Subscribing to the Enemy: An Enemies to Lovers YA Sweet Romance

by Jen Brady

  We planned to work on Wednesday, but I needed to see her before then, so I picked up my phone.

  19

  JOANNA

  AS I PULLED UP TO A brick building, my phone announced I’d arrived at my destination. There were a handful of other cars in the small parking lot, and I couldn’t help comparing the theater to the one in Concord Crossings. The non-digital marquee announced two movies were showing, (Court of Thanes and Windmakers) eight less than the usual fare at the mall. And I was pretty sure the W in Windmakers was actually an upside-down M.

  I got out of my car and walked the short distance to the entryway. At the counter, I did a double-take at the movie times. Court of Thanes was slated to start at seven, but Rick had said to be there by six. I’d assumed the showtime was 6:10 or 6:15.

  “Hi, can I help you?” the middle-aged man behind the counter asked.

  “Uh, one ticket for Court of Thanes, I think.”

  “You think?” he asked.

  “Just a sec.”

  I reached into my hoodie pocket and pulled out my phone to check our text exchange from yesterday.

  RICK: Hey, I just found out Court of Thanes is playing at my fav theater. It’s Macbeth but set at a high school. Psychological thriller about a basketball player who starts picking off the starting lineup so he can make first team.

  RICK: Will either rock as hardcore as 10 Things or will be mega cringeworthy.

  ME: Ohh, sounds fun!

  RICK: You in?

  ME: Yeah, sure! What time?

  RICK: 6 tomorrow night. I’ll send the address.

  ME: Cool.

  I looked up at the man behind the counter. “Yep, I guess I’m a little early.”

  A gust of cold air blew in as the door opened and Rick appeared behind me.

  “Hey,” he said.

  And with that easy, relaxed greeting, it felt as if our relationship had changed. It was the first time we’d done something together that didn’t involve the Lights, Camera, Vance! contest. Instead of two separate people thrust together by two different sets of crappy circumstances, we were friends choosing to spend time together.

  The realization made my stomach tighten. I wasn’t sure if it was an excited tightening or an anxious one. This had just gotten real.

  If I’d been socially graceful, like Megs, I would have given him a casual, “Hey,” back or thrown out some innocent flirting.

  But since it was me, I blurted out, “Why are we so early?”

  “Early? We’re right on time.”

  I gestured to the list of movie times. “It starts at seven.”

  The man behind the counter chuckled. “You’re cutting it a little close if you’re seeing a movie with this guy.” He nodded toward Rick as he pushed a button on his cash register, and it spit two tickets out. He handed them to me. “Here you go. It’ll be on your right.”

  “But we didn’t pay yet,” I said, confused.

  He smiled, then turned his eyes to Rick and winked. “It’s on the house tonight.”

  “Thanks, Jesse,” Rick said.

  “It’s not often we have a local celebrity drop by.” Jesse transferred his grin from Rick to me. “Loved the speed shopping challenge. I thought I was going to die laughing when your boyfriend got that toaster for your sister.” He chuckled again. “A toaster? For a teenage girl?”

  “Right?” I asked as he moved down the counter to the snack area.

  “One Dr. Pepper and a large buttered popcorn lightly salted, split between two buckets?” Jesse asked, already taking a bucket off the stack.

  “Yep,” Rick said. “And whatever soda Joanna wants.” He turned to me.

  I shook my head. “No, I’m good.” I wasn’t spending money on overpriced movie snacks, and I sure wasn’t expecting Rick to buy me any.

  Jesse turned around from his spot in front of the giant popcorn maker. “It’s a dollar.”

  “Oh, then sure. I’ll have a Coke.”

  Rick opened his wallet, and I pulled a crumpled dollar out of my pocket and shoved it at him before he could try to pay for it all. It would be too date-like if he paid. And this most definitely was not a date. It couldn’t be a date. That would make everything too complicated.

  This was just two people who liked Shakespeare modernizations going to the same showing so they could laugh at it together if it turned out to be awful.

