he moved closer to me, into the gap between my open door and the car.
    “Hey, Airel!” Kim hollered as she ran toward the car with James in tow. “You aren’t going to believe the deal I got. They had a buy one get the second one half off! I mean, I only needed one, but you have to get the second one if it’s half price...  I mean, come on!” I breathed a deep sigh of relief that she showed up right then. Things were moving pretty quickly.
    “So James, you’re still alive.” Michael shot a smile toward James, who just nodded. Kim told us all about the deals and the food and everything else that she had seen and experienced. James even seemed to be enjoying himself. He wasn’t much of a talker, which was fine with Kim.
    “Okay, what are we seeing? Are we in the mood for scary, funny, or a boy movie?” I looked at Kim. 
    “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,