Chapter Eight
Harper
“Congrats!”
Harper and Banks stood in front of the ticket counter, a droll cashier behind the counter pausing from filing her nails to peer at them sarcastically.
“For what?” Harper asked.
“I was just about to shut down for the night, now I don’t have to. Yay, me!”
“It’s only 8:00,” Banks insisted. “Not even.”
The cashier held up a roll of tickets. “Yeah, but I guess word got around that Sigma Pheta Nu was throwing a kegger tonight for all the freshies, so...”
Banks and Harper glanced at each other. The cashier snorted. “Guess you two didn’t hear?”
Banks shrugged. “I mean, we were at Freshman Orientation, nobody said anything...”
“I guess they were spreading fliers around during the ice cream social, what’d you two do? Skip it?”
Harper blushed. “I guess?”
She continued holding the roll of tickets up, as if she was a fisherwoman dangling her bait. “You guys going? It’s not far...”
Harper hemmed, but Banks inched slightly forward, predatory and pretty in his lean, muscular way.
“We’d still like to see the movie, if it’s okay with you?
” His tone made it clear he certainly hoped it was, but also that it didn’t matter either way.
For the first time in his life, Harper felt almost .
.. protected. And proud? Proud to know someone as cocky and entitled and alpha as Banks to get what he wanted.
To get what, with any luck, they both wanted.
“Your loss,” she sighed, as if she’d been looking forward to raging that night herself. “Two tickets to Vampire Virgins from Mars 5, coming up.”
Banks took them, tossing a few crumpled bills in the tip jar just outside the semicircular window cut in the old-fashioned theater booth. She made a chuffing sound and went back to filing her nails.
“We still good?” Banks asked, reaching for the door.
“I am, but...” Harper held the door open for them both, admiring the short, still damp curls atop his companion’s head. “Are you? I mean, keg party? Frat house? Lots of hot babes getting drunk and horny?”
Banks shrugged casually and simply drifted past, as if crossing the threshold into the lobby might blot out the rowdy night of debauchery just down the street and around the corner on Fraternity Row. “And miss watching a cult 70s classic with my new bestie? Yeah, right.”
Harper followed him to the concession stand, where a single cashier stood, as listless and board as the passive aggressive ticket taker out front. “Finally!” The kid gave a little cheer, pushing thick glasses up on his greasy little nose. “This popcorn isn’t gonna eat itself, fellas!”
Harper chuckled nervously, Banks giving him a cautious glance as they loaded up on sodas and popcorn and other assorted goodies. “You sure this is all free?”
“Candy wasn’t supposed to be,” offered the energetic cashier behind the smeared glass counter. “But since everyone else is out getting loaded, my manager said go for it, so...”
Harper reached into his pocket for his own fist full of crumpled ones, shoving them in what looked to be a hastily assembled tip jar fashioned out of a plastic jar that, judging from the torn label just under the scribbled “Tips Appreciated” sign, at one time held 18.6 ounces of jalapeno slices.
“Thanks, guys, enjoy the movie!”
Banks and Harper drifted away, sneakered feet on the swirly, colorfully patterned movie theater carpet beneath them.
They said little, previews from coming attractions blaring from speakers overhead as they navigated the long, narrow lobby of the outdated cinema to one of the three theaters in the back.
Harper wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not, but Banks was standing close to him, so close he could smell the body wash he must have used that night, subtle and sweet compared to Banks’s usual outer layer of rich, musky cologne.
He’d worn a simple but clingy t-shirt, a kind of faded guacamole color with thick blue and white stripes just across his taut chest. Navy blue shorts completed his yacht rock, summer in the Hamptons look, complete with khaki sneakers that gave his compact frame an extra inch or two in height.
Everything about the outfit screamed first date, except that this definitely, absolutely, wasn’t a date. Right? “Weird, huh?” Banks was looking at Harper, movie theater door open in his free hand, nodding at the empty theater beyond.
“Which part?”
Banks nodded as if admitting everything about the last twelve hours had been utterly, absolutely, certifiably bonkers. “All of it, obvi, but I was referring to the movie theater.”
“It’s like if the apocalypse happened and no one was around to stop the projectors from still running.”
“Or the popcorn machine from still popping.” Banks held up his big yellow tub as Harper drifted past, admiring the dozen or more rows drifting to just beneath the projection booth at the back. “Or the Red Vines from vining...”
They chuckled nervously, the door drifting shut behind them and the room suddenly quiet after the nonstop announcer voices and booming explosions coming from the trailers blaring out in the lobby.
Banks stood a few steps up, waving his popcorn and licorice toward the empty rows of seats. “Up front? Middle? Back row?”
Harper joined him on the same step, basking in that sweet and savory scent upon his smooth, pale skin. “You pick.”
“You don’t want me to pick, dude.”
“Sure I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
Banks smirked, trudging up the steps until they were at the very back. This is why.”
“Whaddya mean?” Harper beamed, sliding all the way down to the middle of the back row.
“This is exactly where I sit back home.” It wasn’t, not even a little, but he would have sat on his head to see Banks smile as he bounded down the aisle, only pausing to stand a seat away from where Harper had plunked himself down, wriggling until he got comfortable.
“What now?”
Banks blushed vaguely, his chiseled features aglow in the dim lighting from the old-fashioned lamps that lined the theater walls on either side of them. “Nothing, it’s just...”
Harper glanced at the seat between them, then rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to attack you, Banks, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not, Jesus, it’s just...”
“Just what? You’ve never been to a movie with your bros before? Some macho dumb robots exploding bullshit?”
“Sure, but in a big group. Never two guys just sitting alone.”
“Two is a group. Just sit where you want, Banks. It’s not a date, remember?”
All the same, Harper was sounding huffy and they both seemed to sense it. “You’re making this weird, Banks.”
Banks finally fessed up. “I know, I’m sorry. I do that.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, now you see. I’m not the old smoothie you think I am, Harp.”
All the same, he sank into the seat next to Harper.
Right. Next to. Harper. They were old seats, thin and outdated, not like the big, roomy, living room couch size seats of most modern theaters.
Even the ones at their little Sagebrush Cinemas back home were gargantuan compared to these glorified foldup chairs, the kind Harper’s mom always dragged out for the kiddie table on Thanksgiving.
Their shoes touched, squirming on the sticky cement floor.
Their knees touched, wriggling to get comfortable on the thin cushions beneath their butts.
Their elbows touched, jockeying for space on the barely there wooden armrests beneath them.
Hell, if they turned to face each other too quickly, their lips would probably touch.
In short, Harper had never been this close, for this long, to another man in all his life. In the dark. Alone. In the back row. How the hell was he supposed to endure a raging hard-on for the next two hours straight?
“Comfy?” Banks grunted, clearly not himself.
“Kind of. You?”
Banks teased. “I mean, you should be, hogging the whole armrest that way.”
“Me? Look at you, with that big ass forearm of yours.” As if to prove it, Harper nudged his seatmate’s arm off and onto his lap.
Banks was still giggling when he huffed, “Yeah, well, you swimmers and your lanky little bodies.”
“Oh, sorry, we might have gotten more swole if you guys didn’t hog the school gym 24/7...”
They were flirting, suddenly. Chuckling, snorting, squirming, nervous, definitely date-like behavior.
Even first date-like behavior. Harper sensed it, but dared not believe it.
Then Banks leaned gently toward him, crinkling the wrapper of his juicy Red Vines.
“I’ll share mine,” he said, eyes full of mirth and lips moist from more than just a mere sweet tooth. “If you’ll share yours.”