I arrived first at the restaurant. We had agreed to wait for the other in the lobby. I watched him as he walked up to the restaurant. His size held my eye, as it had the night before, until he stepped in the door and looked at me and that’s when he smiled. Dear sweet jesus is all I remember thinking. How is it possible for a simple smile to hit me in the solar plexus like that? The next thought was do I stare at the smile or the eyes? Those incredible, piercing blue eyes that shine unlike anything I have ever seen before. This was going to be one helluva fun evening. As luck would have it, the restaurant was full. He quickly decided we wouldn’t wait, but rather walk up to another restaurant. As we’re walking, he crosses behind me to walk along the side closest to the street. I gave him a quizzical look and asked what he was doing. He proceeded to tell me that it was a chivalry thing, back in Victorian times it was considered good manners when walking with a lady, to walk on the outside to prevent her from getting covered in shit should someone happen to lean out their window (I’m paraphrasing here…he said it much more eloquently) to dump their latrine bucket. You can guess what went through my mind, “Is this guy for real?”
This guy was interesting. I was not expecting interesting. Good looking, charming, funny I was expecting, interesting was a different ball game all together.
We got to the restaurant, ordered dinner and chatted. The usual vital stats were exchanged, talk of our respective jobs. No matter how hard I tried, my eyes were constantly drawn to his mouth; I desperately hoped he didn’t notice. After dinner, where I, like the idiot that I am, ordered the hottest dish on the menu and then carried on as though my mouth wasn’t burning like the deepest bowels of hell, we walked up to the coffee shop and went for a walk around town. We talked about his son, childhood memories, blah blah blah. Short term memory, I don’t remember everything we talked about – he would. I do remember him telling me he was going on the road for 2 weeks the following morning. My immediate thought, “I can’t let him go before I know more” so I suggested a drive and he quickly agreed. I’d love to know what he was thinking at this time, perhaps I’ll ask him.
Most of you know I drive a boxy little car. I told him we could take my car and he could drive. He asked, “What kind of car do you drive?” With a devious smile I replied, “You’ll see”. Keep in mind the poor man is 6’1”. He was a good sport about folding his legs in four and pouring himself into the driver’s seat of my car. We drove aimlessly. I remember both of us singing along to the music, I remember grinning like I hadn’t grinned in a long time. I was relaxed enough with him to have my feet planted on the dashboard as he drove. I was completely comfortable with this man. We drove to the beach where I fully expected him to wait five minutes before making an attempt to get me out of my clothes. Again, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
We walked down the boardwalk to the water and stood there talking. He put his jacket around my shoulders because I was cold, and he stood freezing in his tshirt. He spoke of not liking the ocean, how it made him feel lost. It was in incredible night and the roar of the surf was almost deafening. We walked back to the car and sat in the parking lot, at the beach, talking. After almost two hours, he asked me to hold my hand up. I did and he pressed his hand against mine, and then closed his fingers around mine and ASKED me if he could kiss me. It’s about goddamn time, I thought. When I responded yes he ever so gently pulled me to him and kissed me.
When that first kiss ended he said: “One of those isn’t going to be enough” At that point a tiny tiny crack formed in the six inch veneer I’ve managed to cover my heart with over the last three years.
We kissed like a pair of teenagers in the front seat of my car for hours. We would stop kissing, he would put my face between his hands and then we’d kiss some more. At one point around 3am, he suddenly turned the music up, opened all the windows, got out of the car and came around to my door and tugged me out of the car. He wrapped his arms around me and we stood under the moonlight dancing. I don’t think my feet were actually touching the ground at this point. It was one of the most incredibly romantic things I had experienced in a really long time and I just wanted to stop time. I wanted to remember every detail of the way he smiled down at me, the way his arms felt around my waist, and how we seemed to fit so well together. My lips were sore when we finally stopped at six am and I felt as though I had been hit by a freight train, if it’s possible to feel really really good after being hit by a train.
I had told him earlier in the evening about my troubles with Monty: the accident, my bone deep fears, the grandmother buying him a car, Monty moving in with his father. As we drove back to town that morning, a news story about a teen getting killed in a car accident that night caught my ear. As I reached over to turn it up he said, “It happened in the western part of the island”. He knew without me saying a word….
Prior to dropping him at his truck, in an effort to be cute, I tried writing my cell number on his hand only to discover I was so damn tired I couldn’t remember what my cell number was. He had me call his cell. We parted ways with a long kiss in the parking lot. I hopped in my car and drove away. I’m not sure if I was out of the parking lot before I got a text from him, “Wow” is all it said. When we had been chatting the day before I had asked him what he was looking for and his response was, “I just want to make a connection you know?” So I responded to his text with one of my own, “Click”.
What followed was the most intense two weeks of my life. How is it possible to miss someone you’ve known for less than 24 hours? Miss him I did; with an intensity that forced me to sit and analyze my emotions for hours on end. He told me that first Monday evening that he was twitterpated. I didn’t get the Bambi reference and he explained it to me. It was like being on a roller coaster that went from absolute terror to sheer joy in 2.5 seconds…every damn five minutes. He felt the same way. We sent hundreds of text messages to each other, spent hours on the phone. It was one evening, a few kisses, how did that equate to what we were feeling? It wasn’t possible, was it? We were blowing the evening out of proportion in our minds; it had not been as intense as we remembered it.
By the following week I had a small part of myself convinced of exactly that. I had to spend three days at a conference and though we communicated back and forth as much as possible, I had convinced a part of myself that I was overreacting. That I was being silly acting like a teenager with a high school crush. Then he sent me a text on Wednesday, saying that he would be home on Thursday, a day earlier than expected. The wait was over. It’s a mighty damn good thing I was driving a van load of ladies home the next day…the 5 hour drive kept me from going absolutely insane with the thoughts that were running through my head.
At 7:30 that evening he pulled in my driveway. I stood waiting for him on the deck, and as I watched him walk toward me I knew that I was a goner. Cupid had hit with flawless aim. Deny and lie to myself all I wanted, whatever this was between us – it couldn’t have been more real and was every bit as intense as I remembered, if not more so. Then he looked at me and smiled, and my world dissolved so that it was only him. The kiss made me close my eyes in pure ecstasy.
We spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday night together. We fit together like pieces of a puzzle.
As I sit here writing this there has been another weekend spent together and he’s back on the road. In the month since we’ve met, we’ve logged over 4000 text messages back and forth to each other. His smile, the sound of his laugh, the way he looks at me, his touch…it all has me enthralled. I don’t recognize this woman; this soft, mushy, romantic woman isn’t the hard ass bitch I’ve known for 37 years.
I’m scared shitless and excited all at the same time. The fear is sometimes overwhelming. It’s all too much too fast. I did not want this. I wasn’t looking for love, or the one, or a heart stopping romance. I wanted light, casual, and meaningless. None of those words can be used to describe the last six weeks. I have had to force myself several times over the last two weeks not to walk away out of fear. He scares me, what I feel scares me. I’m counting sleeps until I see him again for fuck sakes people!! He sends me texts before I go to bed, “Good night ma petite”. I think of him and smile.
And that is what has been keeping yours truly away from the blogging world as of late. I hope you can forgive me!
