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Rafael liked horror movies. Elise liked Rafael. So when he had offered to recommend a few of his favorites to her, she had suggested that they watch the movie together.
Elise had been interested in Rafael since she’d first come to Starlet Town a few months ago. He was polite and hardworking, not to mention attractive. More than once, when bringing geodes to the Sanchez’ workshop, she had gotten distracted watching him work. But Rafael always seemed so bashful, whereas his brother was charming and outgoing, always unconsciously overshadowing him. She had found it hard to draw Rafael out of his shell, but Elise felt like a real friendship was progressing between the two of them.
They’d spent long afternoons outside Emma’s taco truck, eating lunch and chatting together. He always seemed to brighten up when she came to the workshop as well; he’d explain what he was working on or let her assist with some of the easier tasks. On some rare occasions, she’d even seen him at the tavern. Rafael was naturally pretty shy and reserved, but Elise had noticed that he seemed to relax a little when talking to her. She hoped that was a good sign.
She had jumped at the chance to spend an evening with him, so that Friday night, she knocked politely on the door of their workshop. It was locked after business hours since they lived above, but she soon heard Rafael’s heavy gait approaching the door.
“Hi!” he said cheerfully, stepping aside and ushering her in. “Gosh, is it still snowing?”
“Hi,” Elise greeted him, taking her wet boots off and leaving them by the door. “Yeah, it’s been coming down all day.”
“Wow. Here, let me take your coat. It’s always hot in here from the forge,” Rafael said, placing her coat on a hook with his own by the door. “Come on in,” Rafael continued, leading the way to the living room through their workshop. Elise followed, taking a seat in the middle of the enormous sofa that took up most of the room. “I spent a long time thinking about what we should watch,” Rafael confessed sheepishly. “You said you haven’t seen many horror movies, right?”
“Basically none,” Elsie confessed. She was always one to try new things, but she hadn’t enjoyed the few horror movies she’d seen. In fact, she hated being scared. But maybe watching one with him would be better.
“Okay, cool,” he said, picking up the three dvd cases that sat on the coffee table. “In that case, how about this one?” he asked, holding one of the movies out to her. “ The Devil of Itasca Island. It’s great, and sets up a lot of tropes that later movies riff on,” he explained. “And the cinematography is really good for a small-studio genre film. It’s kind of a cult classic.”
Elise couldn’t help smiling at his enthusiasm. “Sounds perfect” she said with a smile. “I never knew you were so into the film studies side of things.”
“Oh, well, I guess,” he said sheepishly. “I just think…I mean, everyone sort of discounts genre films in general, right? It’s like, the only films that win big awards are the really artsy ones. But horror movies can be just as technically impressive, or as moving. They’re…unexpectedly deep. But…I mean, don’t worry about any of that tonight,” he added hastily with a little chuckle. “We can just relax and watch a cool movie.”
Elise laughed along with him, wondering if he seemed just the usual amount of nervous, or if her presence in his living room was making him extra jittery. She almost hoped it was the latter; that would mean he wanted to make a good impression, that he had some kind of feeling for her beyond just friendship. She hoped she wasn’t the only one who felt that there was something more between them. “That sounds great.”
He gave her that big grin of his, a slightly dopey expression that was so sincere and open it made her heart flutter. “Oh, do you want anything to drink? Beer, soda, water?”
She shrugged. “I’ll have whatever you’re having,” she said.
“Okay cool.” He handed her the dvd case. “Want to put that in? I’ll be right back.”
Rafael left the room and headed toward the kitchen. Pablo was there, washing dishes. “Hey, man,” he greeted his brother. “Elise here yet?”
“Mhm. We’re just about to start the movie.”
“Good luck tonight,” Pablo said slyly, drying his hands.
Rafael crossed to the fridge and opened it, pulling out two bottles of beer. “What do you mean?” he asked, staring at the bottlecap, trying to discern whether or not it was twist-off.
“With the date, dude. Good luck with Elise,” Pablo explained, leaning on the kitchen island facing his brother. “It’s about time you made a move on somebody.”
