Eli shoved his face in his hands and groaned like his dog had just died. He never should have said word one to Kalea but controlling his mouth around his BFF wasn’t one of his strong suits.

“Holy crap,” she hissed at him before turning back to her customer. “Four seventy-five, please. You got buck naked with the sheriff in the lake and then you kissed him?”

“Say it louder, Kalea. I don’t think Mr. Pederson heard you.” Eli glared at his best friend, who was perched on a rolling chair in the tiny ticket booth of the town movie theater, handing over change to the elderly man who clutched his lemon-yellow ticket stub in one hand.

“Good evening, Kalea. Eli.” The library board member, and Eli’s regular patron, nodded at them.

“Hi, Mr. Pederson,” Eli said, desperately cheerful and praying the man hadn’t heard Kalea. “I’ve got that Ben Franklin bio on hold for you, you know.”

“I’ll be in on Tuesday. Right after my trim and polish. Can’t miss my appointment.” The elderly bachelor was as regular as clockwork, hitting the library right after his biweekly haircut and shoe shine at the barbershop. “Especially now that the scenery is so pretty.”

A few years back, Clear Lake’s one barbershop had had to admit its demographic was rapidly aging itself out of existence. The two brothers who owned the shop had argued about it, as they did about every subject in existence from sunrise to sunset—this habit being the reason they were both still single at sixty-plus years old, town gossips were known to speculate—and come up with a solution that still provoked the occasional debate in the post office.

They’d rented out the third chair in the shop to a young woman, who not only cut hair in styles that hadn’t been seen walking out the door of the barbershop in, well, ever. She also sometimes, it was whispered around town, even colored or bleached the hair of the young men who now came into the shop by droves. All while wearing what were reported to be scandalously short skirts and sleeveless tops, many of which showed off her tattoos.

Eli was dying to book an appointment with the new stylist but couldn’t justify blowing the cash on a cut when Kalea took clippers and scissors to his head every month. After fifteen years of practice, she had the short-in-back, long-fringe-of-bangs-in-front look he preferred down cold, thank God. The early days of their home salon experiment were still referred to as the Everything-Can-Be-Fixed-with-a-Buzz-Cut years. For reasons. “Things still pretty hot up in the barbershop?”

“Oh, you should’ve heard Bill and Arnie when she sent the Thompson boy out of there with his hair blue like a peacock.” Mr. Pederson shook his head, but his grin shone bright. “And standing up like one too.”

“I can imagine.”

“But that girl, Sammie—boy’s name, ha!—she gives it right back to them. She’s a little spitfire.”

“Maybe she’ll come by the library some time.” He definitely wanted to meet the woman who could go toe to toe every day with the Simpson brothers without losing her cool and storming out of town. He couldn’t imagine why someone like that would end up coming to a small town like Clear Lake from anywhere else, but she could probably use some friends under eighty, especially since she was new in town.

New in town brought up thoughts of Joe, which Eli ruthlessly squashed in order to listen to Mr. Pederson.

“I’ll tell her you’ve got the eye, Eli. Best I’ve ever known for picking out the right book.”

He grinned and threw the dapper old man a salute, a genuine warmth glowing in his belly from the compliment. Eli was proud of that: his ability to learn his patrons’ secret fondnesses and icks—things they didn’t even know themselves—until he could eventually suggest books to someone like Mr. Pederson that ranged far from his comfort zones, but still hit his every reader-pleasure button and turned him on to a new treasured author.

“You’ve always been my favorite.” And it was almost entirely true. He got a salute of his own in return, and a click of the heels.

“Bet you say that to all the Civil War buffs.”

“I’m telling you. Wait until you get a load of Ben Franklin. You’re going to love him.” Eli knew it would be a good match. Mr. Pederson loved best the superior strategists of the Civil War, Sherman and Jackson, and Benjamin Franklin’s skilled manipulation of the European powers to help the fledgling nation he represented as an ambassador was going to win him over in a heartbeat. Stacy Schiff’s A Great Improvisation was sitting on Eli’s hold shelf with a sheet of paper marked Pederson rubber banded around it.

“Tuesday, for sure. And thank you.” Mr. Pederson nodded. “That’s the kind of book people want to find at the library. Better than another display like that one you had with the agenda about the Indians.”

Eli gritted his teeth, a whole bunch of his fondness and good will evaporating in an instant. “We say Native Americans now, Mr. Pederson.”

“I just don’t see what was wrong with things the way Mrs. Williams did them,” Mr. Pederson groused, calling back to the “good old days”—as Eli’s regulars often did—before Eli’s promotion to Head Librarian. “Always loved her Lewis and Clark display, with the little canoe on the river.”

