At the end of the public screening, Delia stayed in her seat while everyone else left.
She had watched a bright, ridiculous comedy in which two people spent ninety minutes pretending not to like each other. Usually she enjoyed that sort of thing. Tonight she had found herself impatient with every interruption, every conveniently misplaced letter, every friend who arrived just before somebody said what they meant.
The auditorium emptied around her. The lights rose. A woman collecting a forgotten scarf smiled at Delia as though they shared a secret, although Delia had no idea what the woman thought it was.
Soren appeared at the door carrying a small bag of trash.
“Still willing?” he asked.
“What are you offering?”
“A film with a running time mercifully under an hour. And possibly terrible coffee.”
“I’ve had enough coffee.”
“Water, then. Much harder to ruin.”
She followed him into the foyer. His assistant was putting on a jacket behind the counter. Soren thanked them, checked something on a sheet, and waited until the door closed before turning the sign around.
The click of the lock made Delia newly aware that they were alone.
He noticed her glance.
“Door opens from inside,” he said, touching the bar. “Any time.”
“I know.”
Still, she was glad he had said it.
A framed poster leaned against the counter, waiting to replace the one in the display beside the entrance. Soren glanced at it and then at the clock.
“I need to put that up before I forget. Two minutes.”
“Can I help?”
“Hold this end?”
She took the frame while he loosened the catches on the display. It was heavier than she expected. He supported the other side, and together they lifted the old poster free.
Delia shifted her grip. “I’ve got it.”
“Hang on. The lower edge catches.”
She had already moved. The frame knocked against the metal lip with a sharp sound.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Just lower it a little.”
She did, feeling foolish. Her sleeves had slipped down over her hands. She pushed one back with her chin while trying not to move the frame again.
Soren looked at her over its top edge.
“Do you want to put it down?”
“Yes.”
They rested it on the floor. She straightened her sleeves, then laughed at the seriousness with which they were treating a picture of a man fleeing an enormous insect.
“He looks more competent than us,” she said.
“He has a bigger budget.”
They tried again. This time she waited for his nod before lifting. The frame slid into place, and he closed the catches while she held it steady. When he stepped back, one corner of the paper had curled inside the glass.
Delia pointed to it.
“I know,” he said.
“Do you want to—”
“Tomorrow.”
She looked at the curl, then at him. He was watching her, amused but also clearly unwilling to open the whole thing again.
“All right.”
“Thank you.”
“For helping or leaving it alone?”
“Both.”
He carried the old frame into a storage alcove. She stood by the counter, rubbing a faint line from the edge of the frame off her palm. When he returned, he looked at her hand.
“Caught you?”
“Just a mark.”
He held out his hand, and she let him take hers. His thumb brushed the reddened place once. The touch was practical for perhaps half a second. Then neither of them moved.
“It’ll live,” she said.
“Yes.”
He let go slowly. She folded her fingers into her palm, holding the warmth there while he turned toward the water jug.
He filled two glasses and asked whether she wanted to sit in the front or farther back. She chose the middle again. He handed her one glass and went upstairs to start the film.
She had a few minutes by herself in the empty auditorium. The room looked different without an audience, larger and a little shabby. A patch on the nearest seat had been repaired with thread slightly darker than the fabric. One shell light tilted away from the wall. She liked seeing those things. The cinema had begun to feel like a place she knew rather than a setting arranged for her holiday.
Soren came down the aisle with the second glass and a folded cardigan.
“Gets cool when there aren’t people in here,” he said, laying it over the seat in front. “In case.”
He sat beside her, leaving the armrest between them.
The film began with a spaceship suspended against a backdrop so obviously painted that Delia laughed before the title appeared.
“You promised terrible,” she said.
“I try to keep my word.”
On screen, three explorers argued about whether to land on an unknown planet. Their controls consisted largely of flashing bulbs and switches arranged without apparent purpose. The captain made a decision everyone immediately regretted.
For the first ten minutes, Delia and Soren supplied occasional commentary. Then the film became strange enough to hold them. The planet’s inhabitants communicated through a series of noises that sounded like furniture being dragged across a floor. One explorer decided this meant they were hostile. Another disagreed. A third wandered off alone, which Delia considered unforgivable in any environment, fictional or otherwise.
Soren laughed when she said so.
“You’d organize them into pairs.”
“And tell someone where they were going.”
“Very sensible. Shorter film.”
“I’d improve their survival rate.”
He rested his arm on the shared armrest. Delia’s hand lay in her lap. She could feel the space between them as distinctly as if something warm occupied it.
She waited through a scene in which the captain attempted diplomacy with a weapon visible at his belt. Then she shifted her arm until it rested beside Soren’s.
He turned his head.
She kept looking at the screen.
A moment later his little finger touched hers. Barely. A question small enough to withdraw without embarrassment.
She moved her hand into his.
The film continued. She lost track of which explorer had gone missing.
His thumb moved over the back of her hand, slow and absent enough that she wondered whether he knew he was doing it. She could feel a pulse in her wrist. Her shoulders relaxed against the seat.
On screen, the lost explorer returned with important information he had apparently obtained through reckless wandering. Delia objected to this reward for bad behavior. Soren said sometimes the wrong method worked.
“That doesn’t make it a good method.”
“No.”
