May 16, 2014

I was making myself some instant ramen, when Jack called.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" he asked.

"Nothing, as yet. Do you have anything planned?" I asked, placing my phone in the crook of my neck.

"Well, about that movie you've been wanting to watch for ages... it's released, right?" he asked, nonchalantly.

"Well, yeah. Divergent. What about it?" I asked.

"I'm near Sapphire cinemas right now. I can book us tickets for whenever you want to watch it. When do you want to watch Divergent?" he asked.

"Tomorrow," I replied, barely containing my excitement.

"Okay, afternoon show?" he asked, and I replied with a yes.

"I'll book it for the two of us, then," he said, and I smiled in glee. "Thanks, dude," I replied.

"I'm your friend. You never need to thank me, sweetheart," he said, before hanging up.

May 17, 2014

"Hiii, where are you?" he asked, as soon as I picked up the call.

"Just entering the mall. Have you reached?" I replied, counting the cash to pay my taxi driver.

We had both decided to come to the mall separately, so as to avoid any suspicion at home.

"There's this car show happening on the first floor. I'm standing at the back of it all, kind of. Just follow the noise," he said.

"Okay, I'll find you," I said, before hanging up.

Sure enough, I found him hanging around in the first floor a few minutes later. As I saw him glancing my way, I couldn't suppress the grin that made its way onto my face every time I was with him.

He sauntered toward me lazily in his electric blue shirt and khakis.

"Shall we?" he asked, turning towards the escalators.

"Sure," I replied, excited as hell.

Divergent is one of my favourite book series ever. The way Veronica Roth had written the story... wow! Plus, the male protagonist, Tobias Eaton, had somehow found a way into my heart, and I loved to pretend that this handsome fictional boy was somehow my boyfriend.

"You look really nice, Mila," Jack complimented me out of nowhere, bringing me to the here and now.

"You don't look too shabby yourself," I replied, all coy. I wanted to add, "You actually look too damn delicious for your own good," but suppressed myself.

Soon, we reached Sapphire on the fourth floor.

As we were walking towards the ticket counter, he dropped a bomb on me.

"Oh boy, I don't remember if I brought the ticket with me," he said casually. "We can still hangout in the mall if we don't watch the movie, right?"

I was beyond furious. I had not made an elaborate fortress of deception to make my parents think I was out hanging out with Nina, only for him to deny my privilege to watch this movie adaptation of my favourite book.

"What the hell, Jack?" I demanded.

"Sorry, Mila," he said, rummaging in his pockets and looking down at me with a sad-puppy expression that made it hard for me to stay mad at him.

I took my phone out of my pocket, trying to not look at him and mask how upset I was.

I found a hand on my chin. He lifted it up, and met my eyes with his laughing eyes. Suddenly, it all made perfect sense. That bastard!

"I was just messing with you, Mila," he said, waving about the tickets with his free hand.

"Fine," I mumbled, my voice small. I felt belittled at not having recognized his juvenile attempt to throw me off my game.

"Smile, Mila," he said, and threw an arm over my shoulder, and I started to feel better already.

We walked over to the ticket counter, and showed our tickets to get them checked. When we walked in to search for our seats, I discovered that we had gotten one of these loveseat kind of sofas, and was waiting for his explanation, because after all, he had booked it. These sofas were at every aisle seat, basically, and everything else was single seats.

When he caught me staring at him with narrowed eyes, he put his arms up in surrender. "I wasn't told it would be like this," he said. This was a screen of Sapphire that had been opened recently, so it was both of ours' first time here.

Thinking about it, though, the sofa didn't seem like such a bad idea. It did, however, remind me of the last time we'd wound up on a sofa together. I blushed inwardly, wondering what would happen on this sofa today.

He met my eye, and we shared a secret smile.

We sat on the sofa, and I kept my purse between us, to create some space, some tension.

We made small talk about our day, before the movie started playing. I was slightly disappointed with the movie, though. The book had been so much better.

Why didn't he attempt to hold my hand, though? I dismissed the thought quickly out of mind, and concentrated on the movie.

During break, he went to get us some popcorn, when I went to the washroom to powder my nose.

When we had gone back to our seat and the movie had started after the intermission, he offered me the tub of popcorn. I ate a little, but I wasn't really in the mood.

Somewhere in the middle of this crappy movie, his mouth found its way near my ear as he whispered, "Wanna hold hands?"

A smile creeped onto my lips and I just proffered my right hand. Only Jack would feel the need to ask me this question after we had already cuddled.

He didn't even try to intertwine our fingers. Though I did it a couple of times, he kept reverting back to just keeping my hand dormant in his, and squeezing it a couple of times.

That felt nice, too, though not as amazing as keeping it intertwined.

I let my wander, though. I let my mind wander to a future where Jack and I would have a villa of our own, with our kids running around the garden, playing.

It all looked a pretty picture, but would it happen? I looked up at him, only to see him already smiling fondly down at me. I smiled back, feeling content, and he kissed the top of my head.

As the movie ended, I extricated my hand from his. "Did you like the movie?" he asked, looking down at me indulgently.

"Kind of. I was slightly disappointed, though. It was a lot different from the book," I said, frowning a little.

"That's what all bookworms say," he informed me, grinning. And the grin was all that was needed for me to forget about my disappointment.

We walked around the mall for a while, and finally booked an Uber for us to go home.

"I'll get down on the way, at my friend's place. You go home first, and then I will."

"Sounds like a plan," I smiled sadly, wishing I could go out with Jack in public with my parents' knowledge, without any repercussions.

It shouldn't matter too much, though, as long as Jack continued to be the same sweet boy that he always was.

As I entered my house, my phone beeped with a message from Jack Adams.

"Missing you already," it read.

Tossing aside all my worries for a second, I typed out, "Same here. Love ya."