Eli reminded himself that the goal was always to educate, not antagonize, but he couldn’t bite his tongue entirely.

“Mr. Pederson, do you know how many times the library has had a Lewis and Clark display in the past forty years?” Before Mr. Pederson had a chance to open his mouth, Eli bowled right over him. His predecessor had kept meticulous notes. “Thirty-seven times. Do you know how times the library has done educational programming about the Kaskaskia, Peoria, and Cahokia tribes from our region?”

Mr. Pederson pressed his lips together.

“Twice. So I think we can take a break from Lewis and Clark for a little bit,” he snapped, immediately regretting it. Getting cranky with a board member was not going to help his situation. He needed to guide them gently. Or throw the baby out with the bathwater and get a whole new board. Ha. I wish. In any case, Mr. Pederson was one of the board members who hadn’t complained about the Pride display, so Eli reminded himself that everyone could learn, eventually. “But I look forward to talking about that Franklin biography with you. And I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

“Hmmph.” Mr. Pederson fumbled his ticket into his pocket, arthritic fingers clutching the paper stub. “Guess you will.”

Eli raised an eyebrow at Kalea as soon as Mr. Pederson was out of earshot in an old game they’d played since working the candy counter together in high school when Kalea’s parents had run the movie theater.

“Oh, please. Small popcorn, extra butter, and a Good ‘n’ Plenty.” Kalea’s memory for her customers’ favorite snacks was legendary. She glanced at where Mr. Pederson leaned against the glass counter, flirting with the high school girl pumping butter on his popcorn—yes, a small—and tilted her head toward Eli. “He skips the pop these days. Says he can’t make it through the movie any more without needing ‘the facilities.’”

“God. Let’s never get old.”

“Deal. You know Doc Lambert used the b-word on me during my exam last week.”

Eli pulled his eyebrows together, trying to figure out what on earth Kalea meant, since it simply wasn’t possible the gruff but gentle optometrist had called one of his patients a bitch. “What—?”

“Bifocals.” The final S was hissed out like a snake. “I’m only twenty-eight years old, for God’s sake.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

A flipped middle finger was Kalea’s only reply as she punched buttons that caused strips of tickets to spit out from the metal counter. She made change for the group of teens who tumbled in the doors like a pile of puppies, before her face brightened at the sight of her next customer. Eli leaned from his spot in the doorway to the little ticket booth to catch a glimpse.

“Hey, Mayor Wagner,” he said with a smile. Clear Lake’s mayor was his grandmas’ age, with a sharper tongue than any of them, and he loved her.

“Are you getting into trouble again with the library board, Mr. Devine?” the mayor asked with a smile, her perfectly coiffed silver hair coiled in a bun on top of her head.

A flash of memory—Joe Baxter in the moonlight, silver shining on the lake water sprinkling his skin, telling Eli he didn’t seem like the type to take trouble quietly—blew through him. And maybe something about the lake and the moonlight was indeed magic, because instead of apologizing, Eli spread his feet and faced the mayor confidently. “The board’s job is to provide financial oversight and create policy, but my job is to supervise staff and volunteers and create programming. I plan on continuing to do that with all my passion and skill. Ma’am.”

“I thought your job was the serve the needs of your constituents,” the mayor said mildly, keeping a shrewd eye on him as she waited for Eli’s reply.

“Yes, ma’am, it is. But if we want to have any constituents in the future, we need to make sure our town thrives. And you know as well as I do that demonstrating our acknowledgment of our history, making amends, and displaying our inclusiveness going forward are the keys to growth.”

He was hitting the mayor where it counted, because he knew Mayor Wagner had campaigned to hire the high school’s first African-American teacher just two years before. She’d argued the town needed to make sure all Clear Lake children saw representation throughout their education and had won the day with overwhelming support.

Now, Mayor Wagner narrowed her eyes at him, as if calculating how she could use Eli’s new outspokenness to her advantage.

“Well, maybe you need more allies on the town council, Mr. Devine,” the mayor said, her tone arch. Then she lobbed her last cannonball at them before heading into the lobby, with an extra sharp glance for Kalea. “A local business owner with a strong interest in promoting inclusive programming at the library could do worse than consider a run for town council, where she would be in a position to influence library board appointments.”

Dead silence fell in the mayor’s wake. Eli could hear his heartbeat in his ears.

Hell, he could hear Kalea’s heartbeat.

“Holy shit,” she breathed next to him.

“Yeah.”

