“So,” I said, “what exactly are you here for, if you’re not here for my roommate?”
“I told you. I’m here for you.”
Oh God. Remember Kevin remember Kevin remember Kevin –
“Well, here I am,” I said in an exasperated voice, crossing my arms and turning to look at him, challenging him. “What do you want?”
He dropped his eyes shyly to the ground, then looked back up at me in an innocent, unbelievably sexy way, his eyes low and beseeching me from under his eyebrows.
“Would you go to a movie with me?” he asked earnestly, no trace of arrogance or game-playing in his voice.
That took the wind out of my sails.
I thought he was going to launch into another series of sexual innuendoes, and I was all ready to get furious and kick his ass out of there.
But instead, he was asking me out.
And really nicely, at that.
“I… I have a boyfriend,” I said, my voice a little shaky.
“I thought he was an ex-boyfriend.”
Oh yeah.
“He… we’re getting back together.”
“Are you back together yet?”
“N-no, but… we will be.”
“That a definite thing?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
“Okay… so you’ve got a ‘boyfriend,’” he said, putting ‘air quotes’ around the word with his fingers. He shrugged and smiled. “The invitation’s still open. It’s just a movie.”
Yeah, right.
I hedged for a second.
Tell him ‘no,’ tell him ‘no,’ that’s the only safe thing to do, tell him ‘NO’ –
“…what movie?” I asked tentatively.
“You know who David Cronenberg is?”
Do I know who David Cronenberg is.
Do I have two horror-movie-obsessed brothers?
Yeah, I know who David Cronenberg is.
“I’m not going to see The Fly with you,” I said. “Or Videodrome. Or Crash. Or whatever other fucked-up movies he did.”
He laughed. “Did you see A History Of Violence?”
My resistance faltered a little. “No, but I heard it was really good.”
“It was awesome. I think it was nominated for an Oscar or something. And the one he did after that is playing at the student center – Eastern Promises.”
Ohhhhhh… I had heard about that one.
“Is that the one where Viggo Mortensen gets naked in the shower?” I blurted.
Derek burst out laughing. “Seriously? All I had to do to sell you on the movie was say, ‘Viggo Mortensen gets naked in the shower?’”
I started giggling – and was immediately horrified to hear it. I clapped a hand to my mouth and only removed it long enough to say, “No, it’s not like that – ”
“You probably already looked up that scene on the internet, didn’t you?” he asked indignantly.
“NO – ”
“You’ve probably got, like, Viggo Mortensen ass porn all over your computer, don’t you?”
“NOOOO!” I howled and laughed at the same time.
“So, you wanna go with me and watch Viggo Mortensen get naked in the shower?”
“Oh, you want to go see Viggo Mortensen naked, too?” I taunted him. “Maybe you should rethink that ‘100% into women’ thing.”
“No, I want you to go to a fuckin’ movie with me, but apparently that’s only happening if Viggo Mortensen gets naked in the shower,” he grinned.
I laughed so hard I thought I was going to cry.
When I finally came down, I choked out, “…okay… when’s the next showtime?”
“Thirty minutes from now.”
“Okay… let me get dressed.”
I didn’t realize until later that, after he made me laugh, I hadn’t once considered saying ‘no.’
18
I threw him out of the room and hurriedly switched into a pair of jeans, a nice blouse, and a pair of suede boots, and then walked with him down to the student center.
It was a gorgeous spring day – warm but not hot, and blissfully free of humidity. The dogwoods were in bloom, and everything else was green and bursting with life. People were out biking, jogging, lounging on the grass, basically doing anything to soak up the great weather.
The entire way to the student center I walked beside him, talking and laughing, but I couldn’t stop from watching the way he moved. Even though he was a rocker wannabe, he moved like an athlete – long, powerful strides, confident, relaxed.
I also saw his ass in motion for the first time.
Daaaaaaaaamn.
Let’s just say his jeans were packed in all the right ways, and were tight in exactly the right places.
Added to that, I caught his scent for the first time. Well, the first pleasant scent. Not the dank beer and cigarette smell when he and Shanna came back from the 40 Watt the night before. He’d obviously showered, and he smelled clean. Soap and shampoo, with a hint of some kind of masculine deodorant, slightly spicy and musky.