Page 60 of The Perfect Deception

Adam wrapped his hand around Dina’s as they walked to the movie the­ater. It was their first “of­fi­cial” date since his es­cape from the “friend zone.” He was de­ter­mined to do it right. Af­ter show­ing up with flow­ers—daisies, which she loved—and com­pli­ment­ing her on her out­fit—jeans and a bright pink sweater that made her lips look ex­tra kiss­able—they’d walked to the movie the­ater down the street.

He hadn’t once let go of her hand, be­cause he hated the thought of be­ing apart from her, even by a few inches. Man, he was a goner.

In­side, he paid for the tick­ets, awk­wardly do­ing ev­ery­thing with his one free hand, and tak­ing twice as long as if he’d used two.

She looked on and laughed.

Ja­cob’s ad­vice still rang in his ears. So he held on, de­ter­mined to make him­self the best boyfriend she’d known so that even when she even­tu­ally learned his se­cret—and he knew he would have to tell her at some point—she’d stay. And maybe love him as much as he was be­gin­ning to love her.

“Would you like pop­corn?” he asked af­ter they had their tick­ets.

“I hate get­ting ker­nels in my teeth. But go ahead if you want it.”

“Candy? Pret­zels? Na­chos?”

“I’m good.”

“Are you sure?” She was his girl­friend. He needed her to know she could have any­thing she wanted from him. The voice in his head laughed at him.Dude, you’re toast.

She turned to him, putting her free hand against his cheek and his heart stut­tered in his chest. He turned his face into it, so he could kiss her palm.

“Re­lax,” she said. “I don’t eat at movie the­aters. It has noth­ing to do with you. My par­ents were al­ways ob­ses­sive about our eat­ing habits, and it’s stuck with me, at least as far as junk food in a movie the­ater goes.”

He kissed her palm again. “You know I think you’re per­fect, right?”

The blush ris­ing on her cheeks was adorable and he vowed to make sure he caused it to ap­pear more of­ten. She looked away from him. No way. He took her chin in his hand and made her meet his gaze.

“Did your par­ents give you a hard time about your looks?” His blood boiled at the thought of it.

“I don’t think they meant to, but when you’re al­ready in­se­cure about your looks, it’s dif­fi­cult to brush off well-meant ad­vice.”

He drew her against him and gave her a hug. For as long as she was with him, he’d make sure she knew just how per­fect she was. She’d never feel in­se­cure around him again. When it was his turn in the con­ces­sion line, he or­dered him­self a bag of pop­corn and a soda, and walked with her into the movie the­ater. The the­ater had been re­cently re­done, with leather re­clin­ing seats, so the ex­pe­ri­ence was more like watch­ing a movie in one’s own liv­ing room than in a pub­lic the­ater.

As they waited for the movie to start, Adam wished they could share a seat.

She lifted the arm­rest sep­a­rat­ing their seats and scooted as close to him as pos­si­ble. Had she read his mind? With a smile, he put his arm around her and pulled her closer.

“This is bet­ter,” she said.

He nod­ded and made small cir­cles on the in­side of her wrist with his thumb.

“You’re go­ing to dis­tract me from the movie.”

He looked at the ads on the screen. “It hasn’t started yet.”

“Did you know the first movies were un­der a minute long when they were in­vented in the 1890s?”

He huffed. “No, I didn’t.”

The pre­views started and she faced for­ward. “This is my fa­vorite part,” she whis­pered.

Lights and col­ors flashed on the screen, but Adam saw lit­tle of it, other than through his pe­riph­eral vi­sion. He was too busy watch­ing Dina. Her lips parted as she fo­cused on the screen in front of her. For each pre­view, he could read her ex­pres­sion as sum­maries of each movie played—hu­mor, sur­prise, con­fu­sion.

He liked her con­fu­sion best. She had this adorable way of wrin­kling her nose, mak­ing fine lines be­tween her eye­brows and al­most chal­leng­ing him not to touch them. Later, he’d have to fig­ure out a way to make her get those wrin­kles back, just so his fin­gers could be the ones to wipe them away.

When the main fea­ture started—a ro­man­tic com­edy he’d thought she’d like—she leaned over and whis­pered in his ear.

“She looks like she could use a plate of pasta more than a boyfriend.”