Sweet Little Birds (BxB Romance, Completed)

Chapter 32: Popcorn

After spending most of the week working on his presentation for the Tully scholarship, Robin was exhausted. But he had, with the assistance of Professor Royce, successfully adapted his essay into a proposal for a research project. Currently, he chose to push away all thoughts of the coming presentation as the mere prospect made it hard for him to breathe. He would focus on that later.

But he would get no time to rest his frazzled mind during the weekend, as he currently was getting a walk-through of his new workplace.

"And here's the break room," Samuel, Robin's new manager--who bore little resemblance to his sister, Miss Horn, who was the one who had told Robin that the mall cinema was looking to hire and also volunteered to be his reference--ended Robin's tour. They had walked through theaters, ticket booths, and snack kiosks for the better part of an hour. "I'll leave you with one of the guys for the rest of the day. He'll show you the ropes so you can get started."

The door swung open to reveal a bunch of teenage employees by a table, all dressed in the cinema's moss green uniform. They kind of looked like Santa's elves in their matching clothing. Robin had himself been handed a polo shirt and visor upon arrival and now sported the same directly-from-Santa's-workshop look.

"Tristan!" the manager called out and one of the green-clad workers rose at the command.

Robin recognized him immediately. Tall, gangly, and with brown eyes like a deer. Tristan Conway. The captain of the quiz bowl team. Robin's high school crush. The one his mother snatched away from him.

They'd never been more than friends. But his mother must have seen something in that friendship that made warning lights flash. Perhaps they sat too close during a break in a game. Perhaps Robin had thrown one too many looks Tristan's way. Perhaps a high-five lasted a moment longer than necessary. Whatever it was, it had made her immediately pull Robin from the quiz bowl team and refuse to enroll him in additional after-school activities for the rest of his high school tenure. And Liza had also started to show up randomly in the school corridors to survey who Robin hung out with during lunch and recess.

But his mother wasn't here now. Although, Robin couldn't help but fear her sudden appearance from around a corner at an inopportune time.

"Robin Erie," Tristan greeted him enthusiastically with a smile that was just as wide as Robin remembered. But yet it didn't make his insides flutter like before. Only green eyes and sugar-encrusted lips could do that now. "I haven't seen you since high school. Although I never really saw you after you dropped out of the quiz bowl team. We really could have used you for regionals."

"Great, you two already know each other." Samuel looked pleased with this development. "Then you can take it from here, Tristan. I need to head home. Gillian will be mad if I'm not home in time for dinner."

Quickly, the manager turned around and left the break room, leaving Robin under Tristan's tutelage.

"Are you at uni here in Port Vale as well?" Tristan asked Robin, who was stumped on how to act during this unforeseen reunion. Which to be fair wasn't an unusual state for him. "I'm doing computer engineering at ValTech."

"I'm-I'm at Vale U," Robin stuttered in reply. "Business degree. Although I may be switching to Psychology." He wasn't sure why he felt it necessary to add that. Perhaps because the field resonated with him so much more than dry business studies.

"That's cool!" Tristan exclaimed. "Are you on the quiz bowl team there? We're going up against them soon."

Robin shook his head. "I'm not doing quiz bowl stuff anymore," he said. "But perhaps I should again." The idea was kind of a revelation to Robin. If he could figure out a solution to his tuition issues, his mom couldn't control his after-school activities anymore. He could do whatever he wanted. Although he already knew his preferred after-school activity: cuddling with Tyler.