Page 40 of A Fighting Chance

He tilts the popcorn container toward me and I grab a handful.

I’m tossing a couple of pieces in my mouth at a time when I catch him staring at me. “What?”

“That’s sonothow you eat popcorn,” he says, rolling his eyes at me. He reaches in to take a large handful, of which he brings to his mouth and proceeds to shovel in. Kernels fall down the front of his chest as I laugh at him.

“I’m not eating my popcorn like that,” I say. “No way.”

“You basically have to,” he says, tilting the popcorn to me again.

I eye him, then I look down at the popcorn. Returning his eye roll, I grab some popcorn and bring it to my mouth, proceeding to shovel it in as he had.

His smile grows large and he nods approvingly. “There you go. See? It’s the only way.”

“Forgive me. I didn’t realize I’d been a failure at eating popcorn all these years,” I tease.

“Not a failure, just too reserved. Gotta loosen up,” he says, wiggling his body in such a way that it wiggles mine.

Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps I have been too reserved in some ways. I prefer to think of it as careful, courteous.

“Are we going to be able to talk during the movie, or is this like the theater? Am I gonna get dirty looks if I whisper to you?” I ask.

“Have you—wait. Have you never been to the drive-in?” he asks, shock scrambling his features.

“Um, no?” I say.

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.”

“But this one is right down the street from the farm. Didn’t you ever come here when you lived here? Maybe on a date?” he asks.

“My high school boyfriend never took me here. In fact, we hardly ever went on proper dates,” I say, shrugging as I recall the memories.

“What do you mean byproper dates? What did you do, then?” he asks.

“Well, we used to just hang out at his house a lot,” I say.

Gentry studies my face, like he’s considering his next words carefully. “What did you do while you were there?”

“His parents were gone a lot so honestly, we had a lot of sex. That’s what he liked doing.” Saying these facts out loud to another person doesn’t seem to hurt as much as I thought it would. I’ve never really talked about my relationship with Dean outside of how it ended.

“But he didn’t want to take you anywhere? Show you off?” he asks.

I shake my head, pressing my lips together and shrugging again. “It’s okay,” I tell him.

“No. No it’s not. You’re too much for that,” Gentry says.

“Too much?”

“Yes, too much—too good, too amazing. You deserve better. You deserve a man who’s proud to have you on his arm. A man who wants to show you off, to make sure the whole world knows you belong to him,” he says.

Then he brushes a light kiss on my forehead and I inhale his words.

He’s sweet. Too sweet.

“Thank you,” I say. “But really, we were kids, you know? I’m sure Dean is different now.”

“Wait. Your high school boyfriend wasDean? The same Dean who now works on the farm? That Dean?”