Unfortunately I was one of those people that never knew how to handle a compliment well from people I wasn’t close to, or even know what to say afterward. My face got a little warm and I smiled at him. “Thank you.”
I smiled at him once more before looking back at Sacha who was busy inspecting my face again. He smiled but it was a distracted, distant sort of look. The entire walk through the parking lot and the mall was surprisingly quiet. Isaiah hadn’t really spoken more than two handfuls of words to me in the nearly three weeks we’d been on tour, and Sacha was strangely silent. After buying our movie tickets, I nudged my gray-eyed friend when Isaiah said he was going to the restroom. We got in line at the concession stand.
“Is he usually really quiet around everyone?” I asked, gesturing with my head in Isaiah’s retreating direction.
“Isaiah?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
Sacha nodded his head, keeping his eyes locked on the menu mounted from the ceiling. “Yeah. He doesn’t talk much.”
I wasn’t much of a talker unless I felt comfortable around someone, and it just so happened that I was surrounded by three of the people that already knew the best and the worst parts of me. If I couldn’t be myself around them, who could I be myself around? For some reason, something about Sacha put me at ease and he happened to be an exception.
He didn’t say anything else as the line ahead of us shortened, and it was really beginning to weird me out. Why was he being so quiet? It wasn’t like I needed to talk all the time, but still. Everything had been fine before I’d showered, so the change in his attitude was pretty confusing.
“Are you okay?” I finally tapped into my imaginary balls to ask, turning just slightly at the shoulders to glance at him.
He frowned, still keeping his gaze on the menu. “Yes, why?”
“You’re being really quiet,” I said.
Sacha finally looked down at me. He hadn’t put on any hair products and his hair was loose and shiny, the longer length falling to the side over the shorter side of his scalp. “My mind is somewhere else,” he said apologetically. His light eyes glanced at the neckline of my dress so briefly I almost missed it.
What I didn’t miss was his fingers going up to touch the braid draped over my shoulder.
“You look really nice,” he commented.
I would have preferred “pretty” but beggars can’t be choosers. “Nice” was polite and not at all creepy or aggressive. I smiled at my friend, one of the best-looking friends I’d ever had in my life. “Thanks.”
He blinked at me, smiling that distant smile one more time, making me wonder where exactly his mind was. “Want to share a popcorn?”
“Are you asking if I’ll get some so you can eat it?” I stared at him suspiciously.
He shrugged the same way he always did. “Yeah, pretty much.”
Well, I always did appreciate people who were honest.
“I’ll buy a drink if you get the popcorn,” he offered.
I snuck another glance at him. He was wearing the same thing he usually had on when he wasn’t onstage: running shorts, a T-shirt and his good pair of green-and-black tennis shoes. “Done.”
He curled his lips behind his teeth, giving me a hopeful look. “Butter?”
“Butter.”
A few minutes later, we settled into our seats in the theater with our concession-stand purchases. He gestured toward the extra-large water bottle he’d bought. “Want some?”
“Sure,” I said, already taking it out of the cup holder. I twisted the lid off, held it up a couple inches above my mouth and was about to pour it when he groaned.
“Drink from the bottle. I don’t have cooties.”
“You never know,” I mumbled, putting the opening to my mouth. He plucked the medium-sized bag of popcorn from my lap while I took a sip.
Handsome, perfect Sacha, with a voice that gave me goosebumps every night, grabbed a handful of popcorn and shoved half the fistful directly into his mouth. “So good,” he moaned through an overflowing mouthful.
Isaiah hadn’t reappeared since he’d left for the restroom. Sacha had sent him a text message telling him we’d wait for him inside the theater. Nearly at the same time, we both kicked up our legs to rest our feet on the back of the seats in front of us.
My new friend grabbed more popcorn and shoved it into his mouth.
