Page 39 of Theoretically Straight

The edge of Theo’s mouth twitches. “Sorry, guess I forgot to mention it. And we talked about this, Mom. My friends don’t like it when you call them that.”

“Well, maybe your new friends will.” Kora winks at us, and I can feel the embarrassment radiating off of Theo like a heatwave. The pink in his cheeks is kind of adorable.

“I’m Caleb,” I say, offering my hand out to Kora. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Wren brushes their bangs aside and gives a polite wave. “Wren. Your house is cool.”

“Thank you, Wren. That’s so sweet of you to say! Theo, you should make more friends like her. She’s got good taste.”

Theo sucks in a breath. I open my mouth to correct Kora, but Wren beats me to the punch.

“My pronouns are actually they/them, Kora. Just so you know.”

Kora blinks, her friendly smile wavering for all of half a second before she recovers with, “Right, okay, I’ll do my best to remember that. Well, I won’t hold you three up any longer. Theo, your dad and I will be up here if y’all need anything. It was great to meet you both!”

“Nice to meet you,” Wren and I echo as Kora heads back up the hallway and into what I assume is the kitchen. I try not to count the number of crosses in the artwork she passes along the way. There’s a lot of them.

“I’m really sorry about that, Wren,” Theo says, leading us to the stairs that descend to the basement. “I should have told her beforehand.”

“It’s fine,” Wren says with a laugh. “It literally happens every day. I stopped taking it personally a while ago. I just correct on the spot.”

Theo nods, but his lips are pulled tight like he’s deep in thought.

Stop looking at his lips, Caleb. Jeez.

At the bottom of the stairs, we head down a short hallway, and Theo opens another door into the theater room. Red curtains hang on either side of a projector screen on the far wall, and three rows of leather reclining seats face the screen, each row elevated slightly over the other. In the corner, a real-life popcorn cart sits behind a wet bar, the glass top filled with yellow popcorn. The smell of buttery deliciousness wafts in the air.

“Welp, this is it,” Theo says, heading over to the bar. He squats down to open a mini fridge under the counter. “We’ve got soda and water. Help yourself to some popcorn.”

“I brought sour gummy worms,” I say, holding up the bag.

“Nice!” Theo grins at me, then seems to remember that Wren is here too, and adds, “Can I get you something to drink, Wren?”

“Grab whatever’s got the most caffeine,” they say, flopping onto the first chair in the middle row of seats. They waste no time fiddling with the buttons on the side, a devious grin taking over as they recline at a comically glacial pace.

“You got it,” Theo replies, then he looks at me, and my palms start to sweat again. “What about you?”

“Coke’s fine,” I say, hurrying over to sit beside Wren because I don’t trust myself to be one-on-one with him in this setting. I’ll do something stupid for sure. On second thought, I move over so the middle seat is open. That way, Theo will have to sit between us, and Wren will get a clear view of any flirty behavior.

Theo brings us our drinks as well as two cartons of popcorn, then goes back to the bar to grab his own. “What movie did y’all want to watch?”

Wren pops up out of their seat, pulling a VHS out of their bag. “I was waffling back and forth most of the afternoon, but I finally decided on a classic. I hope you’ve got a VCR back there somewhere.”

Theo laughs, pointing to the giant tower of equipment across from the bar. “Lucky for us, my mom collects classic Disney VHSs, so Dad had one retrofitted down here years ago.” Wren tosses him the tape, and he catches it. “‘Killer Nuns from Hell?’”

“You won’t be disappointed,” Wren assures him. “This movie is a spiritual experience. Plus, you’d never expect that nuns could kill people with a rosary in so many inventive ways. It really gets the creative juices flowing.”

“Is that okay with you?” I ask, trying to get a gauge on Theo’s reaction.

He eyes the cover of the VHS for a moment, then shrugs and plugs it in. “Killer nuns sound kinda fun. Let’s do it.”

My heart is already racing, and I haven’t even seen a nun on screen yet.

As I happily play the role of host to my guests, I try not to panic at the empty seat between Caleb and Wren that they seem to have intentionally left open for me.

I can’t say that I didn’t already consider the seating arrangement for this movie night. It’s not something I think about every time, but whenever we have new people, I try to be as considerate of their needs as possible, and some guests have very specific movie seating preferences.

Dad’s pride and joy has three rows of black leather motorized-reclining movie theater seats. The first row has only two chairs, but the next two rows have three seats each. No one really needs to know this, but Dad did obnoxious amounts of research on the best viewing angles and distances between the viewers and the screen to the point that literally all eight seats are practically scientifically designed to be perfect. So, when people express that they prefer the back row because that’s “the best distance to experience the movie,” I have to remind myself not to ramble on about Dad’s meticulous setup because that’s insane. Who does that?

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