Marie Piper
Blake had flaked, so Mike frantically texted Katy while he juggled three boxes of movie theater candy as he waited in line at Walgreens. If Katy couldn’t cover the shift Blake had previously promised to cover, Mike would have approximately fifteen minutes to do twenty minutes worth of commuting in order to not be late for work. If Katy could cover the shift, Mike had fifteen minutes to get through the check-out line, get across the busy street and into the Harris Theater, buy a ticket, and get to his preferred seat—five rows back from the screen, slightly to the left—before the 1:15 p.m. showing of Silent Night, Deadly Night.
They didn’t make movie theaters like the Harris anymore. Small and intimate, with rickety seats and an enviable sound and projection system, Mike was of the opinion that movies—real movies, not the explosions and hip-hop soundtracks that were considered movies these days—never looked better than they did when they were shown at the Harris.
The Harris showed camp horror films of the seventies and eighties on Tuesday afternoons in summer. In all the years he’d lived in Chicago, Mike hadn’t yet missed one. At twenty-six years old, and with a creative writing degree under his belt, he now split his time between watching and blogging about horror films and his bartending gig in the financial district.
The check-out line wasn’t moving. He leaned out of line to see what the hold-up was.
If Mike missed the start of the movie, where the theater brought out their organist to play a few minutes of music over a silent short from the dawn of cinema, he’d be pissed.
After finishing a pleading text to Katy and hitting SEND on his phone, he peeked at the progress in the check-out line. The Bro in the front of the line buying Red Bull seemed to have an issue with his debit card. Yoga Girl in front of Mike obstructed his view with her high ponytail, strawberry blonde and thick as a horse’s tail, and the pink yoga mat attached to her back with a hemp strap. Mike couldn’t see her items, but he imagined she’d be buying a bottle of Kombucha and a pack of raw almonds or some other crunchy organic pretentious snack. Whatever, at least she didn’t carry a basket full of items.
He could still make the movie, as long The Bro didn’t take forever and Katy responded.
“Come on,” he muttered to himself.
Yoga Girl heard him and turned her head. She had her cash ready in hand to purchase what appeared to be only a cold one-liter of Diet Mountain Dew.
Yoga and Mountain Dew.
Mike was pretty sure those things canceled each other out. He chuckled, and as she turned around to face him, he realized she had heard him.
Her eyes went to the soda in her hand, and she shrugged. “So I like my chi balanced and my beverages terrible. Is that so weird? And, if you’ll notice, it’s Diet Mountain Dew. It might suck, but at least it’s zero calories.”
The fact she didn’t think he was a jerk was good, because as she’d turned to him and met his eyes, he realized she was really cute. Like, really cute. Like, the kind of cute that he immediately considered out of his league. Her hair was a fascinating mix of shades, blonde but a light red at the same time, and he’d never seen green eyes like hers before.
“I’m pretty sure Mountain Dew in general is actually bottled nuclear waste,” he answered.
She raised an eyebrow when her gaze landed on the boxes of Skittles, Good & Plenty, and Milk Duds in his hands. “I could be super snarky and ask if those are organic Milk Duds, but I’ll refrain.”
Mike’s phone vibrated, and he looked down.
It was a text from Katy. “YES. YOU OWE ME SO HARD.”
“Yes!” he exclaimed, a little too loudly and triumphantly. The girl’s eyes widened. “Sorry. I changed shifts with this guy and he backed out, but I got it covered. So I’m going to the movies.”
The Bro finally stepped away from the register, and Yoga Girl set her toxic-colored caffeine tonic on the counter. “I don’t need a bag, thanks.” She handed the lady at the register her cash before she turned back to Mike. “Are you seeing Silent Night, Deadly Night?” She motioned in the direction of the theater across the street, “It’s my favorite Linnea Quigley movie.”
Mike’s heart stopped.
This cute girl knew Silent Night, Deadly Night.
And, for real, she’d just spoiled it.
“Not cool,” he said.
“What?”
“Spoilers. I didn’t know Linnea was in it.”
“Are you not going to go see the movie now?” She took her change back from the cashier and gave the older woman a sweet smile. “Thank you.”