“Did the mayor just suggest I run for town council so I can influence appointments to the library board to make sure you keep putting up Pride and Black Lives Matter displays?”

Eli wasn’t sure he hadn’t accidentally flipped into some parallel universe, himself. “I think maybe she did.”

He turned to face Kalea head-on, blood pumping in his veins. “And I think you should do it. Not just for me. But because this town needs new ideas. Young people. Anyone who isn’t old and white and living in the fifties. And I’ll be your first campaign volunteer.”

Kalea wrinkled her nose. “Can you do that?”

“I’ll double-check, but I think I only can’t volunteer in situations where I’d have a direct impact on library budget and hiring decisions. None of which a candidate for office can influence.” The grin dawning on his face felt like it might break his cheeks. “So, yeah, I’m pretty sure I can. If you’re up for it, that is.”

She shared a sparkling smile with him. “You know, I think I am.”

Congratulatory hugs and some popcorn with butter sealed the deal. Joy fizzed in Eli like champagne bubbles in his blood. There were no guarantees, of course. But just the idea of doing something made him feel good, something even more direct and actionable than the inclusive programming he’d initiated at the library. Made him feel powerful and full of daring. It was the same feeling that had flooded him when he’d stood in front of his first Pride Month display at the library and prepared to unlock the front doors. Only with a whole lot less nerves this time.

As the next showtimes arrived, he watched another group of teens head toward the candy counter after buying tickets, boys and girls clumping up in small groups and then spreading out into a diffuse crowd again, like a flock of birds circling and then landing at the Concessions counter.

“Remind me to send Cassie to check on the back doors five minutes after they go in,” Kalea said to him over her shoulder.

“I’ll do it. I’d love to go all terrifying authority figure on a couple of kids tonight.” Eli knew exactly which long and twisting hallways led to the emergency doors at the back of the theater, the ones kids were always propping open so their friends could sneak in.

He knew where the doors were because he and Kalea had snuck half the senior class into the movies years ago, back when they’d been goofy teens, and not responsible adults.

Clearly it was time for them to teepee the principal’s house or something equally ridiculous, if only in the name of reclaiming their youth.

“Hey, did I tell you?” she asked in between ticket sales. “The Film Studies department at St. Francis wants to do, like, an art show of their senior project here. Hang things on the lobby walls and stuff.”

Eli sat up straight on the polished wooden bench that ran along the wall outside her ticket booth. The town was proud of its association with the small liberal arts college on their outskirts. He sometimes thought the tiny tinge of cosmopolitan awareness that made Clear Lake livable for him and a handful of other young people, most of whom were fleeing rural Illinois for the big cities in droves, was due almost exclusively to the college’s presence.

Something about experimental theater and nineteen-year-olds with funky clothes and passionate political opinions brought out the best in even their little town.

“Sounds interesting. What are they doing?” he asked.

“The history of superhero films in American cinema,” Kalea said excitedly. “I’m going to run all kinds of stuff to complement the films they’re showing on campus.”

“Cool. I just got the new Black Panther graphic novels in at the library, by the way. What kind of stuff do they want to put up in here?”

The lobby walls were lined with large gold frames holding Coming Soon posters that advertised movies coming to the theater next week through next year. The second-run theater didn’t get the blockbusters for months after they were released—foreign films showed up a lot faster—but most people in town didn’t make the ninety-minute trek to the nearest first-run theater unless their number one Hollywood crush had a new film out.

“Put the Black Panther on hold for me?” she asked, and he nodded. “One of their panels is about diversity, or the lack thereof, in superhero flicks. They’re recreating movie posters with other actors in the title role. You know, Idris Elba as Batman. Naveen Andrews as Superman. Diego Luna as Sherlock Holmes.”

“One, Sherlock Holmes is not a superhero—”

Kalea’s gasp was so loud the candy counter girl boosted herself up onto the counter to check out her boss.

“Off the glass!” Kalea rapped out and the teen dropped back out of sight. She turned a baleful eye on Eli, who started shaking his head preemptively. “Bite your tongue, heathen. Sherlock is totally superhero material.”

“Superheroes need superpowers. Being a sociopathic genius is not a superpower.”

“Fights crime. Saves the day. Performs astonishing feats mere humans cannot hope to match.” Kalea didn’t need time to think of her response. She probably had it tattooed on her inner forearm, ready for oratorical emergencies.

“Two—” he talked over his friend’s sputtering protests, changing the subject because there was no way he was going to win a superhero trivia argument with the queen of comic book stories, “two, you just want to listen to Diego Luna pontificate about clues.”

