Seven Dates

Chapter Fifteen

Fifteen minutes later Riley and I are finding our seats in a dark movie theater.

He ushers me toward the middle seats, carrying a large bucket of ultra-buttered popcorn and a box of sour gummy worms. I'm holding our drinks. He finds two free seats and we quickly settle ourselves into them.

"I've always wanted to bring a girl out to something like this," he whispers as the movie previews flicker across the screen.

The movie we've come to see is "War in the Stars." It's some kind of space film. I'm more into romantic comedies but Riley was the one offering to pay, so I didn't want to complain.

"I've seen it twice in theaters already. I hope that doesn't bother you," he admits.

I shake my head but I don't really know why someone would ever go see a movie in theaters more than once. "It's really good. It's an epic about a group of Berulins exploring the Galaxy and their fight against the evil Outerstar Dictatorship. They're a race of aliens with-"

He rattles on through the previews. Thankfully it seems like he skirts his way around giving away any spoilers, which I can appreciate. He must really love space. Eventually the movie starts.

It's decent. I wouldn't have spent my own money to go see it but I can't say it's bad. At first I'm a little put off by the obviously fake blue aliens with tentacle heads but the story is fairly solid and I eventually find myself enjoying it.

Midway through the movie I glance over and see tears running down Riley's face. More than that, actually. It looks like he's full on ugly crying beside me. I look around. Even the children and women in the theater aren't breaking into any tears.

Riley notices me noticing and I try to look away. He reaches over and entwines his fingers with mine. For some reason, probably the mixture of the crying and the candy, his hands are wet and sticky. I try to hold his hand back as loosely as possible and just focus on the movie.

Despite how nice the movie date was before this moment, I'm starting to feel uncomfortable.