  Jesse took Rick’s money and slid our treats across the countertop. Rick picked up both half-full tubs of popcorn and moved to the condiment station, so I took both sodas and followed.

  “Why did you get two half buckets instead of one full one?”

  He picked up two of the small jars of seasoning from the condiment station. “So we can have garlic parmesan and cheddar popcorn.”

  He expertly shook just the right amount of seasoning over each tub. When he was done, I headed for the theater on the right, but I only took a few steps before I realized Rick wasn’t keeping up. I looked behind me and watched him walk to the other side of the lobby where several video games stood against the wall. He set the popcorn on one of the small, round tables near the games. I changed direction and headed for the video games, too.

  When I reached him, he took both sodas out of my hands and set them on the table with the popcorn buckets. I gave him a questioning look.

  “You gotta play the games. It’s part of the movie-going experience.”

  I’d never played a video game at Concord Crossings before heading in to the theater, even though they had several brand-new games and some of those claw machines. The movie was the reason I went there, not an old arcade game.

  Rick held up two quarters. “Which one do you like? Pac-Man? The shooter one over there? The motorcycle?”

  I checked the games out, but I hadn’t played any of them before. Ted’s grandpa had an old Atari system that we used to mess around with, so I’d played the handheld joystick version of Pac-Man, but it had been ages.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Draw, Partner, it is then.”

  He moved to the two-person, stand-up shooter game and slipped the quarters into the slot. He took both guns out of their holsters, blew over their barrels, and handed the player two gun to me.

  “That gun works better. This one doesn’t register shots in the upper left-hand corner of the screen.”

  “And you think I need help?” I gave him a look. “Maybe you need the advantage. Maybe I’m going to kick your butt.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I’d never seen a cocky expression on his face before, but there it was. The lopsided smirk and confidence he exuded were kind of hot, and I had to look away. I pretended to concentrate on the screen, but his reflection in the glass was too distracting.

  Despite giving himself the bad controller, he pulverized me.

  Five rounds and nearly a dozen quarters later, I finally beat him at the last second.

  “Yes!” I gloated, even though one eeked-out victory was a pathetic reason to gloat. “I got you!”

  His smug expression reappeared. “Did you?”

  Was he insinuating he’d let me win? My hand gripped the gun tighter. No guy had to let me win at anything. I could beat him fair and square. It just might take a few more rounds.

  I was about to suggest just that, but his eyes flicked upward to the clock on the wall. “We better go in. It’s almost six-thirty.”

  “But we’ll have to sit there for half an hour.” I was itching to try to beat him again. I’d even take the bad gun.

  “We don’t want to miss the trivia,” he said, picking up the popcorn buckets.

  “Trivia?”

  “Come on.” He nudged my arm,

  I grabbed the sodas, and we started walking toward the Court of Thanes movie poster that hung outside one of the doorways. The theater felt tiny compared to everything about the Concord Crossings theaters—the screen, the seats, the aisles.

  “Where are our seats?” I asked, taking out my ticket and holding it up to m
ake out the printing in the dim lighting.

  “Anywhere we want,” Rick said.

  I lowered my arm. The amusement on his face made my cheeks warm.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never gone to a theater that didn’t have those lounger chairs.”

  I had, but it was a long time ago, when my parents used to bring us to animated movies. For the past several years, I’d only gone to movies with Ted or Megan, and they loved the lounge chairs, so we always went to the big theater at Concord Crossings and, on occasion, to special opening nights at the even bigger theaters in Boston.

  “You can choose any seat you want here,” he said, making an exaggerated sweeping gesture across the rows.

  I laughed. He made it sound like a major perk. “Are you okay with the middle?” Ted always picked an aisle for his long legs, and Megs preferred to sit toward the back, so it had been forever since I’d gotten to choose my favorite spot.

  “Are you kidding?” Rick asked. “The exact middle of the theater is the best spot. You bet I’m okay with it.”

