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Wednesday movie nights with Steve have easily become the highlight of your week. Despite the slightly unusual day for such activities (Family Video’s rush lasts from Friday night all the way through Sunday, making the middle of the week the only time available for late night pastimes) and Steve’s taste in movies really only consisting of the most popular films, you love the little routine the two of you have formed.
Steve always provides the movies, bringing them straight to his home from work, and you come with the snacks. Sometimes, if the two of you are feeling kind, you’ll invite others to join you—Robin especially makes for an entertaining addition to movie nights, constantly finding things to disagree with Steve about. Today, however, it’s just the two of you. Maybe you just can’t help but be a little selfish when it comes to Steve, needy for whatever attention he’s willing to give you.
He has a lot of love to give.
He called you earlier than you expected, letting you know that he made it home, that you could come over whenever you were ready.
“Let me pick you up,” he said. “It’s already getting dark out, and it looks like rain.”
You had, of course, assured him you would be fine, that you already had the snacks all packed and would be on your way shortly.
“Besides, I like the fresh air,” you claimed. Maybe you should have taken him up on the offer.
Dark clouds spiral overhead, blocking out what should be the slowly fading sun. Usually at this time the whole world is illuminated in a pink glow. The greens of the trees, of the grass, of everything growing, lights up beautifully as the sun sinks low in the sky. You never want to miss a second. The scent of flowers growing in gardens in front of the houses you bike past still drifts your way just like it usually does—lilies, lilacs, roses, all of them beautiful, even more so after a cold spring. But there’s a sharper scent in the air as well, earthy, rich. It won’t be long before the rain falls.
Thunder rolls somewhere in the distance, too quiet still to be a concern. You’ll be at Steve’s before the storm actually hits, comfortably tucked away from the oncoming downpour. Nevertheless, the rapidly approaching wall of dark grey is menacing. It will certainly hit sometime during your movie. Your only real concern is making it home at the end of the night.
Wind rushes around you, tugging at your clothes, gently at first, and then stronger as the storm approaches. It’s almost as if it wants you to follow, to join it as it rushes through the trees lining the road, to dance with it across lawns and rooftops.
“Not today,” you tell the wind. “But perhaps some other time!”
And then you arrive at Steve’s house, lightning coursing through your veins at the thought of seeing him once more, even though it’s only been a day since you were last together. You jump off your bike before it’s fully stopped, dumping it in Steve’s front yard as you run up to the door. You knock your secret knock, just in case he thinks someone else might be planning to show up at his house at the same time as you (something that has yet to happen, but maybe could one day), and then you wait. It doesn’t take long for Steve to answer the door, and you wrap him up in your arms before he can even say “hello.”
“Steve! I missed you, baby.” A rush of air escapes his lips as you embrace him, a quiet oomph beside your ear. “Sorry.”
You don’t let him go.
“Missed you too,” he mumbles, pressing a kiss to the side of your temple. Then he leans back just enough to seek out your lips. It’s just a short peck, feather light, before he parts from you once more. Then, as if he changed his mind, like he decided it just wasn’t enough, he leans in again.
This kiss is languid, but just as soft. HIs lips move against your own without hurry or desperation, and you can’t help but melt into him, sighing quietly as you do. Steve smiles at the sound, only then pulling away from you, gaze warm as he takes you in.
“Why don’t you put your bike in the garage so it doesn’t get rained on, and I’ll get the movie set up,” he says, giving you one last squeeze. He takes the bag of snacks hanging from your shoulders so he can get everything ready at once.
The wind tugs you along, away from Steve, as if it’s still beckoning you to join it instead, a final effort to sway your decision. But you can still feel Steve’s arms around you as you walk away from him, can still feel the heat of his lips against yours, a low heat, the kind that lasts.
The storm is closer now, the once quiet thunder growing in volume. You hurry to put your bike in the safety of the garage, wanting to return to the warmth of Steve’s love.
Steve sets the snacks out on the coffee table. There are bags of chips and candy, microwaveable popcorn, and a package of cookies—fresh, unlike the ones at Family Video. He pops the tape in the VCR, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and fast forwards through the commercials so the two of you can get right to watching. He turns the lights off in the living room, leaving them on in the kitchen and the hall so it’s not too dark. Then he sits down, leans back, settles for perhaps the first time all day, and waits for you.
It doesn’t take long for you to return to him, wind blown and smiling like you hadn’t seen him in weeks, and he’s reminded of exactly why he wasted so little time in calling you to ask you over. You plop down next to him, curl up against his side, and look at him expectantly.
“Ready?” he asks. You simply nod in return.
You’ve both seen the movie before. It’s not one that’s a new release just converted to VHS, just like many of your movie night selections end up being; the new movies fly off the shelves too quickly to be able to rent them. The downside to rewatching movies: it’s easy to get distracted.
Warm brown eyes, soft lips, features glowing in the low light—beautiful. It isn’t long before you find your hands drifting, fingers reaching for contact with the curve of Steve’s neck, your body curling into his.
It’s raining now, lightning illuminating the darkest corners of the room in flashes, thunder close enough to drown out all other noises each time it hits, but you hardly notice it. Steve seeks out your lips, pulling you closer still, the movie now long forgotten. It’s easy to mold yourself to his planes and edges, your hands keeping him close while his wander, tracing your shoulders, your back, your hips. He sighs your name, hushed, breathless, before he kisses you again, and again, and again.
