“They’re playing Singin’ in the Rain?” She turned to Jack in surprise. “How did you find this?”
“Some things,” Jack said softly, “are meant to be.”
He extended his hand to help her out of the cab, holding it a few moments longer than a friend would have but not long enough that strangers would wonder…unless they happened to notice the way the two of them were looking at each other and noticed the flush of heat spreading across Mary’s cheeks.
The fog off the Bay was thick tonight, and she pulled her coat closer around her as she looked at the long line of couples waiting to get their tickets. But just as people began turning to take a second glance to see if she was who they thought she was, Jack gently propelled her toward the entrance and handed their tickets to the young man at the door.
“Follow the stairs to the left all the way up and you’ll find your seats.”
Instead of heading for the stairs, Jack led her over to the concession counter. “I hope you like your popcorn dripping with butter.”
“Only if it’s doused with salt, too,” she told him with a smile she couldn’t possibly contain. Mary hadn’t been on many movie-and-popcorn dates in the past thirteen years. She felt, for a moment, like any girl out on a long-awaited date with the boy she couldn’t stop daydreaming about.
A few minutes later, when their arms were laden with candy and soda and an absolutely enormous tub of popcorn, they climbed up the narrow stairs to the balcony. Mary stopped at the top of the stairs in surprise.
“There are only two seats up here.”
Jack looked incredibly pleased with himself. “I know.”
She hadn’t needed romance or wooing to fall for Jack Sullivan. But now that he was giving them to her on a silver platter filled with popcorn and malted milk balls and ice-cold Coke, Mary wasn’t sure how she could ever have thought she’d be able to resist him.
In their private seats high above the rest of the theater, as the lights went down and her favorite old film began to play, Mary not only didn’t have to worry about secrecy, but she realized she could stop worrying entirely for two hours.
Snuggling into Jack, loving the feel of his arm over her shoulder, she reached into the tub of popcorn and knew she was the luckiest girl in the world.
* * *
A little less than two hours later, Mary was startled when the house lights came up. She’d been utterly lost in the fantasy of being Jack’s girl and in the incredible sensuality of his fingers brushing over her shoulder, his thigh pressed against hers, his breath warm as he whispered into her ear during his favorite parts of the movie.
She hadn’t dated much as a teenager, and as an adult the men who asked her out wouldn’t have dreamed of taking her to see an old movie while munching on popcorn and candy. Just as none of them would have bought her pie and ice cream in a diner.
Jack had been careful to buy tickets ahead of time so that they could walk inside the theater quickly and had also thought ahead about reserving the private balcony to make sure their relationship stayed under wraps the way she’d insisted. Which also meant that they would have to wait until the seats below emptied so that they could sneak back out unnoticed.
Mary thought about the end of Singin’ in the Rain, when Debbie Reynolds’s character, Kathy, had stood hidden behind a curtain as she sang…and how wrong it had been for her to hide herself away like that.
Wasn’t that exactly what Mary was making the two of them do by forcing them to keep their true feelings hidden, not just from strangers in a movie theater but also from the people with whom they were working?
Her stomach twisted as she forced herself to face the truth.
No! She didn’t want to let go of Jack’s hand when they went back downstairs. And she definitely didn’t want to pretend that he hadn’t come to mean everything to her.
It was time to come clean, not just with the rest of the world, but with Jack…and with herself, too.
To hell with caution. Mary wanted everyone to know she was his.
“I was wrong, Jack.”
She had felt the warmth of his gaze on her as soon as the lights went up. Now, he took her hands in his and gently asked, “Singin’ in the Rain isn’t one of your favorite movies, after all?”
She’d been focusing so hard on her guilt and trying to be brave. Only Jack could have made her smile at a moment like this.
“Not about the movie—I still love it, and seeing it with you has made it even more special. What I meant was that I was wrong about hiding our relationship.”
Even though she knew he didn’t want them to continue as a secret, he said, “I didn’t bring you here tonight to try to make you change your mind, or to make your reasons seem less valid.”
“You could have never done that, Jack.” It was why she’d come to care about him so strongly, so quickly. Working to ignore the flutter in her belly that proved she wasn’t nearly as brave as she was trying to appear, she declared, “I’m tired of letting the past rule my present. And my future.”
The way he was looking at her, Mary swore he could see right down into her soul.
“I’ll wait as long as you need me to wait,” he vowed in a low voice.
Had anyone ever cared for her this much?
“No more waiting.”
And then she pressed her lips to his in a soft kiss so much like their very first under the mistletoe.
Chapter Fifteen
Mary held tight to Jack’s hand as they came down the stairs. By now, there were only a few people left in the lobby to see them together, but when she and Jack didn’t rush into a taxi, several strangers came up to ask for her autograph. Throughout, while Mary made it a point to remain close to Jack, she noted that he was still being careful not to touch her too much or be too publicly affectionate. It was as though he knew one wrong move so close to her decision to share their relationship with the world would make her skittish.
It never ceased to amaze her how well he knew her…and how deeply he’d gotten into her heart right from the first day she’d met him.
Could he know that she was working overtime to try to ignore the voice in her head that said she was moving too fast? Could he hear the cautionary whisper inside her that was trying to warn her she was making decisions too wildly where he was concerned? Could he see her worrying that she was letting her heart run away with her again…and that she would pay for her foolish romantic ideas in the end?
A part of her wished that he’d push her tonight, that he’d force her to admit all of her remaining fears—of being scared to trust him with her heart, and wondering if love could truly last forever…even whether she would still be someone who mattered to him or anyone else when her face was no longer on magazines and TV screens and billboards.