The men in the town of Argos were far too tempting. Though as I thought about it, perhaps it wouldn't be too bad to get to know them a little. Dad and Cal had encouraged me to make friends and find a date to the Prom. So, when the end of my shift came, which was only four hours long, and Theseus asked me to hang out again I had a choice to make.
"Do you want to stay and hang out in the Rec Room? We can put on a movie or something,” Theseus asked as we stashed our supplies away in the janitorial closet.
I turned to him, ready with some excuse, but looking up into those eyes I couldn't say no this time.
“Okay."
The way his face lit up made up for my slight discomfort at letting go.
We made our way into the Rec Room. There were a couple of younger kids in there; one was probably around thirteen or so while the other was at least three years younger. They were playing ping-pong. Theseus gestured for me to sit down in one of the bean bag chairs when I realized something.
"Are you going to be okay with watching the movie?” I asked with concern.
He rolled his eyes. "Noooo. You are losing brownie points here, woman!”
At my confused look, he said, "Subtitles."
I palmed my face and groaned. "Right."
Theseus laughed, the bright tone sounding like a chorus of bells.
My head spun at the sound, causing my thoughts to go all hazy for a moment. But I came back quickly, blinking in confusion when I realized I was leaning extremely close to Theseus, so close, a centimeter more and I would be kissing him.
I sprung back. "I'm sorry! I don't know what came over me!"
He shook his head. "It's all right. I wouldn't have necessarily minded being kissed by a cute girl."
He winked, the sly smile he gave me only serving to have my cheeks, which were already warm, to intensify to flaming hot.
"Get a room!" One of the younger boys shouted.
Theseus, who hadn't heard the comment, only continued to stare at me, those gray-blue eyes growing darker. His eyes were fixated on my lips, but I didn't think he was watching for what I was going to say this time.
When he slowly began to lean in, I put a hand on his chest. "One of the boys just shouted for us to get a room."
His eyes broke away from mine to look at the boys who had stopped their game of ping-pong to ogle at us.
"Maybe we will!" He called back to the boys lightheartedly.
"Ewww," the younger of the two said.
I couldn't help but giggle.
He turned his gaze back to me. "I just want you to know that I do really want to kiss you right now, but I don't think it's the perfect time. Not yet."
"What would be the perfect time?”
His hand lifted up to brush his fingers lightly against my cheek. "I don't know. But I will when it happens."
I wanted that time to be now. Yet, if he wasn’t sure, it would be a bad idea to try and force it. Besides, I was curious about this perfect moment.
After getting the projector set up, we scrolled through Netflix before picking a DC movie. It turned out that Theseus was a bit of a nerd. When he found out I had yet to see most of the DC or Marvel movies he was determined to christen me into the world of comic book movies. We started with an older Batman film. I thought the costume design was hilarious. I mean, nipples on top of armor?
Theseus was adorable, constantly explaining any little back story or alternate timeline stuff with each character that showed up. Of course, I became pretty confused when he explained how all these characters could possibly have different stories.
“Wait, wait, how many different versions Batman are there?” I asked, turning away from the movie to face Theseus.
He tilted his head in thought. "Well, you have Ninja Batman, Steampunk Batman, Zombie Batman, and then there was this version where Damian Wayne inherited the title of batman, Batmage. Oh! And then there was this one time that Batman became a green lantern and was known as The Dawnbreaker."
I waved at him to stop, laughing I said, “Okay, okay, I get it. But why have these different versions?"
"Because once the character was created, lots of other writers wanted to write their story in their own way."
I pursed my lips and thought about it for a moment before saying, “So really, comic books are a bunch of fan-fictions of the original."
He laughed. "Yeah, basically."
I felt somewhat lightheaded again, but for a quicker moment this time and when I came out of it, I was leaning heavily against Theseus. I also realized what was finally causing these little dizzy spells and blips in my memory. It was his laughter.
His voice was what kept making my brain go all fuzzy. That hadn't been the first time either. On the day we met, he was singing, and suddenly I was up on stage with him, then again earlier when I almost kissed him. I realized he wasn't the only one too, the same thing happened the first time I heard Jason laugh! Though it hadn't happened with him since. At least that I knew of.
I sat back away from Theseus, studying him with narrowed eyes. What was going on?
It was one thing to be attracted to these men, but it was another thing for their voices and their laughter to literally put me in a trance.
"What was that?" I asked.
His face which was full of happiness morphed into one of confusion. “What was what?"
“This,” I said, gesturing between the two of us, “it's not the first time it's happened. Every time you laugh, it's like my head is stuffed with cotton balls and the next thing I know I'm practically in your arms.”
"Perhaps you're just that attracted to me?” he grinned.
"No, well, yes," At his smile, I reasserted, "But no! That's not what this is. This isn't the first time it's happened, and it wasn't only with you. And don't get me started on that!”
I pointed to the tall bottle of water at his side. Right before we started the movie he had gotten up and brought that back with him.
"A bottle of water?”
"Yes, a bottle of water. Half the people in town carry these giant bottles of water around with them, keeping them at their side like it’s a freaking religion. I have had some of my teachers actually stop their lectures the moment they realized they were out of water! Not to mention the fact that I've seen several people pour freaking sea salt into their bottles! SEA SALT, THESEUS! Not only is that not normal, but it’s downright dangerous!"
He shook his head slowly, his brow furrowed. “Atalanta, I don't know what to tell you. It’s just a bottle of water."
I snatched his bottle off the ground, twisted the cap open, and put it to my lips and chugged only to be running to the wastebasket seconds later to throw up. There was enough salt in that bottle to make the dead sea envious.
When I finished emptying the contents of my stomach into the bin, I stood up to see Theseus looking at me with a worried expression. Though I couldn't tell if that worry for me or worry about me discovering his secret.
I stomped back over to him, shoving the bottle into his hands. “When you're ready to stop bullshitting me, maybe we can finally have that perfect moment.”
Turning around, I left. My heart burned while my mind roiled. A perfectly good moment, ruined. It all started when I spotted that sea creature. That huge glowing mass which I had seen on the cliff that night, and then the stupid water bottles, Hip somehow getting me out of trouble, and every time I was placed under some sort of spell by these men.