You tug at his hair, which is already mussed from a long day, silently begging him for more, more, more—always more. You’re practically in his lap, and he’s kissing you like maybe you’ll never let him get so close again, like he needs to savor you, memorize you, drown in you.
One moment there’s the sound of the movie playing quietly in the background, the light of the tv flickering against your eyelids, the distant hum of the refrigerator working hard against the warm night. The comforting glow of the hall and kitchen lights seep into the room, just enough for the hour to not seem so late. The next moment, silence.
Everything is eerily still.
You pull back from your boyfriend, lips kiss-swollen, eyes half lidded, confused. It’s dark now. Really dark. It shouldn’t be this dark, shouldn’t be this quiet.
“Steve?” you ask, as if he might have an answer. Outside the storm rages on.
“Hmm? The power must have gone out,” he mumbles, fingers tracing lightly over the skin of your back, soothing beneath your shirt as if he is debating whether or not to just pull you back to him and resume what you were doing.
“Because of the storm?” you ask, but you already know it to be true. Even so, you can’t help the inkling of panic that creeps in along with the darkness. Maybe someone did this, maybe this was intentional. You try to banish the thought.
“Are you scared?” Steve teases, squeezing your sides playfully. It doesn’t seem like he’s caught on yet, not really. He’s usually quite gentle about your fears. “Because I’ll protect you.”
“No!” you rush out. Then, much quieter, “Yes. Only a little.”
Steve pulls you back to him, keeping his arms wrapped firmly around you, squeezing just shy of too tight, exactly what you need to know that he’s got you.
“Let’s make it something different then. I turned off the TV because the thunder was too loud to hear the movie, and we decided to turn the lights out and watch the storm,” he states. He says it like it’s true, calm and firm, no room for anything else to slip in. And even though you both know it isn’t real, Steve had no control over the situation, you prefer his version over what really happened.
You tell it to yourself too, trying to convince yourself that the two of you are in control. There is no one outside who shut off the circuit breaker. There is no Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees stalking the perimeter of the home. There’s just a storm rolling through—summertime storms are common and beautiful to watch as they pass by—and the two of you are going to take some time to appreciate it.
Steve tugs you from the couch and towards the window. He wraps his arms around your waist, keeps you close to his chest despite the way it makes walking difficult, and shuffles with you the whole way towards the glass. It’s raining still, not pouring like it was when the storm first reached the Harrington home, but enough to hear it patter against the sidewalk and splat against the window.
Lightning strikes, quick and bright and beautiful. The thunder follows only a moment after.
Something shifts in the yard, a shadow shuffling.
“What’s that?” You squeak, pointing out towards the shape. Maybe you were wrong, maybe Jason really is here after all. You know it’s silly, that nothing has changed since the storm started, that a tree probably just fell on a power line or something similar, resulting in a simple power outage. But what if that’s not what happened? In movies, the killer always finds a way to strike, and the couples never survive, especially those that were making out just moments before.
“It’s just a bush,” Steve reassures. He isn’t mean about it, but you can tell he has none of the concerns that are haunting you. “Look, watch how it moves in the wind. It’s just a bush.”
You release your breath, a long quiet rush of air that you didn’t even know you were holding. Your heart slams loudly in your chest, and it wouldn’t surprise you if Steve can feel the erratic rhythm through your back where you're pressed firmly against his own chest.
“Oh,” you sigh. “I’m sorry for being so scared. I know it’s silly.”
Steve turns you away from the window into him, a hand held firmly against the back of your head, his other arm wrapped around your back, giving you no room to pull away, to look at anything, to feel anything but him. He’s surrounding you like this.
There is no storm, no power outage, no bush out to get you, there’s just him.
“It’s not silly,” he says. “We all have things that seem like they should be small but scare us.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you scared over something small,” you argue. Not that you want to see Steve scared, but he’s always seemed so immovable, always taking things in stride even when they go wrong.
“I’m scared of spiders,” he asserts.
“Really?”
“Oh, absolutely. They mostly stay in one place when they find their way inside a home, they can stay there for days, maybe even a week. I don’t think I’d mind them so much if they never moved from their corners at all. At least then I know where they are. But usually what happens is you wake up one day and they’ll just be gone. Not dead, gone. Completely up and moved. I don’t like not knowing where they went. They could be anywhere, could be climbing up my sock for all I know.”
“Steve, I promise I’ll protect you from any spiders,” you mumble against his chest, face buried so close that you don’t know how he makes the words out.
“I know you will, sweetheart.” He presses a kiss to the top of your head and pulls you impossibly closer.
Time passes slowly. You’re not sure how long the two of you stand like that, Steve holding you as you try now to cower, but it’s long enough for you to start to settle once more. Then, suddenly, in a blink and a buzz, in a cacophony, the power turns back on. The lights return to the kitchen and the hall, bleeding into the living room, the low hum of the refrigerator a back track for the change. The TV flickers to life, Fast Times at Ridgemont High picking up exactly where you left off. It’s as if nothing ever happened.
The storm has quieted now, not completely but enough for your heart rate to slow once more. The thunder is distant once again; the rain is nothing more than a quiet patter beyond the safety of the home.