Chapter Thirty
ARCHER
“This is craziness. I thought we were pushing our luck at Fort Greene Park, but the movies?!”
Darcy takes a step back and looks at me beneath the thick scarf and new yellow beanie I bought her. I can only see her cheeks, nose, and eyes as she peers up at me.
I thumb over my shoulder toward the theater entrance. “Your favorite movie is showing as a rerun, and I knew you’d want to see it. This is the only night they had tickets left.”
Her eyes flare wide, and I can’t help but laugh as I pull my cap lower.
It’s true; I am a fucking idiot for doing this. Crazy comes naturally around this girl.
“Do you even like this kind of film?” she asks with a raised brow as she takes a tentative step forward.
Up until last night, when she told me about her obsession with history surrounding the Enigma code—more specifically the codebreakers in England who had helped to break it— I hadn’t heard of the actors, never mind the movie. That was nothing I couldn’t quickly fix with an internet search.
“Truthfully …” I wince and drop my head when a few people walk past us. “I’m more of a sci-fi guy.”
“I like that genre too,” she says, peering around me to see how busy it is inside. “If we’re going to do this, then we need to go now; it’s quiet in there.”
I reach out and take her hand in mine, and she gasps, pulling it away.
“Archer! If we pretend like tonight isn’t a date, then we can at least pass this off as two friends heading to watch a film.” Her eyes go even wider. “I mean, this is a date, right?”
My lips are on hers before I can even stop myself. “It’s a date, Darcy. They’ve all been dates to me.”
“We’re going to get caught,” she sings against my mouth.
“Not if we’re careful,” I reply. “Plus, they have Bugles.”
I feel her moan into my mouth.
“I really want Bugles. I think Pip does too.”
Being anything other than careful, I bring my palm to her stomach. There are so many layers between us, but it doesn’t prevent the fizz of electricity I feel whenever I touch her.
“Come on. Let’s get inside so I can geek out with my girl and then take her back to my bed straight afterward.”
Five minutes later, we’re sitting right at the back of the theater with all the snacks I could carry. As predicted, the place is packed, and Darcy is still freaking out about being seen.
“I think my beanie would make a better disguise,” she suggests, pulling it off her head and offering it out to me.
Setting the Bugles, popcorn, and candy on the floor, I smooth a palm over her braid, pieces of static hair sticking up at all angles. “You look like I did when you first stopped by my apartment that day. Hair everywhere.”
I take her beanie, jacket, and scarf and drop them onto the empty seat beside us. We’re on a row of five in the very top corner, and luckily, no one booked the seats right next to us. I can’t say I’m surprised since we can barely see the screen from way back here.
“I’m sorry the seats are shit, Doll. It was all they had left.”
She reaches down and picks up the packet of Bugles, pulling it open and offering it to me. “Meh.” She dismisses the issue entirely. “I pretty much know this movie scene by scene and line by line. It’s just nice that someone wants to actually watch it with me.”
I choose not to ask if Liam ever did because I already know the answer.
“When I was ten, I had an obsession with trains. If I wasn’t railfanning, then I was playing hockey.
” I think back to the catalog of photos I put together over a two-year period.
All of which my mom keeps in her place now.
Darcy is the first person I’ve talked to about my former passion, something that I’d long forgotten about until now.
Nostalgia shoots through me as hazy childhood memories reemerge.
“Railfanning, as in trainspotting?” Darcy asks, already on her third Bugle.
“Yeah. Some, my dad took me to spot; others, I researched and followed online. Then I turned into a preteen and found girls.” I smirk at her, and she deadpans.
I lean forward and snatch the piece she’s holding between her fingers with my mouth, and she balks at me in surprise.
“I could teach you some lessons in Darcy Thompson, if you’d like?”
I continue to crunch on it, a smirk still playing on my lips as the lights go down and the movie starts to play.
“Go on,” I whisper. “It’s probably nothing I don’t already know about you anyway.”
She side-eyes me as an image of Bletchley Park—the place where most of the codebreaking took place in England—comes into view.
“Never steal my favorite foods, especially not while I’m pregnant.”
I reach into the bag and take another out before she can scrunch it shut.
“Gotta be quicker than that, Doll.” I hold it between my lips and wait for her to reach up and take it from my mouth.
Her eyes rove the theater as she braces one hand on the seat and reaches up to snatch it. I take full advantage, pulling her into my lap.
“Archer …” she whispers just before she takes the Bugle from my mouth and begins crunching down.
The woman sitting directly in front of us shifts in her seat, but doesn’t look behind her as she continues to watch the movie.
I push back Darcy’s braid and brush my lips along the shell of her ear. “I’m going to need you to calm down. Or you’re going to get us busted.”
Her cheeks flush pink, and her skin pebbles along her bare arms. She’s only wearing a black T-shirt and purple skirt with tights and boots, and all I can think about is how easy it would be to slide?—
“Do you have any intention of watching this film with me?” Darcy asks, cutting off my daydream.
With my hand on her knee, I slowly trail it up and under her short, pleated skirt, dipping my fingers beneath the hem. “It’s like you can suggest other things we could be doing?”
“Shhh!” the woman in front scolds, still not looking our way.
I roll my lips together and try not to laugh. Darcy buries her head into the crook of my neck.
“You know what we can do in silence?” I whisper so quietly that I can barely hear my own voice as she loops both arms around my neck, the shine of her eyes reflecting off the screen.
“What?”
When I run my tongue along her lower lip, she parts for me. Just like my memories of railfanning, this kiss takes me back to when I was a young boy and started to kiss girls for the first time.
Butterflies dance in my stomach, and a small whimper rises up my throat when I massage my tongue against Darcy’s. But unlike when I was a teenager, nothing about this moment feels naive.
I’m in love with this girl. The feeling is unmistakable, even if I’ve never said the words to anyone before or felt the way I do about Darcy.
The realization washes over me in a flood of relief, mixed with a silent prayer that she will catch up to me.
This is beyond wanting her as my girlfriend or being obsessed enough to stalk her around town or call her shitty ex.
It’s beyond wanting to raise a baby with her because I know she’ll be the best mom in the world.
She is what I want for the rest of my life—silly dates at the theater where we don’t actually watch the movie but make out instead. Walks around the park so she can clear her head of stress and tell me all of her eccentric British traditions.
This is why I couldn’t get enough of her when she visited from the UK. Why—from the moment I set eyes on her two years ago—the only place I could picture being was right by her side.
I break the kiss and study her swollen red lips as I pull away, finding her eyes when they lock on to mine.
“What’s the matter?” she asks in the softest voice.
I swallow hard, my mouth as dry as the popcorn by my feet. “I need you to promise me that you won’t freak out in the middle of this packed theater.”
Her fingertips tickle the back of my neck. “I promise I won’t.”
“Good, because I can’t hold it in anymore.” The woman in front of us stirs again, and I bring my mouth back to hers. “I’m in love with you, Darcy. I’m going to need you to be my girlfriend now.”
When a smile tips up her lips, I know that despite being in a packed theater as I whispered the words, this, right here, was exactly the right time to go all in.
“Okay.”
My arms tighten around her waist as I check that this isn’t a dream.
“Oh Jesus …” I blow out a slow breath. “For real?”
She chuckles softly and brings her mouth down over mine. “For real. I want to try with you.”
Bringing her palm to my lips, I set a kiss in the center before resting it over her stomach. “You hear that, Pipsqueak? Let’s fucking go.”