“Um, yeah. His accent is dreamy. He’s hot.”

“Dude. No way. Too skinny. I could break that guy in half.” He couldn’t help contrasting Joe—the sheriff’s, damn it—thick wrists and powerful forearms to the mental picture he had of the undeniably pretty, but slimly built, movie star. Eli had always had a thing for bigger, bulky guys. Way too much time spent in high school watching the football team practice after school, probably.

Tight pants were one of his many weaknesses.

“I’d be happy to break him in half, if that’s on the menu.” Kalea wiggled her eyebrows.

“Meh. I’ll hold out for the ones built like boxers. Or linebackers. Or Idris Elba.” It was probably a good thing their types of men didn’t overlap much in a Venn diagram. Made splitting up their celebrity crush “fuck, marry, kill” lists so much easier.

“Dude.”

Sometimes they sounded like two frat boys. They’d started calling each other dude in high school, when listening to boys drop the d-word at the beginning or end of every sentence had just cried out for mockery. Only they’d found themselves caught in a net of their own making, still calling each other dude more than fifteen years later.

Kalea kept talking. “Not to cast aspersions on Mr. Elba because, hello, that man is fine, but can we focus here? On the mackety macking with Sheriff McSmexy?”

Eli tucked his hands between his butt and the varnished wood of the bench so he wouldn’t give in to the temptation to hide his face in them again.

“We totally made out. Like teenagers at a drive-in movie.”

“And?” Kalea drew the word out, inflection rising.

He closed his eyes for a moment, the flush of heat that swept over him making pit stops to dance a jig in his stomach. The ghost of that big hand on his ass, the squeeze of hard fingers into his flesh, was seared into his skin.

“And it was crazy hot.” He opened his eyes and stared right at Kalea. “I mean, like, melt-your-panties hot, girl.”

The theater door swung open on the far side of the ticket booth and Mr. Melt Your Panties walked in.

Something about Eli’s dropped jaw and bug-eyes must have made it clear to Kalea exactly who had just strolled through the door, easy as you please.

“Get. Out.” Her friend pulled her eyebrows together and executed the world’s worst stage whisper. “It’s like he can hear us talking about him.”

“Hey, Sheriff.”

The raised eyebrow told her that he’d noticed Eli wasn’t calling him Joe any more.

“Hey, library man.”

“You two have pet names for each other already? Isn’t that just too cute for words.” Kalea’s drawl was more than suggestive.

Holy shit. The sheriff had a pet name for him. The voices in his head were bickering at that one.

Him? What about you, dude?

Shut up. Sheriff isn’t a pet name. It’s his title, for crying out loud.

This had to end. Right now.

He crossed his arms, one leg over the other, hell, he’d start crossing his fingers and toes if that would make it clear to everyone in town including their new officer of the law that Eli wasn’t interested in him. Or available for anything, late-night naked swimming and tongue-sucking included. Especially since he’d just decided to haul himself into the public eye even more by campaigning for Kalea.

“They aren’t pet names. They’re titles.”

His protest sounded weak, even to Eli.

“Sure they are.” Kalea took the bill the Joe slid through the opening in the curved glass front of the spaceship-shaped booth and raised an eyebrow. “Sheriff? I’m guessing car chases are more your thing than chick flicks?”

Joe grinned. The husky, low rumble of his voice sent shivers up Eli’s spine when Joe glanced at him and their eyes met. “I’d watch a chick flick in a heartbeat if you wanna watch it with me.”

“No, thank you.” His voice was prim and he wondered when he’d become so stuffy. “I’m just visiting with Kalea for a minute. I’ll be heading out soon.”

Also, he was a big, fat liar.

Kalea’s gasp was audible to Cassie at the candy counter. Their Sunday night hangout usually lasted until midnight, and Eli knew damn well that his friend was about to bust his fib wide open.

But Joe had already moved on. “Car chases it is, then.”

Kalea shot Eli a dirty look as she punched a button and the machinery whirred, spitting out a yellow ticket stub while she made change. She passed everything through the slot to the sheriff, who nodded at her. “Here you go. Enjoy the show.”

Joe stopped before taking more than a couple of steps away from the ticket booth, angling himself toward Eli.

“I actually need to talk to you about something.” He wasn’t grinning now, his brows pulled together a little.

Eli sat up straighter, tensing his shoulders. This didn’t feel like flirting. It reminded him of the first night they’d met when Joe had asked about Millie. “What’s up?”

