After coffee and a shared maple donut, Hayley and Evan stepped outside CoCo’s into the late dawn of mid-morning. In winter, it was Hayley’s favorite time of day, when the light was in its infancy. It felt like a new relationship, where anything was still possible.

“Where to now?” she asked.

“To the Moondance,” Evan said.

The theater was a three-block walk up Main Street. The mid-twenty-degree temperature was refreshing for Hayley, but she remembered how blistering it had felt her first winter after having moved from Florida, and so she took a moment and turned up the collar on Evan’s parka, and tugged the flaps of his hat down more snugly.

“Thanks, Mom.”

She smiled. “Ha.”

“Even though I knew it would be cold here, I didn’t anticipate the reality of it,” Evan said. “It was ten below last night, and I walked home from work and it was insane. I had my hat on, and my scalp tingled beneath the hat because it still felt the cold.”

“Wait until it’s thirty below and windy and icy and snowing,” she said. “Then you’ll know you’ve made it.”

“Is it true you can toss a pot of boiling water into the air and it’ll freeze and turn into ice crystals before it hits the ground?”

“Only if you do it outside,” she said with a teasing smile.

He elbowed her. “Seriously, you guys take such pride in enduring your weather. What’s that about?”

“We’re proud of not being wimps,” she said. “We’re the tough ones. You can look around and literally every person in town has the fortitude to handle winters from hell. It bonds us, because no one gets through it alone. You learn to rely on people, and to be relied on. And then we get the gorgeous summers as our reward. Year after year, the flowers bloom for us. Just wait until you experience an Alaskan summer. Your senses will be overloaded with beauty.”

“They already are,” he said. “Winter’s a thing of beauty here, too—if not a thing of color.”

“That’s true,” she said. “Anyway, I hope you don’t regret moving here.”

“It’s an adventure. I needed to make a radical change, and this definitely qualifies.”

His words seemed like an invitation. “Why did you need to make a change?”

He glanced at her. “You want to hear my sad story?”

“Of course!”

“Well, the short version is I found out my girlfriend of five years was cheating on me with my best friend.”

Hayley’s mouth dropped open. “Is this recent?”

“About three months ago,” he said. “We lived together, and when I moved out, he moved in. Took my place without a word of apology.”

“Geez,” Hayley said, and couldn’t help but notice he seemed a little embarrassed by his admission. “If it helps, I think most people move to Alaska to get away from something. Or someone. So you can come and re-invent yourself.”

When they arrived at the Moondance Theater, Evan unlocked the front door and they went inside. Hayley took a moment to appreciate the lobby’s renovation. The theater dated back to the early 1900s. It, like the city, had been built during Alaska’s gold rush. It had fallen into disrepair during one of the city’s bust cycles, but after a striking renovation was now one of the city’s proud landmarks, the crown jewel of downtown. The stage was replete with velvet curtains, the ceiling was an art deco design, and the original massive glass chandelier had been restored. On the walls of the lobby hung black-and-white photographs from the early days of Golden Falls.

“Don’t you love walking in here every day?” she asked Evan. “It’s so gorgeous.”

“I love the grandeur,” he said. “Here, let me have your coat. I’ll put our stuff in the office.”

It took a few minutes to take everything off—scarves, hats, gloves, coats. Hayley kept on her shearling vest in case the theater was cold.

“Come this way.” Evan led her into the theater and swept his arm across the expanse of it. “Pick a seat. Any seat.”

“No way!” Hayley took in the empty theater. “Are we going to watch a movie? Just the two of us?”

“Not just any movie,” Evan said. “Where would you like to sit?”

“We can actually go from seat to seat if we want, can’t we?”

“Yes, and we can also scream at the top of our lungs, or talk as loud as we want, and no one’s going to shush us or kick us out.”

“This is so cool!” She pointed to the exact middle spot of the theater, center seats about halfway up. “How about there?”

“Works for me,” Evan said. “I’ll be right back. I have a few treats for us.”