  Butterflies fluttered in my chest. Something about this whole movie-not-a-date was perfect, from the shooting game to the split buckets of popcorn to the seating arrangements. I walked down the aisle, trying to judge which was the middle row. Row J seemed pretty close to middle.

  “It’s row H, seats 7 and 8,” Rick said, putting his arm (and the bucket of popcorn) around me and guiding me two rows forward. “The exact middle.”

  “Wow, you do come here a lot,” I said as I started down the row. I stopped when I reached what felt like the center of the row and sat. Rick sat next to me and stashed his drink in the cupholder that extended from the back of the seat in front of him.

  The seats were smaller than the reclining mechanical seats I was used to, but not in a bad way. They felt velvety instead of vinyl, and the armrests were closer to my body, at a more natural angle to rest my forearm.

  The only thing I missed was the headrest. The lounger chairs I was used to were so tall they felt like small beds when you reclined them. Ted and I usually pushed our middle armrest up and reclined both seats all the way, then made use of every inch of space the double seat gave us, ending up with his long legs stretched over mine or my head resting on his chest or stomach. We also played tug of war with the popcorn bucket the entire movie. Rick’s two-bucket idea was brilliant.

  The screen lit up.

  “Just in time,” Rick said, setting his popcorn on the ground to shrug out of his jacket. He wasn’t wearing his trademark white T-shirt and flannel today. He had on a long-sleeved shirt that said UMass – Lowell across the front and jeans that were tighter and more intact than any I’d seen on him before. His hair was messy but in an I-meant-to-make-it-look-messy way, and his stubble was only a couple of days long.

  A sudden wave of panic jolted through me. Should I have dressed up more? Was this an actual date? We’d driven ourselves, and I’d paid for my own soda, so I didn’t think so. But he looked more put together than usual, so did that mean . . . ?

  No way. He was a college guy, as the bold lettering on his shirt proclaimed. No way would a college guy want to go on a date with fashion-challenged, makeup-averse, speaks-before-she-thinks me. They’d be into girls like Megs and Sallie.

  Rick’s voice snapped me out of my minor panic. “What movie did Tom Hanks get his first Oscar nomination for?”

  “What?” That was random.

  He popped a piece of popcorn into his mouth and gestured at the screen. “It’s the trivia question.”

  Sure enough, bright, funky font asked the same question from the screen.

  “Uh, Forrest Gump!” I exclaimed before he could.

  “Nope. Philadelphia.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot that one.”

  But a few seconds later, when the answer was revealed, we both did double takes.

  “What?” Rick exclaimed. “He did not win for Big. The answer should be Philadelphia.”

  I read the question over. “Nomination,” I pointed out. “Not win.”

  He groaned at our mistake.

  The next question popped on-screen, and we threw out answers. Our movie trivia knowledge ended up fairly even. One or the other of us got most of the questions a fraction of a second before the other. It was fun and involved a lot of laughing and gloating.

  “Aww, bummer,” Rick said.

  “What?”

  “The trivia cycled around. No new questions.”

  “Oh, I know that one!” I exclaimed, pointing at the screen. “It’s Big!”

  We both started laughing. He had the best laugh. It was full, rich, and unabashed. I could tell he was one of those people who let loose with their laughter in the middle of the movie, even if a bunch of people were sitting near him. I loved that. That meant I could be loud, too. Megs hates it when I laugh too loudly during a movie. She gets embarrassed. I had a feeling Rick wouldn’t care if I stood up and booed the villain or threw stuff at the screen Rocky Horror Picture Show-like.

  “Is this okay?”

  “Is what okay?”

  He glanced around. “I know it’s not air conditioned with fancy seats like the one at the mall . . . .”

  “It’s better! I wish I’d known about it years ago. Maybe we could have actually gone to movies with these prices. After my dad—”

  I stopped. Did Rick really want to hear about the skeletons in my family’s closet? Did I want him to know?

  “You don’t have to finish,” he said.