The sheriff looked around the lobby, as if suddenly realizing where they were. He flashed Eli a small smile. “Not an emergency. I’ll stop by the library some time. Have a good evening, if you’re heading home.”

He flushed and nodded. “You too. Enjoy your movie.”

“Will do.”

He walked away. And Kalea spun on her chair and leaned her torso so far out the side door to the booth she almost fell over.

“You liar. Go watch a movie with him! Have you lost your tiny little mind?”

Eli hissed back at her, trying to keep his voice low as Joe stopped at the concessions counter, looking over the offerings. He was only thirty feet away, for crying out loud. “Zzzt. He can probably hear you. Shut. Up.”

“Seriously, what’s wrong with you? How many times have we whined about the lack of hot single men in this town? Go get him!”

“No way.” He looked, but the man had the grace to act, at least, like he couldn’t hear their fiercely whispered conversation. “Did you miss the part ten minutes ago where Mr. Pederson was grilling me about my ‘agenda?’” His air quotes could’ve poked someone’s eyes out. “Imagine what people would be saying if I started dating the county sheriff.”

“I don’t care if Father Nick wants a front row seat to the consummation of this affair. Where are you going to find another guy like that? Because, dayum”—Kalea gripped the door frame and leaned even further out of the booth—“that man’s ass is fine.”

“Seriously, he is everywhere I turn lately. How does he do that?”

He hadn’t been friends with Kalea Hutchinson for twenty-five years without being able to spot every last one of her guilty tells and the flush that crept over his friend’s face at Eli’s idle words was a dead giveaway.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Kalea squeaked and clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes round as buttons. She dropped her hand. “I might have told him you come by on Sunday nights for takeout and gossip.”

“What?!” He muted his shriek, so Cassie wouldn’t hop up on the glass counter again to stare at the two friends old enough to know better having a hissy fit in the lobby. He was sure the Joe’s ears were burning though.

“I don’t know how it happened. One moment we were talking about Superman versus Ironman, the next I was telling him everything about you.” Kalea’s eyes grew even bigger. “It’s like his superpower or something.”

“Like Sherlock?”

“Ha, ha. You’re a funny boy.” A delicate laugh pealed out from the other end of the lobby, and they both turned to watch Cassie cracking up at something Joe had said. When Joe reached his hand in his back pocket for his wallet, the motion pulled the fabric of his jeans tight over his butt.

“Yeah, it’s official. You’re crazy if you don’t want a piece of that.”

“I don’t.” Eli crossed his fingers surreptitiously against the lie. Then he stuck his tongue out and marveled at how little it took to turn them into teenagers again. “Why don’t you go watch the movie with him, huh? I’ll cover the booth.”

“Watch yourself. I just might.” Kalea settled back into her seat as Joe left the candy counter, popcorn, and fountain drink in hand. They watched him pause, scan the signs with bright plastic letters spelling out the various movie names, and then head down the hallway to the theater with the action flick. “Maybe he’s bi.”

“You wish.” He immediately felt bad for his snotty tone and tried to make up for it. “Besides, I come here to hang out with you. Not pick up men.”

“That’s because there are no attractive men under fifty coming here on a Sunday night.” Kalea narrowed her eyes and stared at nothing for a moment, calculating. “Although we could do that. Singles’ night at the movies. Show up half an hour early for wine and beer in the lobby? How hard do you think it’d be to get a permit for that, if I’m not selling it?”

“You’ve got the sheriff here. You can ask him,” Eli drawled. But Kalea was tapping her fingertips against her bottom lip and Eli could see the idea wiggling its way deeper into his friend’s brain. He gave in. Fine, he would think about this seriously. “You’d have to make it a twenty-one-and-older-only night. Otherwise it’s a nightmare separating the kids from the adults. Which means you’ll need someone to card people.”

Kalea’s pffft noise blew the hair off her forehead. “Like I don’t know every kid in this town by name.”

“True. Still, safer.”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

“Because you know who’s going to protest?”

Kalea rolled her eyes. “Don’t remind me. I’m still pissed about the piano bar.”

Clear Lake, although relatively cosmopolitan due to the presence of the college on its outskirts, also had a strictly conservative core group that were anti anything they saw as a near occasion of sin.

When Eli went to church, it was to the Roman Catholic church on the far side of town, because Father Nick was the kind of priest who would sit on your back porch on a Saturday afternoon and man the grill while drinking a beer if you invited him to your barbecue. He didn’t make it to services that often, but during the growing season, he or Gee brought flowers every Friday afternoon from their garden. Eli liked the idea of the blooms brightening the weekend services.

