After waiting what had to have been an appropriate amount of time, Tarin reached out and started scooping a little bit of this and a little bit of that from the containers on the table onto a plate. As he did so, Tarin did his best to make sure and leave plenty of each item for Kevin. There was plenty of food, so it wasn’t a problem.

It was quiet for a while as they ate, and Tarin had to hand it to Lee, her choice in take-out shop was excellent. The lo-mein, the fried rice, pretty much everything was just solidly good.

Kevin still hadn’t emerged from his room and Tarin couldn’t help but dish himself up just a little bit more fried rice as Lee called for her kid again and asked Tarin’s opinion of the food.

“It’s fantastic. Is it one of the bigger places or is a hole in the wall kind of place?”

He thought for a moment as he scooped up a few remaining grains of rice with his chopsticks, “I’m going to have to show you this ramen place by the shop…” he said, not stopping to think that Lee had probably already eaten there.

“Oh, it’s definitely a hole in the wall,” Lee said as she picked up some lo mein with her chopsticks. “Kevin prefers going for the buffet, I do too, but he never wants to walk home after dinner so we don’t actually go too often.”

As she took her bite and chewed, Lee smiled as Tarin mentioned a ramen place near the shop he’d have to show her. She’d found a good ramen restaurant when she’d been back in Toronto that had been near her place, but she hadn’t really bothered to look since getting back to New York; Lee had for the most part just fallen back on the places she had already known were good.

“I’d like that,” she told Tarin once she had swallowed. “This place is actually pretty close to the shop too. There also used to be a really good Thai restaurant in the area too, but I’m not sure if it’s still there.”

Definitely a hole in the wall that wasn’t too far from the shop. Tarin wondered how he had managed to never find it considering he thought he’d probably eaten at every take-out place in the area. It didn’t really matter though because now he knew it was there and he could eat there whenever he wanted.

They also had a buffet. A buffet so good that a teenage boy didn’t want to walk after eating there. “Given what I know about teenage boys, one not being able to walk after a buffet is a ringing endorsement.”

Lee seemed open to the idea of the ramen place and Tarin nodded enthusiastically, “They have these little pork belly buns with lettuce and spicy mayo on them….They’re so good.”

She mentioned a Thai place then and Tarin shook his head, “I don’t know about a Thai place…but to be fair I didn’t know about this place either.”

Tarin’s plate was empty now and his belly was full so he set the plate down on the coffee table and just reassumed his previous lounging position to commence digestion.

When had Lee gotten so close?

“I mean, it is that good,” Lee agreed. “But when he’s asking for dessert almost as soon as we’re home, we really should be walking and not getting a cab. Especially since it’s really not that far of a walk.”

But then Tarin was describing something that the ramen place sold, and Lee’s chopsticks hung in the air between her plate and mouth. “That sounds amazing.”

Finally, Lee felt Kevin making his way out of his room. “It’s possible that the Thai place isn’t there anymore, then,” Lee mused. Then spoke to Kevin as he made his way behind the couch without turning. “It’s about time, Kevin. You’re lucky we didn’t eat all of the crab on you.”

By the time that Lee had finished speaking, Kevin had sat down beside her, using the fork she’d brought out for him to load food onto his plate. “There’s always leftovers, mum,” he replied. Shaking her head while he was looking away from her, Lee rolled her eyes. That might be true, but it wasn’t the point she was making.

It didn’t take long at that point for Lee to finish her own plate. Setting it on the table in front of her, Lee leaned back, shifting on the couch so that there was more equal space on either side of her. Which just happened to move her an inch closer to Tarin.

Tarin made a mental note to look into Schrodenger’s Thai place the next time he was over by the shop. It wouldn’t be too difficult to look, and maybe if he could find it he could bring some take-out home sometime.

Kevin emerged from his room and Tarin did his best to not speak up and say that if anyone had been threatening the leftovers it had been Kevin’s Mother and not Tarin. Tarin had been a conscientious roommate and had left plenty of food for the latecomer. He didn’t say that though, because Kevin seemed to have the situation in hand, pointing out that they always had leftovers anyway.

Lee shifted again and Tarin once again noticed the ever shrinking distance between the two of them. He knew it was simply because Lee was trying to give Kevin more space to sit while he ate, but Tarin still couldn’t help but notice the proximity and straightened up a bit to try and give Lee a bit more space if she so desired.

