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Gabriel doesn’t make a point of going to see movies in theaters, generally. Other people tend to ruin the experience for him, regardless of whether he goes alone or not.
So he doesn’t know where the bizarre streak of optimism came from when he winds up at an actual theater, sitting on the far side of one of the back rows, but as the lights dim and the previews start to play he’s fairly satisfied that this time might not be so bad. There aren’t many others there, for one. No children that he saw, just a few couples scattered around, all of them far away enough that he won’t be able to hear them even if they do talk. It’s just him with the row all to himself, his $5 drink, and a movie whose plot hasn’t been spoiled for him yet.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees someone else walk in, right as the movie proper begins. What kind of idiot shows up this late when there were twenty minutes worth of previews to find a seat?
Then the person starts walking down his row, and they don’t stop on the opposite end either. Oh no, they come all the way over and sit right goddamn next to him.
Gabriel glares in the dark, he can just barely make out a man’s profile and scruffy chin, but the stranger fucking grins at him. Jesus Christ, who does this? Who has the balls to sit right next to somebody they don’t know when the theater was practically empty? He must be some truly rare species of jackass.
Gabriel is about to open his mouth and tell him to fuck off and find another seat when the guy speaks.
“Hey, guess I wasn’t too late,” he murmurs, his voice smooth with a gentle twang. “Sorry about that. You want some?” He holds up, of all things, his bucket of popcorn.
Gabriel stares at him. This guy is a real fucking piece of work. “No,” he growls.
The guy nods. “Well, feel free whenever you like.” Then he grabs a handful for himself and stuffs it into his mouth.
Who the fuck does that. Who the fuck sits down and offers popcorn to a stranger. Gabriel, in utter disbelief, spends long enough watching this complete psychopath obliviously munch away that the movie’s dialogue starts going while he’s still torn between whether to get the guy to move or just standing up and switching to another seat himself.
He glances at the screen, narrow-eyed but unwilling to miss anything, then back at the guy, who is watching the movie’s intro with rapt, silent attention. Gabriel decides to give him a final chance, but if the guy talks to him again that’s it, he’ll chew him a new one right here in the theater and go back to refund his ticket.
The man stays blessedly quiet however, apart from rummaging in his stupid popcorn, and Gabriel is able to get distracted enough by the film to move beyond the brief interlude of annoyance.
It is a good movie, and he’s glad he didn’t wait to see it after everyone else when the twist happens and one of the main characters is left for dead; knowing that ahead of time would have taken the entire punch out of it. Really, he admires the audacity of the screenwriter for killing off a love interest halfway through.
Then he hears a quiet sniff to his right, and looks over to see that next to him the guy has the back of a hand pressed to his mouth and is blinking dewy wet lashes.
You’ve got to be kidding me, Gabriel thinks. Crying? It’s only a movie, and not even that sad. For somebody who apparently had no interest in following the unwritten social contract, this asshole is a damn lightweight.
Thankfully the guy doesn’t say a word, just knuckles at his eyes and grabs another handful of popcorn.
The rest of the movie plays out from there, a long downward spiral from the tragic climax to a conclusion that’s humbling for the protagonist, and satisfying to watch as he gets his deserved fate. Then the credits begin scrolling up the screen accompanied by a mournful solo piano piece, and Gabriel turns his head to crack his neck and stretch his shoulders. Not bad at all, considering the disaster it could have been.
And speaking of disasters, the guy next to him decides to talk again. “Jesus that was sad,” he mutters in an undertone. “Do you really like this kind of movie? ‘Cause I’m about ready to jump off a bridge now.”
Gabriel frowns deeply at him. “It was good.”
The guy shakes his head, long hair wagging. “Well I don’t get it. Why’d Carolina have to lie to Marco in the first place? If she’d just told him about her brother he could’ve helped her out.”
“Then her aunt would’ve known about the inheritance,” Gabriel says, ticked off now. Wasn’t this guy paying any attention?
“Yeah but she didn’t need money,” the guy insists. “I mean shit, let the bastards have it. If she hadn’t been so damn proud she wouldn’t have even stuck around to get killed, and then Marco would’ve had all the time in the world to get his job back. She knew he would’ve married her the minute she said yes.”
“Pride was a theme,” Gabriel can’t help explaining. How the hell could he be so wrong when they’d watched the same damn movie. “The money represented pride.”
The guy sighs. “I’m just sayin’, all that mess could’ve been avoided if Carolina just grew a pair before running into David’s knife. She knew what was comin’ and didn’t do shit about it.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Gabriel mutters.
“Is it that obvious?” the guy asks, cracking a fool smirk at him. “Sorry, I’m bein‘ rude, this really ain’t my kinda thing. You wanna to get going?”
Gabriel has no idea why on earth he’s being asked, but he’s shocked enough that the guy actually has an ounce of self awareness that he grabs the rest of his drink and stands.
The guy gets up with him, leading the way down the row of seats and to the exit, where he stops by a trash can to dump his empty popcorn tub and points at Gabriel’s hand. “Done with that?” he asks, indicating the soda cup.
Gabriel gives it over mutely. This whole situation is too bizarre for comment. Then he’s appalled all over again as the guy shakes the cup and takes a sip straight from his used straw before tossing the rest into the trash.
The guy looks back and catches him grimacing. “Oh, uh,” he says, grinning sheepishly. “You said you were done right? I didn’t have time to get a drink on the way in.”
“Do you normally swap spit with people you’ve never met?” Gabriel asks, more than a little disgusted.
The guy just laughs, turning to exit the theater as he does. “Only when they’re as good lookin’ as you, sugar,” he tosses over his shoulder with a wink, then he’s gone.