Rafael froze, staring at his brother with his mouth hanging open. Date? Was that what this was? Was that what Elise thought this was? Sure, he liked her, how could he not? But she was way out of his league. Women like her didn’t look twice at men like him—Pablo always got to them first. But then why would Elise have agreed to come over tonight? It felt like his brain was going a mile a minute. “Oh. Right,” he said numbly, busying himself with opening the beers and tossing the caps.
Pablo just laughed at the expression on Rafael’s face and patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, bro. She’s definitely interested, you can’t mess this up.”
“How—how do you know that?” Rafael asked, his throat feeling dry all of a sudden.
“Okay, one: she agreed to come over and watch one of your dumb-ass scary movies,” Pablo teased. Two: she totally has the equipment to crack open geodes herself but keeps coming over here to have you do it. Three: whenever she comes in and you’re not around, she looks so disappointed it’s almost insulting—”
“Okay, okay,” Rafael cut him off. He had never dared to hope that she might feel that way about him. Now, though, it lent a whole new aspect to their evening.
“Like I said. You can’t mess this up,” Pablo said, heading out the other door. “I’m gonna head out, I’ll be back around twelve.” He gave his brother a wink as he left, leaving Rafael standing dumbfounded in the kitchen.
Taking a deep breath, Rafael gathered himself up to head back to the living room. Just another night watching a movie, he told himself. Don’t be weird. Nothing has changed since you left the room five minutes ago.
The lights were off now, and the dvd menu was playing in a loop onscreen, eerie music filling the room. Elise was sitting with her legs drawn up on the couch, and she turned around to him as he entered. He did his best to smile at her and set their drinks on the table. He hesitated for a fraction of a second, deciding where on the long couch to sit. It would be weird if he sat at the other end, right? But he didn’t want to sit too close to her. Even he could tell he was overthinking it, and eventually just sat down on the seat next to hers.
“Rafael…I have a confession,” Elise said dramatically.
Those words combined with his conversation with Pablo sent a spike of panic through Rafael’s heart. “Y-yeah?”
“I get scared really easily,” Elise went on with a self-conscious laugh. “Just this music is making me tense.”
Rafael, too, laughed a bit in relief—he wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting her to say. “We don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to,” he offered.
“No, I want to,” Elise protested, shifting her legs to the side and moving a little closer to him. “I just don’t want you to be surprised if I scream or anything.” Even in the dim blue light of the screen, Rafael could see that she was blushing.
“That’s part of the fun,” he confessed. “I’ve seen this one so many times it doesn’t scare me anymore. It’ll be fun to see it from your point of view.”
“Okay…” she said, sounding playfully uncertain. “Let’s do it then. Wait, are you the kind of person who doesn’t let people talk during movies?” she asked warily.
Rafael laughed at that “No, of course not. I like talking to you.” He stopped abruptly, hoping that hadn’t been a stupid thing to say.
But Elise just smiled at him, looking disarmed by the comment. “Good. I like talking to you, too,” she said earnestly.
Unsure of what to say, sure he was smiling like an idiot, Rafael broke their eye contact and hit a button on the remote.
They watched for a while, chatting idly about what was going on:
“How is this house still for sale, if it’s such a wreck? Aren’t there building codes on this island they’re moving to?”
“I never understood why they kept this part in the movie. This guy never shows up again, and he doesn’t say anything important.”
“Maybe he was the producer’s son or something.”
“Gosh, this music is terrifying.”
“I know, I love it. I have the soundtrack on vinyl.”
“Ooh, relaxing.”
“Oh, I’m sure that broken stair won’t come back into play at a key moment.”
At one point, as the teenage daughter of the family was going to bed in the (definitely haunted) house they’d just moved into, Rafael pointed at the screen. Through the window in the background could be seen two faintly glowing eyes. Elise gasped and jumped a bit, grabbing onto Rafael’s arm. “Don’t point out the scary things!” she admonished him. She shifted more comfortably, drawing her legs up to her left while she leaned into Rafael on her right, still holding his arm.