By this point the movie was rapidly approaching its conclusion. They’d found the map, they’d traveled across the desert, and now they were working their way through the booby trapped temple to try and find the cup. The hero was talking about a leap of faith over a huge chasm

“This is such a cool optical illusion…” Tarin said as the man stepped out into seemingly thin air only to find a narrow stone path with a pattern so similar to the rest of the chasm that it had appeared to not exist.

Tarin could empathize with the hero in more ways than one.

Well, at least Kevin was out of his room and eating now. And the movie was getting toward the end. The good action packed ending. Settling in even more, Lee leaned her head back against the back of the couch. Not realizing that Tarin’s arm was resting on it.

“It really is,” Lee agreed, glancing over at Tarin briefly before turning back to the tv. “It’s really cool that they were able to do that on film so well back then.”

Lee took a quick glance at her son, seeing that he was shoveling the food into his mouth as quickly as possible, not really paying attention to the movie. His loss.

Then Lee had a thought. Tarin had said that this was the first movie he’d seen on this side. “Have you seen the sequels to this yet?” She asked as she rolled her head on the back of the couch to look over at Tarin.

“I read something about that once.” Tarin said, keenly aware even if Lee wasn’t, that his arm was draped across the back of the couch where her head was currently leaning. “Because so many of the effects had to be practical, the special effects folks had to really know their stuff. They couldn’t rely on green screens and digital work to do the heavy lifting. Optical illusions were simple but practical ways to get messages across.”

Lee turned her head, and Tarin found himself looking down at her face for a moment before she spoke. This close he could see just how grey her eyes were. Carefully lifting his arm so he didn’t disturb Lee’s head, Tarin stood, grabbing the empty plates from where they sat on the coffee table and heading towards the kitchen. He’d have cleaned up the food too, but Kevin still appeared to be eating.

“There are sequels?” Tarin said as he rounded the corner, “This seemed like a logical end…I never even thought to look”

The plates got a quick wash before they went into the drying rack, the chopsticks just went into the trash, and Tarin stood in the kitchen for a few moments before heading back out to the living room to stand by the end of the couch for the last few minutes of the movie. “So about these sequels…”

Lee nodded her head as she listened to Tarin talking about what’d read regarding old special effects. ”Sometimes, even when the movie first came out, the effects were so cheesy it was laughable,” Lee said, glancing at Kevin who didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything other than the food on his plate. “That’s part of what makes those b-movies so great,” she continued, turning back to look at Tarin. “But other times, like this, the effects hold up and are still convincing decades later.”

But then Tarin was standing, collecting the two empty plates and making his way to the kitchen. Lee couldn’t help but wonder why he’d chosen to do that now. The movie was almost over, cleaning up could wait a few minutes.

No, not just cleaning up, Lee realized a moment later when she heard the tap running. Was he washing the dishes now? He had been the one so excited to watch the movie. Shaking her head slightly, Lee turned her attention back to the screen.

“So about these sequels…”

“Well, if we’re lucky, they’ll be playing the next movie after this,” Lee said, seeing that Tarin was just standing beside the couch now, not sitting again. “If not, I guess we’ll have to look for them at some point. There’s…I think there’s two more after this one. And the first two in this trilogy. You’ve seen them, right?”

As she was speaking, Lee felt the couch beside her shift. Turning, she saw Kevin getting up. And actually taking his dirty plate to the kitchen before disappearing to his room again. Well, it was something, at least.

Just like that, Kevin was done eating and disappearing off into his room without a single word to his Mom. Teenagers were weird.

Lee had pointed out that there were actually two sequels…as well as the two prequels to the movie they’d just finished.

As it turned out, this was a marathon and as the next movie started Tarin took his seat back on the couch, once again draping his arm across the back, “Looks like we are in luck…unless you’re suddenly and inexplicably interested in learning about baseball...because I think there’s still a game on.”

As the next movie started, Lee felt Tarin sitting down again. Good, it would have been awkward if he’d continued standing there while watching the movie. Pulling one of her legs up in front of her, Lee wrapped her arms around it as she got comfortable for the next movie.

And burst into laughter when Tarin spoke. “No, it’s a little early for me to be falling asleep,” she joked as she looked over at him. Not realizing his arm had returned to the back of the couch. Behind her head. “Plus, I’ve never actually seen this one, so it’s new for both of us.”

Well. It had been worth a shot. Baseball had seemed somehow…safer?

Kevin was gone now, but Lee hadn’t moved back to the other side of the couch. In fact, she’d curled up like she was content to stay right where she was.

