Beneath Your Smile

Chapter 10

Riley's POV:

"You want the popcorn mixed, right?" James asks me while we stand in line. I nod and wait to the side, getting our tickets ready to show whilst he orders. He tells the lady the meal deal of one sharing bucket of popcorn with two tangos and a bag of chocolates, and he thankfully chooses Dairy Milk bites out of the entire selection, knowing me well enough to not even bother checking with me first. Two minutes later and I join by his side to help him carry the food with one hand, my other hand holding my phone to display our tickets to security by the screens.

"Got everything?" I ask, double-checking with him. "Your phone on silent?"

"Yeah," he answers, keeping hold of the drinks and chocolates whilst I held onto the popcorn carefully. We reach the front of the screening rooms and I show the e-mail I had received earlier, after we had booked our seats, to the dark-skinned, muscly male. He examines it for a moment before nodding his head, stepping aside to let us through.

The seats were already half-filled, considering they were already onto showing trailers. We walk down to an aisle in the middle section, walking through and past a couple of people but eventually make it to our seats. I take my seat first, tucking my phone away into my mini leather backpack, then James follows after me, sitting down by my side and placing the drinks on the movable table that was attached to the armrest.

"Everything okay?" he asks me to which I nod, giving him a light smile. He seems a bit fidgety at first, but shortly takes it upon himself to move the drinks onto his own table instead so that he could tuck the table in between us into the armrest, which he lifts up to somewhat shift our seats closer together. I smirk at him.

"What are you even doing?"

"Trying to make it more comfortable," he states. I roll my eyes but watch out of the corner of my eye as he takes the popcorn to hold in between us, shuffling the slightest bit closer to me, our thighs almost touching.

We remain like that for a while, awkward and spread apart from one another with a clear gap between our bodies, but as the lights dim out and the movie begins approximately ten minutes later, I breathe out and find it in me to shuffle that much closer to him, like he had previously done. My side vision catches him watching me, and as I look down, I notice his arm inching closer to my body. When I see him trying to get closer, I quickly look back up to the screen, though it was still pitch black and silent and no moving images were showing yet.

His arm stops moving, randomly placed by my own arm, so I clear my throat a little, gaining his attention. I fiddle with my hands over the top of my lap, not sure what he was trying to do, nor what I was aiming to do myself, but when I feel him look down at me, he instantly chooses to pull that arm further away from me to keep to himself. I don't know why but I sigh, feeling almost empty when he leaves my touch.

The movie finally starts to begin and I drop my shoulders. I still keep my hands to myself, playing with my fingertips and nails haphazardly, but my eyes travel down to James's shaking knee, telling me he felt just as discomforted as I did. So I move even closer. I slowly begin to wrap my arms around his body, my head lowering down to meet his chest, and very shortly, his arms wrap around mine the exact same way, his fingers drawing shapes on my spine. I pull my feet along with me and lightly kick his left foot, only for him to do the same back to me and for the two of us to join them together, tangling our legs up the way we had done last night.

"Ri?" James whispers as he lowers his head downwards for me to hear so as not to disturb the other people surrounding us.

"Hm?" I hum back. He doesn't answer but begins to comb his fingers through my hair, giving off a nice feeling but causing me to look up at him with curiosity. "What is it?" I quietly whisper. He shakes his head.

"Nothing, I just..." His eyes gaze down at my own, as if to scout my face for clues but after a couple of seconds, he shrugs. "Don't worry," he finishes. He continues to rub my back in a soothing and repeated circle, pushing me to get comfortable in his embrace, which I weirdly end up doing so.

"This is nice, huh?" I whisper, and to my greatest hopes, he ends up replying with:

"Yeah... it is."

Halfway through the movie, I was still cuddled up close to James's body in our seats and I had even managed to slide in next to him so that we were sat together. A certain part of me was almost convinced this was a date, but as much as my head was thinking that, I was still unsure.

Several 'scary' parts had come on during the one hour duration we've currently watched and most of the time, people around me would jump or squirm and shudder into their partner's clothes. James and I sort of did that as well, except I wasn't doing it because I was necessarily scared, but more because I liked the feeling of his arms holding me secure... It's weird but also true at the same time.

Suddenly, I feel James's fingers poke at my exposed hips, sending a slight tingly feeling through me. I look up at him, about to hit him with a snide comment but in a jokey manner the way we always do. However, as I do, he looks down at me and we make a vivid eye contact.

I detach my lips to whisper something but no sound comes out, as my eyes divert to his chapped lips, and when I look into his eyes again, I notice him look down at my lips. Self-consciously, I bite it lightly before he begins to lean in, causing me to let go of my bottom lip and do the same. I don't know why but I want to. For some reason it just feels right. Our heads near even closer to the point where my inner palms begin to get clammy.

But just as our lips are about to connect, my phone vibrates on my lap and I quickly pull away to check it. It's no surprise that James is disappointed and annoyed as he groans ever so quietly, but when I check it, I find a text message from Hadley.

H: SNS. I need u Ri. Pls come home. And quick.

I text her back immediately, letting her know I'd be home as soon as possible, and then I look at James. His face had changed into a serious look of worry, his brows knitted together in confusion and arm loosening around my body.

"James, we need to go," I whisper, totally ignoring the fact we had just almost kissed. He still seems confused, so I grab hold of his hand and stand up but crouch down a little so I wasn't blocking people's views. He stands up also and I drag him out of the screening room to the outside hall.

"Ri, what happened?" he asks. "Is everything okay?" He keeps hold of my hand, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles as I shake my head.

"No, I don't think so. Hadley sent me an SNS text so it's got to be something bad."

"Okay, let's go," he says, already knowing what our SNS texts stood for. "I'll take you home."

"You can go back to yours after dropping me if you want-"

"No. I'll stay with you. I'm not leaving you now," he says before leaning forward and kissing my forehead. I smile a little as we begin to head out, our hands still linked together while we rushed to the car in a hurried silence.