“No,” Mike shook his head adamantly. He set his candy on the counter and pulled out his debit card. “But I—I try not to read up on films before I see them.”
“Sorry,” she replied as her smile faded. Still, she continued to talk to him rather than leave. “But, you know, the movie was made about the time we were born, so I would imagine the statue of limitations ran out on spoilers some time ago.”
“It’s more the principle.”
“I’m not sure Silent Night, Deadly Night has any principles. Besides, Part Two is a better movie anyway.”
“You’ve seen Silent Night, Deadly Night: Part Two?” The film’s notorious sequel—panned by critics everywhere, and for good reason—was one of the first movies Mike had ever loved. It opened his eyes to the wonder of amazingly bad movies. That he’d never seen the original was one of his deepest, darkest secrets, and one he intended to rectify in roughly ten minutes.
She nodded. “Of course.”
He punched in his PIN and the cashier handed him his bag, which he promptly tucked into his backpack. Once he had his receipt, they walked through the automatic doors side-by-side. Anyone who saw them would have thought they’d known each other a long time, not that they’d just met moments before over a bottle of Mountain Dew. That was the crazy part. Cute girls didn’t usually glance his way, and he could actually converse with this one.
It wasn’t like Mike wasn’t at least somewhat attractive, or so he’d been told. His dark hair may have been a little long— he really needed a haircut—but girls who came into his bar flirted with him sometimes and said he had a great smile. He’d had a few girlfriends before, and the relationships had been fun until they’d grown bored with each other and drifted apart. He was still Facebook friends with all of his exes, though that didn’t mean much.
They reached the outside of the theater doors.
“They show these flicks every Tuesday,” he explained. “Next week is Hell Night. Restored print. Apparently there’s a deleted scene where Linda Blair-“
She plugged her ears broadly and spoke too loudly. “La La La! I’ve never seen it. No spoilers.”
Mike had to laugh. He’d been accused of being a movie nerd enough times to recognize that he sometimes took the art of film too seriously. “I don’t think our relationship can survive any more spoilers.”
He felt awkward as soon as the mention of a relationship came out of his mouth, though asking her out had crossed his mind. She smiled, took her hands from her ears, and folded her arms over her tank top. Maybe she hadn’t heard him. Maybe he was thinking too much.
“I’m Mike, by the way.”
“Aleisha. Hi.”
“Hi. Nice to meet you,” he offered his hand and she accepted it. Her hands were warm and soft, and he got a whiff of coconut that made his heart jump. She was cute, smelled delicious, and she knew old horror flicks.
Aleisha was, quite possibly, the girl of his dreams.
Mike presumed he was dreaming.
“You too,” she replied, as she stepped up to the ticket window and whipped her quilted wallet out of the messenger bag on her shoulder. No one was in the ticket booth yet, no surprise.
“I assumed you were on your way to yoga.”
“No. I just came from there. Now I’m seeing a Christmas horror movie in the middle of July. Like I said, it’s my favorite of Linnea Quigley’s films. No one screams as well as she does. Like in Night of the Demons.”
“Night of the Demons is the stupidest movie ever made.”
Aleisha held up a hand to stop him. “We both know there are way stupider movies. Tourist Trap, for example.”
“David Schmoeller is a genius,” Mike burst with his opinions. “It was early in his career, and for the budget he had it’s almost a masterpiece.”
“It’s about killer mannequins.” Aleisha’s face showed her disbelief. “Night of the Demons isn’t perfect, but at least the plot sort of makes sense. Sort of. And the soundtrack is amazing.”
Mike stared at her.
She looked back at him and shrugged her bare shoulders. “What?”
“I can’t believe I’m arguing camp horror from the eighties with a woman who does yoga.”
“Ah,” she nodded to herself. “You’re one of those movie guys.”
“Those movie guys?”
She let out a long sigh before she explained. “You’re a movie snob. You took one look at my yoga mat and assumed I would be an airhead. Let me guess, now you’re going to try and mansplain the genre to me —because only dudes can know horror.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Sure.”
“No,” he argued.