Father Nick had been the one to tell them to cool their jets when Kalea and a bunch of the younger residents were ready to set up a picket line after the conservatives in town managed to put the kibosh on the permit request from a new jazz piano bar. He reminded them that as much as that sucked, they were all grown ups and could deal. Their current priority was pushing for permit approval for a teen rec center, to give the high schoolers something to do other than party in the woods with illegally-bought beer. That potential establishment was currently being blocked too, and their attention needed to be laser-focused.

It was probably a good thing the hardware store had stopped carrying spray paint, come to think of it.

“Talk to the Mayor when she comes out.” Clear Lake’s mayor only went to the movies on nights when she wasn’t attending other town functions. Her husband, an astrophysics professor at St. Francis, was deep in his own world and mostly just nodded and smiled pleasantly to everyone in her wake on the rare occasions he joined her. “See what she says.”

“I can’t wait. I’m too excited.” She yanked the booth door closed, locked it, and pulled out her small cash box to do a quick reconciliation with sales in the gap between the staggered starts of the four pictures she had running. “Go ask the sheriff for me after you check the back door. Please?”

Eli flipped her a salute as he strolled across the marble floor of the lobby, on his way to patrol the exits. He ignored the nerves fluttering in his stomach.

“You want in on dinner tonight? We’re thinking pizza,” he asked Cassie as he passed the candy counter. The long-haired girl already had her textbooks spread across the counter, notebook and pen at the ready. Getting homework done in between shows was a perk of the job on slow nights when the cleaning duties were knocked out of the way early on.

“You bet. But no mushrooms!” The girl’s shout followed him down the long hallway toward the rearmost theater.

There was a fire exit at the end of the hall, facing him, the theater #4 entrance to his right just next to it. He could push through that fire door—it was only alarmed after closing—and follow the hallway further back all the way to the rear doors that exited to the alley behind the theater. He didn’t need to walk through any of the screening rooms to check the back doors, and certainly not the one where the sheriff sat by himself.

In the dark.

All alone.

Eli pulled open the swinging door to the theater and walked in.

Not until he stood at the top of the sloping, carpeted walkway that led down to the front rows and the back exit did he realize what a stupid idea this was.

On a Friday night, the room would be crowded and noisy with people finding seats, getting up for that one last trip to the bathroom before the movie started, realizing they did want popcorn after all, gossiping before the show, or calling out answers to the trivia questions that showed on the screen until the previews started.

On a Sunday night?

A quick head count gave him a total of nine people scattered far from each other in the rows of padded seats.

He didn’t even have to strain hard to pick out Joe Baxter, sitting by himself only a few rows ahead of where Eli stood at the top of the slope.

Baxter had taken the second seat in from the aisle, leaving an empty space right next to him.

Damn the man.

Eli was going to have to walk right past him, feeling those eyes on him all the way down that long walk.

Shit.

Maybe he could sneak back out and take the emergency exit hallway before anyone—

The sheriff turned his head to glance back over his shoulder, spotted him and grinned. Then he had the nerve to wink, the jerk.

Eli just wished his stomach didn’t dip and roll at that bit of sass.

Double damn.

He gave Joe a brisk nod and marched right past him down the aisle. No sense dragging this out. He had an actual task here and fooling around mooning over Joe wasn’t part of his plan.

If only he didn’t feel those eyes on his ass, as if he’d accidentally stuffed one of those activated charcoal hand-warmers in his back pocket, the entire walk to the rear exit.

When he finally shoved against the bar on the door and pushed through, he had to step to the side and lean against the wall for a second as the tension left his body. Jesus. What was wrong with him? Baxter was just a man.

A man whose hands had curved around Eli’s ass as Joe had tugged him in close between his thighs and dove into his mouth, while Eli had clung to the back of Joe’s neck with both hands.

He straightened up and sighed. His head was such a mess. If only he were better at lying to himself, he could pretend none of this mattered. That he didn’t want to press a hand against his dick every time he talked to Joe Baxter.

Or looked at him.

Or heard his goddamn name.

Eli slapped a hand to his forehead. Maybe he was coming down with something. After a moment, he gave it up as melodrama, plus he apparently didn’t have a fever. He walked over to kick away the crushed pop can that was indeed propping open the back door. He poked his head out into the alley to, just in case he could scarify some of the little miscreants—nothing like revisiting his youth—but didn’t see anyone.

Then he turned around, and the dilemma smacked him in the chest all over again.

How to head back to his Bench of Safety in the lobby?

