Page 90 of Written By a Woman

“Oh my god,”I felt my eyes widen in alarm.

Actually, I think the proper term for my eyes was, “bulging out of their sockets.”

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Zaid caught up to me, breathing heavily at my back as I stood there, frozen on the threshold of his bedroom door.

When I arrived at his apartment with takeout, he suggested I get comfortable on the couch while he went to his room to look through his selection of Blu-rays. He asked what I was in the mood to watch, and like a normal person, I asked what he had. It was insane to me that the man still had Blu-rays and DVDs instead of just any streaming service.

I wasn’t sure I even had something to play a CD or DVD with in my entire apartment. My laptop didn’t even have a CD drive.

Anyways, Zaid had given a very vague answer of “lots of options,” which made me stand up from the couch to just follow him down the hallway to his bedroom where the movies supposedly were.

He immediately got nervous, his hands up defensively as he insisted that I sit on the couch while he grabbed some options.

My spidey senses started tingling.

By spidey senses, I meant my “what the hell could he possibly be hiding in his room that he didn’t want me to see” senses. The man had already invited me on a romantic sunset walk on the bluffs of Laguna Beach, patiently waited while I tried dozens of ice cream flavors before choosing one, and even went out of his way to ensure I still had delicious leftovers to eat for lunch.

But now he was hiding something, and as much as I didn’t want to shatter the illusion that he was perfect, I couldn’t let this go.

I had no idea what to expect when I bolted underneath his large arms and sprinted down the short hallway, determined to see what he was so nervous about. Was his room unusually messy? Did he have plush animals on his bed? Unfolded laundry? Skin suits? I needed to know. There was no chance that I was going to sit on his couch all evening and not wonder what warranted such a nervous reaction from him.

I couldn’t have guessed this even if given the chance.

What I walked in on was so out of left field, that I had to blink several times to make sure that I was seeing things correctly.

“Um…” I took a few steps into his room, my gaze bouncing all over the place because it was impossible to land on one thing. Every time my eye landed on a new area, details stuck out to me.

The dark red accent wall that his bed sat against.

The giant Captain America symbol on his comforter.

The movie posters—sorry—thesignedmovie posters. Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, and even the Hulk.

The framed dolls.

The framed playing cards.

I walked over to a large floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that had some books, but mostly DVDs. A glance let me know that they were all organized by release day. The man had every single DVD in the Marvel universe, as well as some mint edition comic books that were also framed or kept in some sort of glass housing.

“So…” I heard Zaid speak behind me, making me turn around to see him leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest defensively, “…This is my bedroom.”

I stared at him, trying to wrap my head around this additional information I had on him.

“This is your room,” I repeated, trying to maintain eye contact with him but also getting distracted by additional Marvel Universe merch on the wall near his door, the side of the room I didn’t immediately see upon entering.

“I’m sweating over here, Signe,” Zaid said, genuine concern on his expression as he watched me look around.

“I just…” I shook my head a little bit as I took a few steps toward him, getting distracted by an out-of-the-box action figure sitting on a shelf near the doorframe he leaned against, “Didn’t expect—”

“For me to be a geek?” Zaid interrupted with a nervous smile.

“For you to be ahugegeek,” I corrected, pointing to the new shelf of merch beside him, “Did you leave any toys for the other kids in the store?” I was giggling by the end of my sentence, my smile taking over my features as my shock evaporated into complete, utter adoration for this side of him.

Zaid rolled his eyes at my snarky remark, “These are adult toys.”

“Tell me more,” I widened my eyes in exaggerated interest as I gently snagged one off of the shelf, careful with my hold in case it was valuable and fragile, and started to inspect it, “Where’s the button? How many vibration settings does it have?”

Zaid choked as he snatched his action figure out of my hand. He couldn’t hold back his laughter, even though he tried. He righted the toy back on the shelf before mumbling to me, “You’re a menace.”

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