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Their fingers bump against each other over the back of the couch, sending a shiver through her body as she pulls away. He’s ignoring her, trying to deny there’s anything between them, and that’s fine – she can ignore him too. Except that every bit of her is aware of his presence and she can’t help wondering why he’s sitting back there instead of next to her. This slasher movie marathon night was his idea, after all. It doesn’t make any sense – it’s not like the rest of them aren’t caught up in human relationships to some extent.
Maybe that’s the problem – that she’s not human, not exactly. It’s almost enough to make her wish things would go back to how they were before, when Max was her destiny and all she had to worry about was dealing with Nasedo.
She should’ve known better than to go along with this. She’s sat through one stupid movie already, without more than ten words out of him, and this is not what she’d been looking forward to. She’s tempted to give up already, just go to bed or maybe make him see something that will force him to make a move. Except she knows that neither of those options will get her what she wants – she wants him to want her, without any coercion, and chances are she wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. Not there, in his room, where every single thing makes her think about him.
And, truthfully, now that the chaos that’s been their lives lately – fighting the Skins, their duplicates showing up and wanting to steal Max away, Isabel dreaming about kidnapped girls, and everything else – has finally calmed down, she’s starting to feel like a normal girl, or at least what she imagines a normal human teenage girl might feel like. And it’s nice, surprisingly enough, even with the constant frustration of Kyle Valenti.
“You want some popcorn?” he asks as the credits roll, interrupting her thoughts.
“Yeah, sure,” she says, and she can’t help nodding in spite of herself. “Make sure you don’t burn it,” she adds, forcing herself not to look behind her when she hears him get up.
“Ridiculous,” she mutters, shaking her head now, thoroughly disgusted with herself. There’s no reason he should have so much power over her. If Nasedo were still alive…. But he’s not, so thinking about the lectures he’d give her about being hung up on a human is just a waste of time.
“What?” he asks from the kitchen, startling her again.
“Nothing,” she mumbles, rolling her eyes as she watches him move from refrigerator to microwave and back again. Eventually he comes back to the couch, trying to juggle popcorn and drinks. She could help, but…. It’s easier to wait, to see what he does. And it’s not like she can’t clean up any mess he makes in the blink of an eye.
She can’t help the small smile that escapes when he sits next to her, their legs brushing as he hands over her drink. It widens into a grin after she takes the first sip.
“You remembered the sugar,” she says, elbowing him.
He just nods, but she can tell he’s happy she noticed. She shifts a little, and their legs touch – not enough that it seems like anything, she hopes, but it’s enough to keep her attention on him instead of the opening credits of the next movie. It’s not like she’s missing out on anything. The movie is nothing she would’ve chosen to watch, and these kinds of movies are pretty much all the same from what she can tell – some villain who’s supposed to be scary goes around killing girls who are so dumb they probably deserve to be killed anyway. It’s exasperating, not scary at all. But then again, it’s hard for a movie to be scary, she thinks, when you’ve spent most of your life being hunted by people who want nothing more than to dissect you.
Kyle seems to be captivated, though. Every time she dares to look at him, he’s staring straight ahead, completely focused on the screen. And that’s exasperating, too, because she wants him focused on her.
“I don’t think Buddha would approve,” she says as the villain starts in on his killing spree, taking out the blonde she’s sure everyone is supposed to think is the main character.
“What?” he asks, turning towards her but still keeping an eye on the television.
“Violence,” she says, laughing a little, “isn’t that against your Buddhist philosophy? Being entertained by it?”
“I’m not being violent,” he retorts, eyeing her. “What, you want me to give up football too?”
“No,” she tells him, stopping to consider him, her eyes roaming his body until he starts pulling at the blanket she has slung over her feet, consciously or unconsciously trying to cover himself. “I’d hate to miss out on watching you run around the field in those pants.”
“What?” he asks, his voice a high squeak. He clears his throat immediately, as if that might keep her from noticing.
She just shakes her head, laughing under her breath as she pulls her blanket a little higher over her legs. He’s close enough that it covers him too, more or less, but he doesn’t complain. She shifts, leaning against him a little, smirking a little when she catches him staring at her chest. She doesn’t say anything, though, just waits for him to make a move – if he ever will. She’s not about to throw herself at him.
So even though she’s been hoping for it, he catches her by surprise when he slides his arm around her, right in the middle of the first slaughter – she’d apparently managed to get involved in the movie after all. She looks up at him, tempted to say something but not wanting to scare him off. So instead she just lays her head on his chest, one hand moving to his thigh, and settles back into concentrating on the television. She can wait. As long as he doesn’t take too long, that is.