He looked at her when he said it. She wasn’t sure why the single word felt different from the rest of their conversation.
Near the end, the explorers discovered that the noises were music. They had mistaken a welcome for a threat, damaged part of the settlement, and were allowed to leave after a brief apology. The final scene showed them back in their ship, laughing about the adventure.
Delia sat forward.
“Oh, absolutely not.”
Soren began to laugh.
“They broke things. Someone was injured. They can’t just wave and go home.”
“Apparently they can.”
“The apology took twelve seconds.”
“Thirteen, perhaps.”
She pulled her hand free to gesture at the screen. “And now they’re laughing.”
The credits rolled over cheerful music. Soren let her finish explaining the film’s moral failures, then reached for the control that raised the lights.
“You wanted a clear ending,” he said.
“I wanted a better one.”
“Hard to argue with that.”
“You like it?”
“I like how badly they misunderstand everything. I don’t think the ending knows what to do with it.”
She turned toward him. “So you agree with me.”
“On this occasion.”
“Historic.”
He smiled, but his gaze had settled on her face rather than the screen. Delia became aware of the distance between their seats, the angle of her knees toward his, the quiet beyond the last notes of music.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
“No.” He looked down briefly, then back. “I want to kiss you.”
Her breath changed. She could hear it.
“I’d like that.”
He moved slowly enough that she had time to meet him. His hand touched the side of her face, warm against her cheek. The first kiss was gentle and brief, his mouth softer than she expected, his beard brushing her skin.
When he drew back, she kept her eyes closed for a second.
Then she opened them and saw him watching her with an uncertainty that made something in her chest loosen.
She leaned forward and kissed him again.
This time her hand found the front of his shirt. He made a small sound in his throat and turned toward her fully. The armrest pressed against her side. She shifted, laughed against his mouth at the awkwardness, and he laughed too without moving away.
“Terrible seats for this,” he murmured.
“You should complain to the owner.”
“I’ve heard he’s difficult.”
She kissed him before he could say anything else.
The third kiss was less careful. His hand slid from her cheek to the back of her neck, fingers resting beneath her hair. She felt the warmth of him through his shirt, the rise of his chest under her palm. Desire arrived with such directness that she stopped thinking about whether she was ready to feel it.
When they separated, she was smiling. She could tell by the unfamiliar ache in her cheeks.
Soren brushed a curl away from her mouth.
“Hi,” he said, almost foolishly.
She laughed. “Hi.”
They sat looking at each other until the absurdity of that made them both look away.
The screen was blank. Somewhere overhead a fan continued humming. Delia reached for her water and discovered her hand was not quite steady.
He watched her drink, then stood.
“I should switch everything off.”
“All right.”
He picked up his glass, hesitated, and set it down again. Then he bent and kissed her once more, a quick kiss that somehow felt more intimate than the others because it interrupted an ordinary task.
She sat smiling at the empty screen while he went upstairs.
When he returned, she had folded the cardigan and gathered both glasses. He took them from her and they walked into the foyer together.
The clock above the counter showed ten fifteen.
Delia had no wish to leave. The knowledge was sharp and uncomplicated. She wanted to keep hearing his voice, to find out how he looked when he was sleepy, to kiss him somewhere without an armrest between them.
She also wanted tomorrow morning to remain a morning she could meet without feeling she had outrun herself.
“I should go back,” she said.
He nodded, although she saw the same reluctance in his face.
“I’ll walk with you.”
While he closed down, she waited beside the old photograph. He checked the side door, turned off a light, returned for the keys he had left on the counter, and swore quietly when he couldn’t find them under the schedule.
Delia pointed to the shelf beside his elbow.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I put them there so I wouldn’t lose them.”
“A reliable system.”
“Usually.”
Outside, the air was cold enough to make her pull her jacket closed. Soren took her hand without the hesitation of the previous night. They walked slowly, stopping once to let a delivery vehicle reverse into a narrow lane.
She told him about the first monster film she had watched as a child, staying up too late at her mother’s house while Odette pretended not to notice. He told her about being frightened by a scene everyone else in the room found funny. She asked which scene. He admitted it with visible reluctance, and she promised not to laugh before failing almost immediately.
“You promised.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You’re still doing it.”
She pressed her lips together. “It was the face you made when you told me.”
He shook his head, smiling, and squeezed her hand.
At the cottage door, she turned toward him before taking out the key. He kissed her beneath the porch light, one hand at her waist. She rested her palms against his chest and felt his heartbeat, quick enough to reassure her that she wasn’t the only one affected.
The kiss lengthened. She let it. Then she drew back and touched her forehead briefly to his.
“Good night,” she said.
“Good night.”
She unlocked the door and stepped inside. He waited until she turned to wave, then started down the path.
Delia closed the door and stood in the warm room. The cottage looked unchanged, which seemed almost rude. The same books, the same lamp, the same sweater she had left over a chair that morning.
She touched her mouth with two fingers, then laughed at herself and went to wash her face.
On the table, the trip folder lay where she had left it after checking the booking. She opened it to put the cinema ticket inside. The checkout instructions faced her.
Wednesday, May sixteenth. Ten a.m.
She counted without meaning to. Sunday. Monday. Tuesday night.
Four days until she drove home.
She laid the ticket beside the confirmation, its pale paper covering part of the date, and left the folder open.