“Sorry,” he said with a chuckle.
The movie continued: the parents refused to believe their daughter that the house was haunted, a creepy neighbor showed up to give a cryptic account of the house’s tragic history, the family’s young son went missing. All the while, Elise sat, tense, clinging to Rafael’s arm.
“Don’t go in the basement…Don’t go in the basement! That’s where the ghost is, get out of there!” Elise implored the characters onscreen, unable to help laughing at her own fear. She curled herself in towards Rafael, bracing for a jumpscare.
Rafael bit his lip, torn between telling her what was going to happen and letting her get the full experience. In the end, he wasn’t quick enough: the protagonist’s flashlight swept over the room and found nothing, the music faded out, and the protagonist exhaled and turned back toward the stairs, only to see the ghost standing on the top step. A crash of music sounded at the same time as Elise screamed and buried her face into Rafael’s chest, wrapping her arms around him.
He instinctively returned the gesture, hugging her close. “That’s the worst part, I promise,” he said, unable to help smiling a little. He tried not to think about how nice it was to hold her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Elise said, tilting her face up to him. He saw, to his relief, that she wasn’t actually upset, but he could still feel her heart beating frantically. “Those people, on the other hand, are going to be murdered by a ghost, and you’re making me watch!” she teased him.
“You never know, maybe the ghost will decide to just leave?” he suggested with a grin.
Elise swatted his arm and turned back to the screen, but made no attempt to remove his arm from around her shoulders. She stayed pressed against him, holding onto his free hand, squeezing it whenever there were especially tense moments.
“I can’t believe they’re going into the woods right now. Your son got kidnapped by the ghost, just give him up, he’s gone,” she whispered, shaking her head at the characters onscreen. The family in the movie continued on through the woods, going to confront the ghost at her final resting place.
Rafael’s mind began to wander. He’d seen this movie a handful of times before and found himself unable to focus on the terror the characters were facing. Instead, his thoughts went back to his conversation with Pablo earlier. You can’t mess this up, he’d said. Even Rafael wasn’t clueless enough to think that Elise leaning against him like that was platonic. He already had his arm around her shoulder, should he do something else? Was she expecting him to? He bit his lip, trying to decide what to do, his mind not on the movie anymore.
Suddenly onscreen the door to the mausoleum slammed closed behind the protagonist and Rafael jumped. Elise, in turn, gasped and clutched at him.
“You can’t do that! You’re supposed to be the brave one!” she said desperately.
“Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention, it caught me off guard,” Rafael apologized sheepishly.
Elise laughed and shook her head. “What else could you possibly be thinking about right now?”
“Kissing you,” he heard himself say quietly.
He froze.
The words had come out before he could think about what he was saying. That wasn’t like him at all, he didn’t say things like that. Then again, he usually didn’t have pretty young women sitting almost in his lap, laying their head on his chest. Rafael felt himself blushing and was glad for the darkness.
Elise looked taken aback for a second; evidently she hadn’t expected him to be so forward, either. But then she smiled shyly. “Okay then,” she said softly, before he could backpedal or apologize.
“O-okay what?” Rafael asked, his heart beating wildly in a way that had nothing to do with the movie.
“Kiss me.”
Rafael leaned in slowly, closing his eyes and catching her lips with his own. The kiss was soft, gentle. He broke contact for just a moment, pulling away to gauge her reaction. She smiled at him, and he leaned in again, kissing her a little more firmly this time. Elise shifted her body on the sofa to face him better, wrapped her arms around his neck. Rafael put one hand on her waist.
A loud sting of music from the movie made them both jolt with surprise, Elise letting out a sharp gasp. After a second they both sat back, laughing at themselves. Rafael put his arm around her again, and she leaned against him.
“I’m, uh…I’m really glad you decided to come tonight,” Rafael said after a moment.
“Me too,” she said, smiling up at him tenderly. “I could learn to like watching scary movies if it always turns out like this.”