Gabriel is left standing alone by the door for a minute. Is that what all this was about? A horribly misguided attempt at flirting? This guy just picks random people sitting alone in movies to sit next to and then hits on them two hours later? Who the fuck does that. He shakes his head - it’s not his problem anymore. But when he steps outside, of course the guy is waiting for him.
Admittedly, the guy is rather good looking himself. Tall with honey brown eyes and a sinfully attractive mouth, his red-and-white gingham shirt hanging open over an undershirt that clings to his chest and just barely reaches the low waistband of his jeans with the way he’s got his thumbs hooked in the pockets. Gabriel eyes him up and down, wary of the next remark he’s sure that’s coming before he makes it out of here.
“So,” the guy says, as expected. “I don’t usually go for these blind date things, but ah, I wasn’t really expecting to like you very much.”
Gabriel stares blankly at him.
“I do, by the way,” the guy hurries to say, then coughs. “I mean, I’d like to get to know you? If you want to go grab a drink with me or something.”
“Blind date?” Gabriel asks slowly.
“Yeah, I didn’t think Olivia knew such handsome men,” the guy says then, a grin starting to curve at one side of his mouth.
“This is not a blind date,” Gabriel grits out. Olivia. Fucking Christ, he should have guessed. He’s going to throttle her.
“What?” the guy says. His brow furrows and he cocks his head like a confused dog. “But you- you’re Gabriel, right?”
“Yes,” Gabriel answers. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Jesse,” the guy says, looking truly flummoxed now. “She didn’t tell you?”
“No,” Gabriel growls. “But what, exactly, did she tell you?”
“Uh.” The guy - Jesse, apparently - seems to be getting worried now. He shoves his hands in his pockets, which just makes his jeans dip lower under a now-exposed stripe of tan skin. “To meet you at the theater? And uh, don’t be late? And you hate people who talk during movies so don’t do that either?”
Gabriel glares at him.
Jesse shifts uncomfortably on his feet. “She really didn’t tell you?”
Gabriel shakes his head just once, slowly. Jesus fucking Christ. The one time he goes to see a movie and fucking Olivia must have tapped his fucking phone again. Fuck.
“Uh,” Jesse says weakly, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “Guess that explains why you looked so pissed off when I got here.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel mutters. Then he thinks about it, and snorts. Jesse had waltzed right over and apologized for being late then offered him popcorn, probably thinking he was being real fucking smooth, like that would make up for letting his date wait alone in a theater until the movie started. “You’re kind of shit at this,” he has to say.
Jesse groans. “I know. First impressions ain’t exactly my strong suit, but I figured maybe it’d be worth a shot. Then I got a look at you and, well.” He waves an all-encompassing hand at Gabriel, and flashes half of a self-deprecating grin. “Too good to be true, right?”
Gabriel lifts an eyebrow. He wouldn’t mark Jesse as somebody who had trouble with first impressions, dumbass personality notwithstanding. The guy is cute, anyway. No doubt Olivia had counted on that winning him over, barring the high possibility that this was all purely to annoy him.
But Jesse is sighing then. “Goddamn. I should’ve known better than to believe any of the shit she says.”
“That was your first mistake,” Gabriel agrees.
“Ugh,” Jesse says, twisting up his face in a wince as he reaches around to pull his phone out of a back pocket and tap at the screen. “She must be laughing herself sick. Yep, ‘How’s the date?’ You.. are.. dead.. to me…” he mutters under his breath as he thumbs a reply.
Gabriel watches him, more amused by the other side of his predicament. He has to wonder what Jesse did to get on Olivia’s bad side, if anything, and if this was the first time he’d found himself the target of her particular brand of revenge. “How do you know her?” he asks, curious now.
“To be honest, I have no idea,” Jesse says, while frowning at his phone and punching in another message. “She just started talkin’ to me like we were already friends, figured I must’ve met her before. But we get along, so.” He shrugs.
“You’re an easy mark,” Gabriel says wryly.
Jesse looks up to flash an equally wry smirk at him. “Honey, from the way I see it she got you just as good as me.”
Gabriel scoffs. “I didn’t fall for a fake date.”
“Alright, I'll give you that,” Jesse says, the corners of his eyes crinkling as his smirk widens. “You’re here though, aren’t ya?”
Gabriel frowns at him; yeah he’s here, he came to see a movie and he did, how was he supposed to know Olivia was going to sic some weirdo on him?
But Jesse just keeps smiling. “You know, since you are still here and all, how about you and me figure out a way to get back at her? Say… over a drink?”
Gabriel keeps frowning. This asshole is still trying to pick him up. “Are you serious?” he asks. “After that shitshow?”
Jesse laughs, deep and edged with a smoker’s rasp. “Yeah sugar, I’m serious. C’mon, at least lemme do somethin’ to make up for crashin’ your movie,” he coaxes. “And I do a lot better with second chances, promise.”
Gabriel rolls his eyes. He doesn’t know how much he believes that, though admittedly, big brown eyes work on him and he could use a drink. “Fine,” he sighs. “But you’re buying.”
“Sure thing,” Jesse says, brightening. “I know a place right by here. And hey, maybe you could tell me why you like that movie so much.”
“I don’t think you’d get it,” Gabriel says dryly.
“I’ll do my best,” Jesse assures him, with more confidence than Gabriel thinks is truly warranted, but he looks sincere enough that Gabriel doesn’t bother shooting him down.
So he follows Jesse down the street towards the place he knows, half listening as Jesse rambles on about the ‘artsy movies’ that he does like, and decides to check his phone on the way to see if Olivia is gloating in his texts as well.
She only says: Play nice ! He puts out !!
Gabriel smirks. Alright then, maybe he’ll even consider forgiving her too.