Tarin didn’t have it in him to say anything, but he did chuckle when Lee once again pointed out her thoughts that baseball would put her to sleep. “I’m making it a personal goal to get you to like baseball.” He grumbled good naturedly

Lee pointed out that she also hadn’t seen this movie and Tarin grinned down at her again. So here they sat watching the intro as the movie started. “I hope this one is even half as good as the last, if it is, it'll be great.”

“Good luck,” Lee said, the laughter still audible in her voice. “You might want to make sure I’ve got extra energy before you force me to sit through a game. Because I might fall asleep intentionally just to frustrate you.” Not that she actually would try to intentionally fall asleep if he put a baseball game on. If he actually wanted to teach her about baseball that badly, she’d let him try.

Lee was just going to tease him and joke about it the whole time. That was all.

And though she didn’t normally watch these sort of action adventure movies, Lee had to agree that the movie they’d just watched had been pretty good. “If it is, I guess we’ll need to figure out where to find the rest of them to watch. Because I doubt pulling an all-nighter to watch all of them would be the best idea.”

“By the time I’m done with you, you’re gonna be the head of a fantasy baseball league, calculating batting averages, RBIs, and ERAs on the fly.”

Truth be told, Tarin wasn’t all that confident that he could actually convince Lee that baseball was worth watching. Some people just couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the sport.

“What about football? Basketball?” The movie was still getting started, so they had time for this. Something occurred to Tarin and he smiled triumphantly, “Hockey.” He said, Lee might have only been legally American to avoid immigration problems, but she’d been born and raised in Canada. Surely things weren’t that different on this side of the rift.

He was looking down at her again, and this time Tarin didn’t move, it was so…nice to see Lee like this. She was relaxed, she was teasing, she didn’t seem like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop on something awful. He was making her smile and laugh instead of frown, and Tarin liked that.

Tarin liked that enough that he knew he should move. Tarin knew that Lee was just being kind, just being friendly. Rachel had said just today that Lee wouldn’t even agree to go on a date, had knocked a man out for touching her arm. Tarin respected Lee too much to infringe on firmly set boundaries. Besides, after everything he’d done, and everything they’d been through…it just wasn’t right. How could he possibly ever be good enough after what she’d seen? After what he’d done.

Tarin didn’t move though, and Lee pointed out that they’d have to find the other ones some other time because an all-nighter wasn’t the best idea. Tarin turned back to the TV and shook his head in agreement, “I’ll honestly be surprised if I make it through this one.”

Lee just laughed and shook her head as she looked up at Tarin. “Again, good luck with that,” she replied. But then he went on to ask about other sports. Lee’s nose wrinkled as he questioned. Though, at least football had action that it wasn’t horrible to watch, but with basketball, it was like the players were just running back and forth on a court that was too small and there happened to be a ball.

But then he mentioned hockey, and the way he sounded so…proud…to have apparently figured it out… Maybe she wouldn’t be able to subject him to hockey, not if he was sounding like that about it. “What about hockey?” Lee asked, her eyes narrowing slightly in suspicion, though the happy, playful mood was still clearly evident on her face.

Lee couldn’t help but think that this was very nice. It had been far too long since she’d been this comfortable just spending time with someone who wasn’t Kevin or Rachel. And she could joke around with them, but Kevin was unpredictable now with how he would take it now that he was coming into his teens, and Rachel didn’t always get her sense of humour.

“Well, if you do fall asleep, I guess that means we’ll just have to do a complete marathon for all of the movies at some point,” she told him.

“If you like hockey, there’s hope for you yet.” Tarin said with a smug little smile, as if he’d found some kind of weakness he could later use to his advantage.

Lee didn’t seem too concerned about whether or not Tarin would be able to make it through the movie. In fact she suggested that sometime maybe they should watch the entire series. “I think either way I’d really like that…” he said simply. The movie was starting now and since neither of them had seen it, it would have been rude to talk through.

For the first twenty minutes or so, Tarin thought that the food had given him enough of a second wind to get through. The movie was set far in the future with a much older hero coming to grips with his mortality. And surviving a nuclear explosion in a refrigerator.

As the movie continued though, the sleepiness that had plagued Tarin though the last movie returned with a vengeance.

Somewhere between Connecticut and Peru, Tarin decided that maybe if he just let his eyes close for a minute he’d be able to pull it together for the rest of the movie.