“People can have more than one interest,” she laid it down for him. “Most people in the world, in fact, do. I like yoga and horror movies. I’ve liked them since I was ten and had sleepovers at my friend Karen’s house where we’d scare ourselves silly with her teenage brother’s VHS collection. My best friend —a woman, by the way—does ballet and also happens to be a legit grillmaster. My upstairs neighbor works at a sex store and writes children’s books. Don’t judge, dude. All it does is shut doors you might want to open.” A long-haired hipster appeared at the ticket window. “One for Silent Night, please.”
They were silent a minute, while Mike took in her words. Yeah, he’d been a jerk and had been—rightfully—put in his place.
“Make that two tickets,” he said to the ticket taker and handed over his card. “I might be a movie snob, but I can also be a gentleman.”
Aleisha nodded appreciatively. “I’m glad to hear it.”
Apart from the lone guy sitting front and center, they had the whole theater to themselves. Mike got his favorite seat, and Aleisha settled in next to him. As they sat down, the organist appeared and the short black and white film began. Usually, the shorts were one of the things Mike loved most about being at the Harris, but he couldn’t stop casting looks at the woman next to him who was smiling broadly.
Aleisha apparently liked movies.
They cheered loudly for the organ player when he’d concluded. When the film started, Mike leaned over and whispered, “Would you like some of my organic, free-range Skittles?”
“No, thank you. “Aleisha slipped the soda out of her bag and took a sip. “You’re right. This stuff is so vile.”
Silent Night, Deadly Night, the story of a deranged young man who kills people while dressed as Santa Claus, lived up to every expectation Mike had formed. There were terrible special effects, overwrought performances, and the whole thing was every bit as dated as he’d hoped.
It was a nearly perfect movie, made even better by the delightful woman in the seat next to him. She kicked off her flip-flops and sat cross-legged in the seat. Mike saw that her toes were painted red. He liked that.
He liked her. A lot.
At the moment Linnea Quigley died (impaled on deer antlers hung on a wall), Aleisha leaned over.
“Sorry,” she whispered in his ear.
The warm breath on Mike’s neck tingled. When he turned to her to reply something clever, he found his face only an inch from hers. Swiftly, she brushed her lips over his. Mike went in for more, but she just giggled. “You’ll miss the movie.”
“I’ll torrent it.”
“Sacrilege,” she replied. Their lips met again, and Mike’s head spun. “Please mansplain to me how David Schmoeller is a genius one more time. I think it’s sexy.”
“He is,” Mike said between laughs and kisses. “He should get an Oscar every single year for his contributions to the genre. Tell me again how no one screams like Linnea Quigley,” he whispered before he nibbled at her earlobe.
Aleisha laughed out loud and put her hands on his shoulders, angling better toward him. Her lips were full and warm, and she kissed him with a sweet strength he didn’t expect, and just the faintest lingering taste of Mountain Dew. They turned to each other as best they could with the wooden arm of the seat between them and made out like high schoolers under the dark cover of the movie. Every bit of Mike was charged with energy, and he felt that if they’d been in a movie, the camera would have panned away to blowing curtains or fireworks or something to emphasize the explosive connection they shared.
They were still kissing when the lights came up.
When they emerged back into the bright afternoon sun, Mike knew he was smiling too broadly.
“Nice meeting you,” Aleisha said, and she turned to walk away.
“That’s it?” he asked in surprise. He gestured back to the theater. “After that? We should go get coffee, or a drink, or stay up until 4 a.m. watching Blu-Rays or something.”
Aleisha smiled at him and moved so close he noticed a small freckle under her eyelid. “Tell you what. I’ll be here on Tuesday for the next film.”
“Is that a spoiler?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
She shook her head, and a piece of her hair fell out of her ponytail. “Nope. It’s just how the story starts.”
After she dropped a light kiss on his cheek, she turned and walked away, looking back over her shoulder with a beautiful smile that made Mike feel like the coolest guy on earth.
Marie Piper writes steamy western historical romance, so getting her geek on in Covalent Bonds has been a delight. Her trilogy, Fires of Cricket Bend, is being published by Limitless Publishing, and her short stories have appeared in collections from LoveSlave, House of Erotica, Torquere Press, NineStar Press, and Coming Together. Maidens & Monsters, Marie’s 5-novella old west mystery girl squad serial, is out now. For more information, visit mariepiper.com or @mariepiperbooks