Chapter Fourteen

Sophia It was Friday already, and I was waiting for the rest of the group so we could all go and watch the latest X-Men movie. I still felt a little awkward about going out with a bunch of hockey players. I wondered if any of them knew I’d hated them silently earlier, before I started dating Elijah?

Elijah had told me we could make it a date and sit separately from his friends, though, which made me feel so much less anxiety.

My classes ended earlier in the day, but Elijah had one in the afternoon, so after my class, I ended up in my dorm room, waiting. Logan and Dana both got lucky, and they were out doing whatever, they would meet up with the rest of the group later.

As I waited for Elijah, I sat at my desk and studied. Just because I was dating someone and got to go out more than I stayed in now didn’t mean I could be lax in my studies. My mom was going through a lot of trouble to pay my tuition because it was the school I’d always wanted to go to. Somehow, I wanted to pay her back, and I couldn’t do that if I weren’t taking my studies seriously.

Thankfully, I’d gotten a lot of assignments done before, so I opened up the school’s portal and got caught up, then went on to studying.

The moment my cell, right beside me on the table, rang though, I dropped everything and picked it up. It was a text from Elijah, letting me know he was on his way up.

I put the books aside and closed my computer, then got up. I’d been dressed for a while already, so I just touched up my hair and make-up a little and put on my sneakers. When he knocked on the door, I was ready, and I didn’t keep him waiting. I pulled the door open and paused as I looked up at Elijah. He grinned at me, looking radiant in his dark blue shirt and black jeans. The shirt brought out the deep color of his eyes, and my breath hitched.

“You wanna drag me into your room for some fun again, right?” he guessed, arching an eyebrow at me as his grin turned into a smirk.

My face warmed as I scowled at him. “Let’s go, or we’ll be late.”

He placed his hands on either side of the doorjamb and leaned closer to me, so close that I could feel his breath on my face. I didn’t move back, though. My head tilted up instinctively, wanting a kiss from him.

Elijah’s eyes flashed, then hid behind his lids as he pressed his lips to mine, and my own eyes fluttered closed. I pushed back on the tips of my toes as he rose up to full height to keep my lips pressed against his, but the difference in our height was unmistakable. The kiss was too short for me, and I frowned up at him with a slight pout, already heaving slightly.

“If we don’t go now, we’ll be late,” he said cheekily with a crooked grin.

“If you knew that, then why would you bait me,” I muttered, closing the door behind me, but I was smiling.

Our hands naturally reached for each other, and I let Elijah lead me out of the dorm. The movie theater we were going to was close to the school and popular with the students because of this. Whoever built it had an idea of what they were doing. It was a Friday afternoon, and between today and the weekend, a lot of students will be going there to watch movies. As long as it wasn’t during exam time, there was almost a guarantee some student from our school would be there, and we were going with an especially large group today.

If we went too late, we wouldn’t get any good seats, so we were going separately from the rest of the hockey team. We walked holding hands the whole way, with me sticking close to Elijah’s side. I was feeling giddy, because we were going on another date, and it was to watch something we both liked.

By the time we got there, there was already a crowd forming, though not everyone had moved to the ticket booth yet. We headed over there first, and I let Elijah pay for the tickets, my face warming up as I smiled to myself, biting down on my lip. It had been so long since I went on any proper dates, and the last guy I dated didn’t always pay for stuff if we went out at all. Usually, he took us to his place, or followed me to mine, or hung out wherever we could be alone if it were free.

Thinking back, with all the cues he’d been sending, he was probably only after me to sleep with me. He didn’t even look for me after our disastrous first time, though at the time I had been glad for it.

“Would you like something to eat?” Elijah asked as we moved away from the ticket booth with our tickets. “There’s plenty of snacks around. The movie won’t be starting for another half an hour, so we could go to the food court and sit down to eat?”

“Why don’t we buy some stuff we can go in with?” I said anxiously. “It might get crowded if we go too late.”

“All right,” he said, looking around. “Let me know if there’s something you want then.”

I didn’t want to be greedy, but Elijah kept nudging me, and I ended up picking a lot of snacks. This wasn’t my first time at the theater. In my first year, I’d come with Dana, and we ended up watching a romantic fantasy movie. We were both on a budget at the time, but going out with Dana was so much different from going out with Elijah.

