They spent the next few weeks in a similar pattern. Either she’d be woken in the middle of the night by Peter climbing into her bed where they’d make love and whisper long into the night. Or occasionally, he’d be able to meet her wherever she was. He never made promises and she never asked him to meet her at a specific time or place, but she was always careful to let hints drop about her schedule.
Like if she was meeting friends at the mall, he’d show up. The first time he’d shown up unexpectedly had been during her shift at the movie theater. He’d walked up to the counter where she’d been mindlessly filling popcorn buckets and held up two tickets forEmpire Strikes Back.
“You’re shift is over in ten minutes. Will you watch the movie with me?” he’d asked, a hopeful smile on his face.
She’d called over a co-worker who agreed to let her off shift early, and they’d snuggled next to each other in the dark cold theater. She’d wanted to do a little necking during the movie, but there was no distracting Peter who’d watched every second of the movie wide-eyed.
“That was incredible,” he said, at the end when the credits had rolled and the theater had emptied.
“You liked it?”
He grinned. “Loved it. I want to stay and watch it again.”
“Oh, God. You’re going to be a movie nerd. I can tell.”
“What’s that?”
“The fan boys who line up outside the theater before the movie opens and camp out so they can see it on opening day.”
He laughed. “Not sure I’ll ever be able to camp out to see a movie, but I would if they’d let me.”
She squeezed his hand and stepped toward the exit of the theater. “Who is thetheyyou’re always talking about? There’s so much about your life I don’t understand, Peter.” And who are they that a twenty-year-old man needs their permission? Sometimes it sounded like he was being held prisoner somewhere.
He tugged his hand away and strode up the ramp to the theater exit. He opened the door and she blinked at the light flooding in. “I can’t explain, Allison. Don’t ask me to. There are some things you’re better off not knowing. Trust me.”
“Are you some sort of Russian spy?” she whispered. It would make sense. He didn’t seem to have a real job. His hours of freedom were sporadic, and the way he could fight told her he’d been trained like a soldier. Her stomach twisted that she could’ve become involved in a Soviet spy nightmare.
He gently pushed her back into the dark theater. “What makes you ask that? Do I look like a spy?”
She swallowed. “I don’t know what a spy looks like. But it kind of makes sense when you think about it.”
“It does?” He sank down into the corner seat in the last row of the empty theater. Allison knew someone would be in any second to sweep up spilled popcorn. But she sat on Peter’s lap and wrapped her arms around him.
“You can tell me,” she whispered. “Are you a spy and you don’t want to be anymore? Like I said, we could run away to New York together.”
His hand brushed through her hair and his lips rested on her cheek for a sweet moment before he pulled back. She’d meant what she’d said. Even if he were a Russian spy, she’d forgive him as long as he gave up his old life.
Then she realized he was laughing. “I’m not a Russian Spy, Allison,” he said between chuckles.
Relief swept through her. Although if he were a real Russian spy, he wouldn’t exactly blurt it out, would he? “Then what are you?”
His laughter stopped. “I’m just a man,” he said. “Can we leave it at that?”
She squinted trying to make out his features in the mostly dark of the theater and then released a breath. “Fine. But it doesn’t seem fair. You know every little detail about me. You’ve been in my home, and I’d introduce you to my parents if you ever showed up before midnight, but I know next to nothing about you.”
“Okay,” he said, settling back into the chair and pulling her more securely onto his lap. “What do you want to know? I’ll answer anything I can, and say no for anything I can’t.”
“Sounds fair. Okay, let me think…Well, I know you’re twenty, but I don’t know you’re birthday.”
“January 2, 1960.”
“What are your parent’s names?”
“Betty and Thomas.”
“What was your favorite subject in school?”
“Military strategy.”