Page 75 of Severed Heart
Forty-five minutes later, Tyler and I glance around the parking lot as hordes of people exit their cars to enter the Asheville shopping mall. I turn to him where he sits in my driver’s seat.
“This is terrible surprise, Soldier. You still don’t know your opponent well. I am not enthusiastic to shop. Take me home.”
He laughs as he pulls out his wallet before lifting two papers from it and thrusting them toward me. “Still want to go home?”
I push his wrist away, and his expression pinches in remorse now that he’s aware of my issue with reading and writing.
“Shit, sorry”—he lifts his voice—“these right here areticketsto Revenge of the Sith,” he boasts, “Star Wars—”
“EPISODE THREE! TYLER!” I clap excitedly as he cracks his door open with a dimple-filled smile.
“Still want to go home?”
I shake my head.
“Then come on, little Yoda,” he urges, getting out and rounding the car to meet me at my door before lifting his elbow. I stare down at it as he extends his offered arm further toward me. “It could get hairy in there,” he warns.
“How could a movie be hairy?” I wrinkle my nose.
“No, the theater, hairy means busy.”
“That is just a stupid expression,” I say. “Why not just say busy? I suspect you use the worst possible metaphors just to confuse and tease me.”
“I absolutely fucking do,” he admits with a chuckle as I take his offered arm.
“Not as nice of a boy as you make yourself to be,” I harrumph.
“Oh, I can be very naughty,” he teases, “and it will be busy in there because it’s opening weekend. I don’t want to lose track of you, General Half-Pint, so don’t let go.”
“Okay.” Beaming, I tighten my hand around his bicep, unable to stop smiling even after the attendant takes our tickets and tears them, handing me the stubs.
Just after, Tyler gently ushers me to the concession counter as an anxious, sweat-covered teenager steps up, eyeing the growing line behind us with apprehension before posing his question to me.
“What will you have?”
“I don’t care,” I mutter, glancing around the crowded theater complex.
“What shemeant to sayis,” Tyler speaks up on my behalf, amused by my brash as he scans the brightly lit menu hovering behind the attendant. “We’ll take a large popcorn with extra butter, layered, and two large Cokes,please,”he adds before turning to me, eyes dancing with mirth as he gently shakes his head. “You are something else.”
“What else could I be?” I shrug.
“Exactly,” he laughs as I roll my eyes at his constant poking, which I am thankful for over any pity. Minutes later, after gathering our pile of snacks from the counter, Tyler guides me down the hall toward our designated theater. I whip my head back and forth to take it all in while tightly gripping the huge, ridiculously expensive Cokes in my hands, being careful not to spill them—which he doesn’t miss—biting his smile away.
“What? They aresoexpensive.”
“Always are,” he retorts, guiding me into the dimly lit theater. Glancing around the hushed room, I follow him down the aisle between a sea of large red seats, many of them occupied.
“Do you have a preference?” Tyler asks me over his shoulder.
“For what?”
“Where do you want to sit? You an up close to the action kinda gal or”—he waggles his brows—“more into the action at the back of the house?”
“I don’t know.”
“What? Thekissing trampdoesn’t know?” he pokes.
“I have never been to a movie,” I whisper my admission.