He bought some stuff for himself, and by the time we made our way into the theater our movie would be showing, we had arms full of snacks. I felt a little embarrassed since there were already people inside and even before we went in, there were people looking at us in surprise.

Elijah opened up a packet of chips and started to eat even before the movie started. I wanted to talk to him about the movie before it started, but I hesitated, seeing him stuff his face. He must have been hungry. Thinking that I looked forward and waited in excitement, practically vibrating in my seat. I already knew the movie was out, and I’d thought I would have to wait a few weeks for the movie to be released online before I could watch it, and I would still have had to buy it.

This was so much better.

I munched slowly on popcorn as I waited, the room slowly filling up as we waited. Ten minutes after we walked in, other movie trailers and advertisements started rolling on the big screen. By the time the movie was about to start, the theater room was filled up. Elijah’s friends had come at some point, and I’d heard them catcalling at us for coming ahead without them, and at the bunch of snacks we bought, but Elijah just shouted at them. I didn’t even turn around.

When the movie started, I was transfixed.

“Do you want me to get you something else?” Elijah asked.

I spared him a quick glance, not wanting to miss the start of the move, and shook my head at him.

“Um, no? We still have so much stuff. Watch the movie, okay?”

I thought Elijah was acting a little shifty. My focus was on the screen, but I could feel him fidget beside me. Without thinking, I reached for his hand. When I realized just what I’d done, and that he wasn’t taking my hand immediately, I wanted to pull back. But he caught my hand before I could, and I squeezed his hand lightly, eating with my other hand as I kept my eyes on the screen.

For the rest of the movie, we sat like that. My attention was divided between Elijah’s hand in mine and the movie playing out on the big screen. I didn’t think I could have been any happier.

This was exactly what I’d been looking for when I joined that dating site. And while I hadn't expected it to be with Elijah, it was still amazing to be with a guy that liked the things I liked, that I liked being around with no awkwardness between us. That knew what he was doing between the sheets, so I was always left wanting more instead of wanting to run away.

As the movie came to an end, I carried that haze of happiness with me, and I turned to Elijah with a huge grin to ask what he liked best in the movie, only to be surprised.

Is he sleeping?

I looked down at our hands, still holding onto each other. His grip was strong, so I hadn't realized it when he nodded off. Carefully, I pulled my hand out of his and shook him awake. He startled, his eyes opening wide, then he turned to me.

“What?”

“The movie’s over,” I said, arching an eyebrow.

“Oh,” he murmured, looking around as he rubbed a hand down his face. “Sorry about that.”

“When did you even fall asleep?” I asked with a frown. “Was it in the middle of the movie? Are you sure you’re ok?”

I didn’t think I could have fallen asleep if I’d gone the past two days without sleep, and Elijah had looked fine earlier.

“Sorry,” he said with a tiny smile. “I was just a bit tired, we had heavy practice yesterday, and I didn’t sleep much last night. Can we go now?”

He got up and waited for me, helping me to pick up our trash and the leftover snacks, of which there were a lot. Elijah managed to finish up all of his, but I was too preoccupied with the movie, so I only had the popcorn and my drink.

I followed behind him willingly, and we met up with his friends outside. I watched him as he started talking with them. They were all raving about the movie, and Elijah looked like he couldn’t follow a damn thing they were saying. But…he was supposed to be a big fan of the franchise, just like I was. When we talked online, he’d told me a lot about what he liked in X-Men, yet he looked like he didn’t even know most of the characters the others were mentioning.

It was hard to meet a character in an X-Men movie I wasn’t familiar with because they all came from the comic. The recent movie had brought out a bunch of new characters that people that only watched the movies would think were new. But, a true fan would know.

Did Elijah…lie to me? Was he not the perfect match I thought he was? He couldn’t have known it was me from the beginning, so was he lying about all of it?

Why?

I could feel myself start to grow uneasy. People would only lie on a dating site because they wanted to get laid. Elijah hadn't made me think he was that way, from the time we started chatting online to when he came out to me about being Student X.

What if… Was it all a lie? I liked to think I’d come to know Elijah well in the time since we’d been dating, but just how well did I know him? Besides his major, the fact that he was a hockey player and came from a well-off family…

I didn’t know that much about Elijah. There was what I knew from his profile, but how much of that was even true, and how much of it was a lie?

My mood completely soured as negative thoughts circled each other in my mind.