Page 20 of Made to Be

“You don’t need to wear those in here,” I told him dumbly, licking my lips and shoving the glasses into my pocket.

My heart was racing. When had it started beating so fast?

He nodded, those eyes tracking my mouth. Suddenly, a loud, theatrical boom through the surround sound announced the beginning of the movie. So, Iturned to face the screen but could see from the corner of my eye how Cam continued watching me for just a few more seconds.

I unnecessarily adjusted my own glasses – a nervous tick I couldn’t prevent. My cheeks burned but we both turned our focus to the movie. Well, I tried and failed, distracted as I was by his hand between us. I couldn’t help but notice the way Cam casually rested his hand on the armrest. I watched his fingers tap, tap, tap on the plastic. It was his right hand, so his natural one, not the arm I had attached for him. He had two tattoos on the backs of his fingers. The classic heart potion bottle with flames coming out of its top was on his ring finger while a perfectly detailed tiny skull decorated his index finger.

I admired how large his hand was, muscular with long, thick, calloused fingers. Dirty thoughts began plaguing my mind. Like what that hand would feel like on my body, my skin, inside me... So, I stared instead at the small freckle at where the back of his thumb met his wrist instead.

What a cute freckle. Distracting enough. Yes, adorable. Sweet. So sweet that I wanted to taste it. Lick it...

No, I scolded myself.Bad Vic.

I looked back up to the movie screen and... Nope, I had no clue what was going on. Who was that guy? Didn’t the film just start? How was I already confused? I suddenly had no idea what the movie wasabout. Especially not as Cam reached that hand over, palm up before me.

My heart thudded like I was a middle schooler on a first date. Swallowing thickly and fighting the urge to wipe the nervous palm sweat on my jeans, I reached out and intertwined my fingers through his.

Cam jolted, and his grip relaxed briefly before tightening his fingers around mine.

A low chuckle vibrated from him, so I cast a side glance at him. He was smiling softly down at our joined hands. His thumb, the one with that damned freckle, rubbed idly against the back of my hand.

He leaned toward me and I practically held my breath as he whispered in my ear, warm breath tickling my neck,

“I was going to hold the popcorn.”

I blinked. Then blinked again. What? Oh...Oh.

He hadn’t been offering to hold my hand, he’d been offering to... Wow, I felt like such an idiot as embarrassment rushed through me. Instinctively, I moved to pull my hand from his but he refused, holding on even tighter.

And that was how we sat for the rest of the move.

Even as we were walking out, still hand-in-hand, I couldn’t say for the life of me what the movie was about. But I sure could list off no less than ten weirdly specific details about Cam’s hand and fingers.And more than twice that of things I knew I wanted him to do to me with them.

With the first part of the date a total success in my books, I pulled Cam along after me to the second half.

As we were standing at the entrance of the theatre’s arcade, the combined noise from the various games filled the air. I gazed up at Cam expectantly and he gazed right back, eyes once more hidden behind the sunglasses.

And we were still holding hands.

“I think that I’m... very bad at arcade games,” Cam said, still smiling at me.

My grin was playful as I added, “Then let’s go be bad together, shall we?”

***

Wewereterrible. At every single game. Even Whac-A-Mole. Seriously, who was bad at Whac-A-Mole? But boy was it fun. As the afternoon progressed, Cam seemed to loosen up more and more, smile brighter and laugh harder.

It unwound some anxious part of me that worried Cam and I wouldn’t mesh well together. Yeah, I had brought him back to life with the intentions of dating him, but that didn’t mean I would have forced it had we not gotten on well. And maybe I was delusional or hopeful but... we got along really, really well. It kindof scared me how wonderfully we harmonized, how we laughed at the same things and how he even understood the nerdy references I made out of habit.

And, to my delight, our physical contact grew more frequent too.

When we weren’t holding hands, Cam was brushing his arm against mine, I was rubbing my hand over his shoulders, he was placing his palm at the small of my back... My flirting was matched by his flirting. Every touch left me electrified. Supercharged and eager to spend even more time with him.

Once we had played most games at least twice, we rounded up our tickets, giggling like schoolgirls.

“Here,” I handed him my meager pile of tickets, which was half the size of Cam’s. “Will you cash these in? I have to run to the restroom.”

“What prize do you want?” he asked me.