CHAPTER 11 #3
“Simmons,” he said, his Scottish accent somehow louder and more pronounced in this small setting. “What are you doing here?”
“I… I came to watch a movie. What are you doing here?”
He lifted one of the flyers they had been giving out at the ticket window. It had a picture of an old-school airplane on it. “The Bristol Scout biplane is featured in this movie.”
“Oh, right. You’re an aviation nerd. Well, don’t let me bother you,” she said, trying to move away again, but a couple had followed her into the row and were taking off their jackets.
“Wait. Where are you going? Are you meeting someone?”
She stopped and turned around. “No.”
He gave her a speculative expression. “I think you are.” He stared at her. “Who is it? Not Majka?”
There it was again. The need to know her business.
“No, not Majka. I’m meeting a friend,” she said. “A girl friend, actually.”
Why she felt the need to lie, she didn’t know. But she wanted to keep Mr. Wrong Number far away from Theo. Particularly since she had been mentally overlapping the two of them for weeks now.
“Oh. Someone from work?”
“No.” She paused. “Someone I met at a dinner party with my roommate.”
“Oh. Okay,” he said as he stood. “Can you see them?”
She sighed, peering around in the hopes of seeing someone, anyone, who might recognize her as Airport Hen, but no one seemed overly concerned about her, or the man she was speaking to.
Looking back at him, she began to sense that she was being inspected.
Theo’s gaze was intent, and it made her skin tingle.
“No, but I should probably go search for her, so if you’ll excuse me…?”
“Of course. Good night.”
“Good night.”
“Enjoy the film,” he added as she began to move away, but nearly all the seats had filled up during her chat with Theo, leaving only three seats in his row.
She sat the farthest away from him, which left only two seats separating them.
Self-conscious now that she was obviously alone, despite telling Theo that she was meeting someone, she tried to ignore him.
But the longer she sat there, the more obvious it was that he was staring at her.
She could practically feel it, the way the side of her face was heating up.
So she cocked her head. “Yes?” she said.
“Did your friend not save you a seat or something?” he asked, almost mockingly innocent.
The lights above began to dim. Thankfully.
“I’ll find her after the film,” she whispered as the projector flickered on.
For the next ninety minutes, Theo graciously kept his mouth shut, evidently too enthralled with the planes on screen to bother her anymore.
But it was difficult to concentrate on the movie, even though the plot was eerily familiar.
Carole Lombard was the love interest of two different officers.
Scarlett wasn’t exactly in a love triangle herself, but she was technically on a date with Mr. Wrong Number, while simultaneously sitting two seats away from the man she had been fantasizing about.
When it finally ended, somewhat tragically, and the lights came on, Scarlett was in a somber mood. She stood, and they began to file out, but she nearly jumped when she heard Theo speak close to her ear.
“So, where’s your friend?”
Unwilling to share anything about Mr. Wrong Number with Theo due to an unrelenting sense of embarrassment, she came up with a lie.
“Uh, she just texted me.” Scarlett held up her phone. “She had to leave early.”
“I didn’t see anyone get up.”
“She was in the last row,” she said quickly. “And why are you so interested?”
“I’m curious, I suppose.”
“Well, don’t be.”
She hoped to leave him behind as she exited the building, but Theo caught up with her, standing annoyingly close as she scanned the road for her ride.
But she couldn’t see Devon’s car anywhere.
Stopping at the edge of the sidewalk, Scarlett tried her best to ignore Theo, who was apparently unable to take a hint.
“I assume you have a ride home,” he said after a minute or two.
“I do,” she said, staring forward. “Thank you.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow at work?”
She bobbed her head in answer, and he went to leave. But at the last second he came back, and she felt her heart leap into her throat.
“Listen, Simmons, I don’t know if you were stood up or something—”
“I was not stood up—”
“—but you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to tell anyone.”
She spun on him then, a mixture of annoyance and displeasure shooting through her veins. “I don’t care if you tell the entire Bees staff, quite frankly,” she said. “Why are you here? Don’t you have plays or strategies to be studying or something?”
“You know, I am allowed other pursuits beside football. My friend Nick from the airport told me about this. Besides, you already asked that. Aviation nerd, remember?”
“So, that was the big pull here for you? Not the story?”
He shrugged. “The story was a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
She squinted at him. “Yeah. Because it was a drama.”
He made a sardonic face as he pushed up his glasses, and Scarlett had to look away because that little gesture was becoming more and more tantalizing. Lifting her hand, she searched her neck for her number 9 charm and began fiddling with it to distract herself.
“Obviously it was a drama, but the story was a bit bland.”
“Well, I loved it,” she said, if only to be contrary. “Probably one of the better Lombard films I’ve seen. Fantastic, actually.”
“What are you, some sort of film expert?”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “Listen, don’t let me stop you from leaving. My ride’s going to be here any minute, so if you don’t mind…”
Inclining his head, Theo took a step backward. “Right. Good night, Simmons.”
She gave him a sarcastic smile and walked away from him, hoping to heaven Maxie and Devon were close by. Pulling her phone out of the pocket of Maxie’s jean jacket, she read wrote a message to Mr. Wrong Number.
Well, it wasn’t as funny as Some Like It Hot, but overall, it wasn’t that bad. How’d you like it?
It was good.
A moment passed. Then another.
You didn’t like it?
Not really, if I’m being honest. But I was sort of distracted the whole time. Work is on my mind.
Ah, I get that.
Thankfully, the silver hatchback pulled up within seconds, and Maxie rolled down the window. “Over here!” Scarlett hurried to the vehicle and opened the back door. “So, how’d it go?”
Scarlett scrambled into the back seat and answered an onslaught of questions while her last words to Theo replayed on a loop in the back of her mind.
She hadn’t meant to be so short with him, but it had been a defense mechanism.
For whatever reason, she blamed him for ruining her date with Mr. Wrong Number, and while she knew, logically, that neither were aware of each other, she couldn’t help but feel like she was caught in the middle of something she didn’t quite understand.