Half a minute later, I return, warm and dry, and the pain has lessened to where I almost don’t notice it. Usually we take time to debrief—discuss what happened or what went wrong—more often than not, what went wrong. But this time, Blake doesn’t do that. At least, not yet. This time, he whistles.

“You know, you look good in my clothes,” he says with that cocky sideways grin on his face. “I guess I’m good at picking clothes.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Maybe I should be a fashion designer,” he muses, tapping his chin. “I could name my brand…”

“Time after Time?”

He shakes his head. “Too on the nose.”

“The Time Traveler’s Wardrobe?”

“Are you taking that from the movie The Time Traveler’s Wife?”

“You mean the greatest movie of all time? Yes.”

“Whoa.” Blake throws his hands up in the air. “That is not the greatest movie. False. Mendacity.”

“You’re going to pull out ‘mendacity,’ and I bet you don’t even know what movie is known for that line.”

Blake snorts. “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Don’t play with me, Andre. I know my movies.”

I quirk my brow and cross my arms over my chest—maybe even puff it out a little. “Yeah? You do? All right, fine then. Name your top five movies of all time. We’ll see how well you know movies. Go.”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Blake doesn’t even hesitate. He grabs my wrist and yanks me down the hall and downstairs into the basement, a part of the house I’ve never been in before. It’s got the same cherry wood as the rest of the house. Pillars of stone line the walls along with a dozen leather chairs.

This is an actual movie theater, in the basement of his house.

But what I’m paying attention to the most? The fact that Blake’s hand still holds mine as he leads me to the bookcase full of movies.

“The Wolf of Wall Street, Kill Bill, The Terminator, The Spectacular Now, and Alien,” he says with confidence, pointing to the DVD of each one. “I have the Blu-ray and the digital copies too.”

I stare at the massive movie collection, where there are easily more than four hundred DVDs. Why does anyone even have this many DVDs?

“Important question,” I mutter, still scanning the collection. “Kill Bill: Volume One or Two?”

“Volume Two, obviously.”

“Oh, sorry, I have to go now,” I say, pretending to pull away and walk up the stairs.

But I can’t…not only because I don’t want to…but also because his hand is still in mine.

But, really, it’s the smile on his lips, the soft, boyish one that is gentle and kind and warm, that makes me stay.

“Do you like Volume One more?” he asks, an honest question.