  He was so kind. And sweet. And fun. And he’d basically be out of my life in a week or so, once his movie had been submitted and our reason to be together over. It had been a long time since I’d had a new person in my life. My social circle had pretty much consisted of my mom, my sisters, and Ted and Mr. Laurence for years now.

  “You know how I told you my dad spent the money in my college fund?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He was part of a mission trip to Africa, kind of like Doctors Without Borders, but through a friend’s church. It was supposed to be a two-month deal, but he enjoyed the work there so much he ended up staying and using our college funds to pay for it.”

  Rick ran his hand through his hair and let out a low whistle. “Oh, man. Wow. How long has he been there?”

  My throat felt dry. “Three years.” I took a drink of soda to wash the lump away.

  “I . . . just wow. I don’t know what to say.”

  “It wasn’t the first crazy thing he ever did. When I was really little, he tried this super-vitamin pyramid scheme thing. I remember the boxes. There were so many, Megs and I built forts out of them in the living room. That wiped out my parents’ savings account because, as it turns out, nobody wants to buy boxes and boxes of super-vitamins. Then came his meditation podcast and online chakra seminars.”

  Rick groaned softly. “Oh, boy.”

  “Aunt Deb says he should have done the market research before jumping head first into it instead of sinking tens of thousands of dollars into advertising only to discover that everyone who was into meditation already had their favorite resources. Then came the mission.”

  “He really left just like that?”

  “Yep,” I said, popping the end of the word.

  “But he pays your mom alimony and child support, right?”

  “They’re not divorced, so he doesn’t have to. He’s just . . . not here.”

  Rick’s jaw clenched. “That’s bull.”

  I sighed. “Yeah. But what can we do about it? Megs still talks about the stuff we used to do back when we had a doctor’s salary to live off of. Anyway, my whole point is this theater would have been awesome to know about back when we didn’t have the money to go anywhere or do anything.”

  He leaned toward me, concern clouding his face. “So it’s better now?”

  “Not really. But Megan and I have jobs now. And Ted, who pays for stuff all the time because money doesn’t matter to him. But it’s hard to work my butt off and see my savi
ngs account dip when we need it. Like our phone plan.”

  “You pay for your family’s phone plan?”

  “Yeah. About a year ago, my mom didn’t have enough to cover all the bills, so she took Megs and me aside and said we were going to have to give up our phones and go back to a cheap landline. I tried to explain that I needed mine because of the YouTube channel, and Megs was crying because she’d be the only one at school without a phone, but there was nothing Mom could do. Later, I heard her on the phone with my Aunt Deb, who has tons of money. Mom was asking for a loan so she wouldn’t have to cancel the phone plan. Aunt Deb said it was my dad’s fault for being so flaky and that he should be the one she called for money, so I logged into our phone account and connected it to my bank account.”

  “That was really cool of you,” Rick said. His eyes were full of respect I didn’t think he could have for me.

  “My mom said she’d pay it back, but then we didn’t have enough to cover it the next month or the next, so it keeps coming out of my account. I know she hates it, and we never talk about it, but that and other random things drain my fund.”

  “Like piano tuning and art camp?” he asked.

  I felt the corners of my mouth tug upward. He’d remembered our conversation from the snowy shoot a few weeks ago. Warmth expanded in my chest. It didn’t seem so risky to let him in anymore. He’d proven he was compassionate and a good listener. For the first time, disappointment tugged at my heart at the thought that our days of spending time together were limited. I liked having him in my life.

  “Hey, what’s up, dude?”

  The greeting broke me out of my thoughts. A couple had settled in behind us, and the guy leaned over and down the row from their aisle spots to clap Rick on the back.

  “Hey, Craig,” Rick said. He looked behind us at the girl who remained seated. “Hey, Emma.”

  “Hi, Rick!” Emma said, waving. It was hard to tell in the dim theater lighting, but she looked like she was wearing a dress and had the sides of her hair pulled back, like she’d actually made an effort for date night.

  Christopher Columbus, this better not be a date because I looked like a troll next to her.