Expectations and Memories

Being warm from the alcohol, I blink hard and deliberately twice to reaffirm that it is, in fact, Jude Law standing in the doorway approximately six feet away from me. Maybe it just looks like him. Without giving it a second thought, I walk up to him and Cara. They're in the middle of talking, but I just step in between them thanks to my liquid confidence.
"Hey Cara." I smile and blush; I'm not sure if it's because of the liquor or the embarrassment of my delayed realization that I just completely interrupted them.
Lucky for me Cara just laughs. "Hey Aura! This is Jude. Jude, Aura."
My stomach does more somersaults than I can remember it ever doing before. He is there, right in front of me, looking at me warmly with his blue eyes aglow, holding a hand out, expecting a shake. I smile and dumbly hold my limp hand out. He kisses the top of it gently and pulls me into him to talk to me. You could blame it on the music, but I choose to think he wanted to get close to me.
He smells like Christmas. Peppermint mixed with a little Old Spice and cigarettes. He places his hand on my head and when his breath blows into my ears when he begins to speak to me I feel my knees go weak.
"Aura's a beautiful name. Your face is glowing. It's really lovely to meet you." His British accent is dripping unintended seduction.
I laugh a little. "Well you're a God." I blurt in response.
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. What?"
"Your movies...they're uh, good." I lamely try to save myself. I think this reply is even worse. I grimace and take a big gulp of my rum & coke. I feel better.
He chuckles. "Let's get out of the doorway, shall we?"
I turn around and realize Cara has disappeared and we are blocking the door. I laugh and nod in agreement. The music has risen in volume as more people start to dance and less talking ensues. Jude holds out his hand in question and raises his eyebrows; he is asking to hold my hand. I place mine in his and he pulls me towards the drink table, pours himself some whiskey, and then we continue towards the window of the apartment where a sleeping bag is laid haphazardly on the ground. He gestures dramatically to the crumpled up sleeping bag, acting as if it is some grand throne, and sits down. I join him, and we both take a sip of our drinks.
"So how do you know Cara?" He asks kindly. I have never seen someone with such kind eyes in my life. Eyes I know I can trust. Eyes I wish with every fiber of my being I could swim in.
"I'm old friends with Rachael, her cousin, who lives here with her." I explain.
He nods in understanding. I forget to be polite and ask him the question in return. Instead I stare at him and he looks at me right back. We are smiling at each other, not talking.
"Do you believe in God?" I ask.
His face lights up with what seems like surprise and bemusement. "No. Do you?"
I can't contain my excitement. "No. No, I do not. Most people do though, you know? And I just can't wrap my head around it. It's so implausible. People die every second. I mean, granted, people are born every second too, but that's beside the point. 'God' was homophobic and sexist and honestly a bitch. He's not real. It's crazy to me that people delude themselves every day with religion. Which is corrupt as fuck--"
I am interrupted by Jude laughing. I had kind of forgotten he was there. "What are you laughing at?" I ask, slightly indignant and embarrassed I sounded stupid.
"The way you phrase things is..." He pauses. "Unconventionally poetic." He finishes. "I adore it. I adore that we're talking about religion right now and I don't even know your last name."
"Locke. And I already know yours, so spare me that conversation where I have to pretend I don't know it because I have to act like you're not an actor that everyone knows."
"Locke. Huh." He smiles. "Religion is bullshit, you're right. But it's a sort of beautiful and fascinating bullshit, I think. Its own breed."
I contemplate this. "It is. And I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not going to deny my grandmother her rosary beads when that's what gets her through the day, but like God,--no pun intended--do you think there will ever come a time where religion is extinct? Gone, like the...what's it called...remember the Blue Footed Booby? The bird? It's extinct. Which is sad. Like, really sad. I wish religion was extinct and not the Blue Footed Booby." I am drunk and rambling.
Jude is laughing. "You're fucking funny! Isn't it rather daunting to think about how humans are going to be extinct one day, too? Like fuck, I hope that's not in our lifetime."
I am cracking up at the idea of this. I don't know why. Coping mechanism, maybe? I'm drunk.
"Like in Interstellar!"
"Exactly like in Interstellar," He nods. "All that movie is plausible, you know? Except for the part where aliens are kind enough to conveniently place a worm hole in our galaxy. I don't think any of our aliens are that kind."
"So true! Fuck our aliens."
He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively at me. "Yeah? You gonna fuck the aliens? Goddamn, Aura. You just made that weird." He jokes with me.
I am blushing and laughing and perplexed by how comfortable I am around this gorgeous human.
"Doesn't it piss you off that Interstellar got shitty reviews? It's a masterpiece. People are just comparing it to Christopher Nolan's other stuff which isn't fair."
"Okay, if we're going to have a conversation about movies I need to smoke some weed first because I think we've both got a lot to say. You smoke?" He asks. I nod. "Yeah, I figured. Let's go to the roof and have a smoke. But I can't wait that long to do this, so I'm going to do it really quick."
"Do wha--" I begin, but before I know it his lips are on mine and his tongue is in my mouth. We are still on the rumpled up sleeping bag, with Leonard Cohen playing in the background. He tastes like whiskey and, somehow, peppermint. I am not unhappy.