His first instinct, chickenshit that he was, was to take the long fire exit hallway that ran up the outside of the building. He could avoid seeing the man who made his pulse race and Kalea would just have to ask Baxter her own damn self if she wanted answers about the alcohol-permitting problem.

Then Eli could hide out in Kalea’s grungy little office behind the candy counter when Joe’s film ended, and the only price to pay would be his friend bawking like a chicken around him for a couple of days. Because they were mature now.

He was tempted.

Only the absolute certainty that Joe would either know Eli had been too chicken to walk past him again or would—even more horrifying—worry that something had happened to him because Eli never walked back through the theater. What if Joe came to the lobby to check on him? The imagined embarrassment froze him in place with indecision.

His eyes skittered from one door to the other.

“Oh my god, you complete and utter dumbass. It’s just a fucking walk through a nearly empty room. Get your head out of your ass and sack up.”

With that, he yanked on the door handle and stepped back into theater #4, right into the steady burn of Joe Baxter’s heavy-lidded stare.

Baxter didn’t even try to hide it. Eli’s face turned pink and he blessed the low lights on the fabric-covered walls. The heat of Baxter’s gaze slapped into him like stepping from frosty air-conditioning into the steamy heat of the summer night. Joe’s eyes raked over his body as Eli walked slowly toward him.

Eli’s brain went fuzzy and he blinked stupidly as he drifted to a halt at the end of the row where Baxter sat. Joe shifted in his seat, leaning on the armrest closest to the aisle. Eli’s eyes dropped to his hips.

To his lap.

Let’s be honest here. You’re trying to see if his dick is visible through his jeans and thinking about it rubbing against you last night.

He coughed on his own spit and dragged his eyes up to Joe’s face, hoping he couldn’t read minds as easily as he made it look like he did.

No, I’m not. Not thinking about his dick at all.

Shit. He was just full of lies tonight, wasn’t he?

Baxter tilted his head to the side, indicating the seat next to him.

He couldn’t.

He shouldn’t

The house lights dimmed to almost nothing and the trivia was replaced by an MPAA-rating screen and then the production company’s logo. The previews were starting.

There was one moviegoer all the way in the back—please let it not be Mr. Pederson—and Eli didn’t think he was blocking their view, but just in case . . .

He dropped into the seat next to Joe, who took advantage of Eli’s obviously total discombobulation to press the length of a thigh up against his, in the guise of adjusting in his seat as Joe gripped a small cup of popcorn between his thighs.

“Have you seen this one yet?” he whispered in Eli’s ear.

The flutter of his breath against Eli’s skin made him shiver.

“I’m not seeing it now,” he whispered back. “Kalea wants to know how hard it would be for her to get a permit to serve beer and wine in the lobby sometimes if she starts up a”—Oh. Shit. He really should learn when further detail was not required—"um, singles night.”

He stared straight ahead at the screen. He would not look at Baxter to see if his dimples were showing when he leaned over again, shoulder bumping up against Eli’s now until they were practically touching from head to toe and Eli’s skin was lighting up like sparklers flaring on the Fourth of July, and asked, “So, are you asking if I’ll meet you here for singles night?”

Eli clenched his teeth and kicked Baxter’s ankle. Hard.

“I am asking for your professional opinion of a small business owner’s marketing strategy.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

And holy shit, his pants and other things inside his pants were on fire when Baxter pried his hand off the armrest between them and shook it gently until the cramped muscles in Eli’s fingers relaxed. Then Baxter laced his fingers through Eli’s and held their clasped hands in front of them, staring at them like he’d never seen fingers before this night.

“And what if I asked you?” Before Eli could call him out, Joe continued, “I know I said I wouldn’t do this, but this is the last time. I promise.”

Eli blinked.

The midnight post-skinny-dipping make-out session might have been a trick of the moonlight and a little summer madness. The joking invitation to watch a movie at the ticket counter just a whim.

But that was an out and out date-type request.

Sort of. And despite having told Joe exactly how not interested he was, Eli was tempted.

“Go ahead and ask me and you’ll find out.” He gasped and clapped a hand over his mouth. He seriously needed to start reviewing his thoughts before he let them out of his mouth.

The teenagers ten rows in front of them, perfectly quiet and slumped low in their seats, let out a general shhhh! as the previews ended and the movie started. Eli ducked down lower in his own seat and hoped he would melt into a puddle of metallic goo like the second Terminator and slither up the sticky carpet and out into the lobby.

“Little jerks,” he muttered. “They’re probably the ones who propped open the back door.”

“Want me to arrest ‘em for you?”

