28. Movie

"It's just a movie," Leo said a bit nervously, glancing anxiously around them as he held her hand on the sidewalk, their cold breath misting in the dark night air.

Reyna looked up and down as Leo looked side to side- you never knew where a monster might come from. "Just a movie," Reyna said. "Two hours, give or take a half hour. No problem."

"It'll be fine." Leo agreed, squeezing her fingers between his own, shooting her a casual smile. "Just a regular date."

Reyna groaned. "Regular dates usually involve us ending up at home covered in monster dust and you convincing random homeless men that the thing that attacked us was a crazy pigeon and not a flock of gryphons."

Leo waggled his eyebrows. "But we almost always end up in the shower. Together."

Reyna would later swear that the red on her cheeks was from the cold- she most definitely did not blush. "To preserve water…" She trailed off, knowing she was bullshitting. "Wouldn't want to unnecessarily harm the environment."

Leo's eyes sparkled. "I never said anything."

"Shut up."

"I never said anything!"

"Still." Reyna smiled at him, strands of her hair getting in her face as she did so.

Leo's eyes softened and he reached up with his free hand to push the strands back behind her ear, the tips of his cold fingers (he was wearing cut-off finger mitts) leaving a line of warmth on her face.

She led the way into the warm movie theatre and immediately they were hit with the overwhelming aroma of buttery popcorn.

"So…" Leo looked around at the posters on the wall showing what movies were currently playing. "What are we watching?"

Reyna frowned. "I thought you said you had tonight all planned out?"

"I did." Leo said. "I planned on us going to a movie. Now what do you want to see?"

Reyna bit her tongue lightly. Don't get upset over a stupid little thing, she thought to herself. Now you get to watch what you want.

Her eyes alighted on a poster and she grinned. "Well there's a tenth anniversary rerun of the Notebook playing…"

"What?" Leo tore his eyes away from the arcade area. "Oh no, come on! Look, we saw that… last year sometime. How about the third Hunger Games movie? It's playing."

"We saw that at Camp," Reyna said. "Thanks to the Stolls somehow stealing a projector from the theatre."

"And it was great, you agreed! So we could always-"

"I want to watch the Notebook."

"But-"

"Okay, okay," Reyna conceded. "We won't watch the Notebook."

Leo relaxed. "Thanks gods. Anything else, you can choose anything else and I promise I'll watch it without complaint-"

Reyna looked around herself once more before her face lit up. "Remember that movie I was telling you we should go see sometime?"

"What movie?"

Reyna pointed at the poster. "It's called the Fault in Our Stars," she said, taking his hand and dragging him to the concession stand to buy both treats and tickets. "Don't worry," she said, kissing his cheek, "I'm sure you'll love it."

Later that night (after a hellhound did attack them from an alley on the way home) Leo would tell her he hated the movie and that he had absolutely not been crying in the theatre.

Reyna later bought the book and she wisely didn't say anything when she caught Leo half way through it while sitting on the toilet in their bathroom.

Needless to say she later bought the movie as well.