Page 40 of Perfectly Us
Beautiful, I want to say. The word halts in my throat.
Luckily, I don’t have to finish my sentence because a group of people approaches the podium, and I step aside.
“Hello!” Alex says, grabbing their tickets. There’s a pink and a blue half, and he tears it in two before handing them back the pink half. “You’ll be in theater three to the left. Enjoy your movie.” He then looks at me. “You can watch one if you want.”
“No, it’s okay. I like hanging out with you. I just hope I’m not in the way.”
“You’re not.” He beams at me, his smile as bright as his personality.
That’s how it is for the next thirty or so minutes. Alex and I talk between him tearing tickets and helping customers. Another worker walks up eventually and takes over at the podium.
“I have to go to the projection room now,” Alex tells me as I walk beside him to the door leading to the employee area.
“To start movies?”
“Yep.”
A mischievous little smirk lifts his lips before he grabs my arm and yanks me through the doorway. I stumble a bit as we enter the back room, being embarrassingly clumsy, but he only laughs and shoves me through another door and into a lit-up stairwell. He pulls me with him as he goes up a flight of stairs, turns a corner, and goes up more steps.
“I’m not supposed to be back here, am I?”
“Honestly?” He grins back at me as we reach the top of the staircase. “Nope.”
“Alex…”
“Trust me.” He leads me through yet another door and closes it behind us.
The room is pitch-black at first, but then I see blinking lights on machines. And it’s quiet, apart from the soft humming of the monitors. My eyes adjust a bit more, and I notice rows of glass windows. We walk past them, and I see that each one leads to one of the auditoriums.
“Cool, right?” Alex asks. “I like to come here and watch the movies when there’s nothing else for me to do. I can control the sound on each theater so I can hear it too.” He reaches over and presses a button, filling the room with the sounds of the commercial playing on-screen, showing a girl drinking an ice-cold Coca-Cola. He presses it again to mute it. “I love it up here.”
“I like it too,” I say, glancing around. There’s something calming about it. Maybe it’s the privacy. The silence. No one can see or hear us. “It’s like we’re in a different world.”
Alex moves closer to me, our chests almost touching. He’s giving me a look that sends my heart racing.
“I wouldn’t mind being in a different world with you,” he says, his gaze falling to my lips. “Does that even make sense?”
I echo his light chuckle, but we both get quiet again.
I’ve never felt like this before. Heart pounding ninety to nothing, my breaths heavy, and warmth churning in my chest and radiating through my veins, like little zaps of energy spreading to the tips of my fingers.
I think of magnets then, of polar opposites being drawn together. Atoms colliding. Protons and electrons, one positively charged and the other negative. Two people who are so damn different, me and Alex, but who somehow balance each other.
“Shi?” Alex whispers, his lips parted. I know this because I’m staring at them, unable to look away. “Can I… can I kiss you?”
I feel like I’m about to catch fire. My skin’s tingling, and my face is like a furnace. I can’t speak, so I nod, quickly, my breath catching when he slides his hand to the side of my neck. His palm is warm, and his touch is soft. And when I finally look into his eyes, they’re even softer.
Alex brings his face closer and ghosts his lips over mine. I feel the heat of his breath tickling my mouth. He’s waiting for me to close that gap. Giving me one last chance to say no. But I realize I don’t want to say no.
Whatever this feeling is, I want more of it. Need more.
With a small push forward of my head, our mouths meet. The contact makes me weak in the knees, and I tremble as his lips slide against mine, once, twice. A weird sound escapes me, like a breathy, shaky groan, and then I’m kissing him back.
His hand grips my neck tighter as I move mine to his waist and pull him closer.
I kiss him slowly, learning the shape of his lips. They fit to mine perfectly, not thin but not full either. He’s patient through the tentative kisses and even smiles between them.
Sparks shoot through my very core, igniting in my heart.
