It's Just Love by Kate Richards

toward a pair of seats a few rows behind, and
she took the chair on the aisle.
    “Do you see the cameraman?” Coral whispered, enjoying
sitting next to Gage, ready to watch the film. She craned her neck, looking
around.
    He pointed to a man seated a little ways away. “He’s not
filming just this minute, for some reason.”
    “Then who is that?”
    A petite woman in jeans and a vest hung with camera
equipment crouched in the back of the theater. Her camera was pointed at Gage
and Coral.
    “Didn’t I see her last night at the restaurant too?” Coral
said. She’d been lingering near the kitchen door, but hadn’t been holding a
camera, so Coral hadn’t thought about it until now.
    Gage shrugged. “I didn’t see her, but it’s not surprising, I
suppose. If Harry and his producers want to get a show out of this, I guess
they have to get a few shots of us watching the couple in question.”
    “I suppose.” She cringed. “I had no idea we were being
filmed.” Had she done anything weird? Yanked at her panties? Cursed?
    “Me either, but no worries.” And indeed he seemed comfortable
with the concept.
    “I guess you’ve been on television and radio a lot, huh?”
Coral tried to appear friendly, not to twitch. The easy intimacy between her
and Gage had dissipated at the sight of the second camera operator.
    “Not a lot, but some. Mostly PBS.” He sipped at his drink
and patted her hand. “You’ll forget she’s there in a minute.”
    Coral doubted that. She smoothed her hair and sat
straighter. To her great relief, the lights dimmed and the screen lit up with
the first of several movie trailers. A few stragglers passed, juggling giant
drinks and buckets of popcorn, and one held a box of chocolate-covered raisins.
Despite her comments, she loved candy at the movies, the sweet setting off the
salty of the popcorn, but she wasn’t going to head back to the snack bar now
and have national television show her stuffing herself. See the witch pig
out. She sighed.
    Gage turned away from the screen and gave her a questioning
look. In the dimness, he once again bore a resemblance to an old-time movie
star, helped along by his dark hair and the deep blue of his eyes, which the
lighting turned to black. She shifted a little and found her shoulder against
his. Jerking away, she bumped a lagger in the aisle and popcorn showered them
both.
    She apologized to the patron, offered to replace the
popcorn, but an usher came and said the theater would cover it. The aisles were
so narrow, it happened all the time. But his reassurance didn’t help,
especially when a glance over her shoulder confirmed the gleeful camera
operator was catching every moment of her humiliation.
    “From My Strange Obsession to America’s Funniest
Home Videos in less than a week,” she muttered.
    “What?” Gage chuckled, picking popcorn out of her hair and
off her shoulders. When he brushed across her breast for a few pieces of corn
in her cleavage, they both froze. “Maybe you’d better get these?”
    “I’d better go to the restroom.” She stood, handing him her
own bucket, augmented by the other patron’s shower of corn. “I think there’s
more inside my top.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “I’d offer to help, but—”
    “But your girlfriend wouldn’t appreciate seeing your hand in
my bra on television.” She shook off what she could. “I’ll be right back.
    * * * *
    She still thought he had a girlfriend. So did all of
America. He’d begun to regret his decision to keep the change in status from
Coral. Of course, even if she knew he was available, it wouldn’t matter. She
wouldn’t be interested in a stuffed shirt like him. She’d have lovers who lived
life to the fullest, not pale writers and counselors who never left their
office except to go to the gym for their health or do dinner with the right
people who could further their careers.
    And they had nothing in common. He was quite sure of it. Not
one factor. Animal attraction was