“Ha! Yes.” Hypocritical guilt required a barely audible retraction a moment later. “No. It’s possible I may have done exactly the same thing when I was their age.”

He was getting used to looking for Baxter’s smiles in the dark.

“So you’re the one I oughta cuff?”

Yes. Please. “No.”

The shhhh! that erupted from the teenagers this time wasn’t general at all and involved some pretty specific glares in their direction.

“You know what we have to do now, right? Because the previews are starting and we can’t talk . . .” The low murmur at Eli’s ear vibrated through the bones in his skull until he leaned his head closer to Baxter just to make it stop.

“Watch it?” He wasn’t sure he was even speaking out loud anymore. Subsonic vocalization maybe.

“Yeah, that’s not even on the list.” Baxter’s nose nudged his cheek. “We have to make out.”

Eli’s breath caught in his chest and he held it, held it, held it until his face was hot and his lungs were burning and when he finally let the air burst out, it was louder than any whisper.

No, we absolutely do not have to make out, with Mr. Pederson probably watching and planning his rounds tomorrow with the latest gossip about the town librarian and the new sheriff.

But his head was already turning and his mouth fumbling, lips against Joe’s chin, his cheek, until finally Eli found his mouth and sighed against it. He kept his hands in his lap, as if to touch Baxter’s would be to make this real, but they wanted to be on his skin so badly that Eli had to tangle his fingers together and squeeze until his knuckles ached.

Joe’s hands weren’t having any kind of existential crisis. He reached over with his left and cradled the entire side of Eli’s face, from the thumb on his chin and the fingers splayed across his cheek, to the pinkie trailing down his neck. Eli opened his mouth to say something, wait or stop or fuck, please, kiss me harder, and Joe captured Eli’s bottom lip between his teeth and stroked it with his tongue.

The scratchy weave of the seat fabric itched against Eli’s cheek. His elbow was smashed up against the armrest and he was pushing off the seat in front of him with one foot, hands still in his lap, but his entire body arcing towards the man whose tongue was in his mouth, setting him on fire.

The five points of Joe’s fingertips on his face anchored Eli in his seat, while the rest of his body flew into outer space and drifted, his nerves humming happily.

Not until Eli finally reached up, at last, with one hand and brushed it against the wiry hairs on Baxter’s wrist did Joe let his mouth go. He pressed his forehead against Eli’s and rubbed noses with him.

Eli’s sigh was buried beneath an explosion from onscreen, where the opening scenes of the movie had unspooled without either of them paying a bit of notice.

“I really do have to go.” His lips brushed against Joe’s as he spoke. He wasn’t sure if Joe heard his words or just read them from the touch of their mouths.

He felt Joe nod, rather than saw it. A day’s worth of stubble scraped gently against Eli’s cheek. His fingers were still clasped around Joe’s wrist, holding his hand in place against Eli’s face.

“Tell your friend that I didn’t try to persuade you to stay. I want her to like me.”

“Why?”

“So, she’ll ask me to help run singles’ night with you guys.” Baxter lifted his head far enough for Eli to see the light from the screen catching on the whites of his eyes. Then his eyes narrowed as he smiled at Eli. “And I’ll have an excuse to spend more time with you.”

“It might also be a voter registration drive.” Eli was full of all kinds of good ideas tonight.

Joe chuckled. “Sounds like a party.”

“Also, this thing is still not happening.” His plate, it was full. “But maybe you can help us plan the singles’ night.”

“Slash-registration-drive? Okay. It’s a date.” Baxter sat back in his seat, grinning. Eli almost forgot to let go of his wrist. “I’m gonna watch the movie now.”

Eli glanced at the screen. A flipped-over car was burning as a man walked away from it into a milling crowd.

Nope. No idea.

“You got any idea what’s happened so far?” he asked, trying to smother giggles.

Joe shook his head. “Not a clue.”

He pressed one last, quick kiss to Baxter’s shoulder—trying, failing, to resist a sharp nip at the end that made Baxter shudder—and levered himself out his seat.

“Enjoy the show,” he said automatically, biting his lips to keep his grin from letting all his secrets out. This had been a really good night. “And it’s not a date. It’s a planning session.”

“Whatever you say,” Joe murmured.

Eli took three steps up the aisle, then ducked back and leaned over Joe’s shoulder to whisper in his ear. God, the man smelled delicious, all sharp and clean “Maybe it’s a little bit of date.”

The graze of fingertips on his wrist as he ran away left ghostly echoes of Baxter’s touch that lingered until Eli rubbed his wrist hard as he practically sprinted into the lobby.

He couldn’t wait to see what came next.