Meeting Miss Mystic by Katy Regnery Read Free Book Online Page A

out how and why she’d gotten so far under his skin so quickly. It wasn’t like he could see her at school, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she walked down the hall to the craft closet or dressed up a little specially for Greet the Parents night. If she was a teacher at his school—as Jenny had been—he’d be able to observe her around others, what made her smile, what made her frustrated. He’d know so much about her based on his extrapolations, without ever needing to say more than a word to her. In fact, if he made a project of observing her carefully, he would have eventually made educated assumptions about who she was, whether that was fair and accurate or not.
    Instead, she existed in a totally different plane of reality, allowing him direct access to her head and her heart. It was almost impossible to make assumptions about her, and more and more, Paul was enchanted by the concept of getting to know someone—really know them—without the confusion of body language, tone, physical attraction and assumptions.
    One thing was for certain: the more he got to know Holly, the more he liked her.
    He found street parking about a block away from the Empire Twin theater and made his way up the block, one hand in his pocket palming his phone just in case it vibrated. He opened the theater door and stepped into the stale-smelling, air-conditioned half-light. There was a ticket window to his right.
    “One, please. For the, uh, 4:30 show.”
    The girl behind the glass looked about the same age as his seniors and wore electric-blue eye shadow with silvery pink lip gloss. She snapped her gum loudly, looked meaningfully over his shoulder, then, convinced Paul had arrived alone, asked, “You mean the 4:45 show?”
    Paul flicked his glance up to the marquis behind her. Closer to You , which featured a glossy poster with Emma Stone kissing Ryan Gosling in a meadow by sunset, was playing at 4:30 while The Last Firestorm which featured fighter jets doing mid-air acrobatics over a burning city, was playing at 4:45.
    He lowered his eyes to meet hers and tilted his head to the side. “I said 4:30.”
    “Just, uh, one ?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
    Paul put a ten dollar bill on the countertop under the glass.
    She flicked her eyes to the bill then back to his face without touching it. With that slightly mocking smile still on her face she let her eyes trail lazily down his body, resting briefly on his hips before slowly sweeping back up. She licked her lips.
    “I get off at five.”
    “Good for you,” Paul muttered without smiling.
    The girl smirked, straightening her back so her small breasts jutted out toward him. “Want company? I’ll come find you in the dark once it starts. You say yes, I’ll let you watch for free. Deal?”
    “I tell you what,” said Paul, placing a finger on his ten dollar bill and sliding it closer to her. “You go ahead and give me my change for one ticket at 4:30 and I won’t tell the theater manager that you’re coming on to the patrons. Deal?”
    She huffed, taking his money and slapping his change on the counter. “Weird for a man to see that romance movie all by hisself.”
    “ Him self.”
    “Huh?”
    “ Him self. It’s weird for a man to see that movie all by him self.”
    She curled her lip and narrowed her eyes. “That’s what I said.”
    School wasn’t in session and he wasn’t her teacher, but Paul was compulsive about correcting children and he was about to try to explain it to her again when his phone blessedly buzzed, interrupting them. He knew it was Holly. He just felt it.
    “ Him self,” he said again, which elicited another disgusted look from the girl. He rolled his eyes. “Aw, just forget it.”
    He fished his phone out of his pocket, but kept himself from looking at the screen, wanting to choose a good seat and get settled before he read Holly’s text and wrote back. The theater was dark and mostly empty, except for a few bunches of girls in