He’d set up a small table at the base of the stairs, and he moved it to the aisle she’d chosen. While he was gone, Hayley looked around with a broad grin on her face. She felt like a queen, having the theater all to herself. He came back a few minutes later carrying a large tray filled with popcorn, mineral water, and about ten boxes of movie-theater candy. Hayley selected a box of Junior Mints to start with.

“I’ve got one last thing to do,” Evan said.

He set the tray on the little table and left again. When Hayley saw the movie projector light illuminate, she turned and waved to him. He waved back and pointed to the screen, and her heart leapt when she saw the movie choice: The Philadelphia Story, which she’d told him was her favorite on the night they met.

Evan returned from the projection room while the MGM lion was roaring. Just seeing the names Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart on-screen, accompanied by the heart-racing piano score, made her feel hyper and excited.

“Hurry!” she called. She folded down the seat beside her so he could slip right into it. “You don’t want to miss the opening sequence!”

He hustled over, and when he sat down, she offered him a Junior Mint. He took one out of her hand with a sweet sideways smile.

“How many times have you seen this movie?” he asked.

“Probably twenty,” she said. “I watch it about twice a year, maybe more. You?”

“About the same. At my last theater, we had a classics night every week, and it was a double feature, so we ran the most popular movies a lot. Usually we’d play an obscure one and pair it with a popular one.”

They stopped talking and watched the opening sequence in which Cary Grant pushes Katharine Hepburn to the ground. Then they laughed together at the comic manner in which the dissolution of the on-screen marriage was handled.

“I love how the music ties into their actions so perfectly,” Hayley said.

Evan nodded. “But can you imagine it today? The Avengers, fighting to the beat?”

“That would be super funny!”

She poured him a handful of Junior Mints and they turned back to the film. As they chomped on popcorn, it occurred to Hayley it was the sort of first date you’d tell your kids about. Evan was a thoughtful dater, not a lazy or self-absorbed one like so many men were.

“I’m glad you kept this a surprise,” she whispered to him.

“You don’t have to whisper. We’re the only ones here.”

“I’M GLAD YOU KEPT THIS A SURPRISE!” she shouted.

They exchanged a grin and went back to viewing the movie.

Evan leaned over toward her during the scene when Jimmy Stewart sings to Katharine Hepburn. “I always kind of wish she’d married Jimmy Stewart.”

Hayley disagreed. “She loved Cary Grant first, and she never stopped loving him. Jimmy Stewart couldn’t compete with that.”

“You’re right.” Evan smiled as Cary Grant punched Jimmy Stewart in the face. “But you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

Hayley glanced at him. Evan was nice, no question about it. Considerate. Available. But as she sat next to him, their elbows almost-but-not-quite touching, she had no urge to move closer. No desperate wish for him to put his arm around her shoulders or his hand on her knee.

Unable to help herself, she imagined Josh there instead.

She wanted Josh there instead.

He would put his hand on her knee. She would snuggle her head against his shoulder. Her heart would be pounding. The movie would play on as he kissed her, their tongues dancing, the armrest between them a barrier to more. Hayley would push him away, tell him to behave himself, and they would watch the rest of the movie. She wondered what Josh would think of it, if he would like it.

Stop that, she told herself abruptly. You’re not here with Josh, you’re here with Evan. Who set this up for you, who’s funny and friendly and good-looking and AVAILABLE.

She put her head on Evan’s shoulder, and he tilted his head against hers, and even though Hayley felt no zing from it, it was still nice.

Their first date ended with a kiss on the cheek outside the theater, and as Hayley walked to her office for the afternoon, objectively she thought it couldn’t have gone any better. Sure, she hadn’t felt the same shock of lust like when she thought about Josh, but not feeling it this early was by no means a deal breaker.

Josh, on the other hand, did have a deal-breaker. Not wanting long-term. Hayley was sure once she got Josh out of her head, she’d feel plenty of lust for Evan.