I’m not 21 anymore. All nighters are a thing of my past. I no longer have the ability to thrive off of zero sleep.
But I still wouldn’t change a second of last night.
Mr. Fix-It and I wound up meeting at one of my favorite restaurants this side of town. A hip little bar scene with leather couches in the back and a good appetizer menu.
Right out the gate, the conversation flowed and I knew we were going to get along just fine. We touched on politics and education and travel; all subjects near and dear to my heart.
And when I unintentionally word vomited a little bit about my political stances, I took a deep breath and waited for it all to come crumbling apart.
After all, I am clearly a liberal leaning girl in a state dominated by conservatives. The possibility that I had stepped on his toes or set myself up for a less than romantic debate was high.
Except… he smiled. Saw my apprehension, lifted his glass and said “Don’t worry, I’m pretty liberal myself.”
From that point forward, it became more and more clear that this man was designed based on specifications I must have laid out in another life. There was simply no other explanation for how well he fit into the mold of the kind of guy I’ve always seen myself with.
He’s a born and raised Alaska boy, who has only recently moved back after 8 years of traveling and going to school. He has his masters in Marketing, but hit a point where he realized he wasn’t sure if he was ready to pursue that life. So, he moved back home and started working for his dad’s contracting company while he tried to figure out what else it was he wanted.
That’s right; his family owns the company that’s been putting so much work into my kitchen. Which means that I’ve actually spoken to his dad, back when I was picking out everything that I wanted to go in.
I had no idea when I was crying over that leak how many cool things would come out of it.
Just another reminder that there really is always a reason.
At some point we wound up touching on the subject of music, and I was talking about how much I missed the live music scene from California. I am a girl with eclectic musical tastes, who is always happy to sit back and listen to some new band.
It was then that he asked me if I had made it out to First Tap yet. It’s basically a live concert that occurs at one of my favorite spots in town once a month.
The first Thursday of every month in fact.
When I told him I had never been, and we realized it was going on right as we were speaking – we decided to close out our tab and head that way.
The kind of totally spontaneous move that I always love
We wound up arriving to a completely packed house, and the layers started coming off immediately. Before I knew it, I had a purse stuffed with articles of clothing from both of us, and we were in the middle of the dance floor. Pushing closer and closer to the stage with every beat. Until there we were – up against the rail directly in front of the stage dancing in the middle of a mob scene.
Literally, we were in a mosh pit. I haven’t been in a mosh pit since I was probably 19. Back when I fancied myself a punk rock princess.
But there we were; jumping and dancing and singing at the top of our lungs.
Both literally dripping in sweat.
It was then that he grabbed me and shouted “This is the best first date I’ve ever had!”
And I knew I was in. I knew this boy was just as smitten with me as I was with him.
I also knew that the girl he was crushing on, was likely a girl I wouldn’t be able to be a week from now. Standing in the middle of a mosh pit, being pushed at from every angle, and getting a contact high from all the pot smokers who were around.
There is no way I would inhabit this same scene with a baby on board.
And for a split second, I got kind of sad. Because what if he was falling for a carefree girl I didn’t really have it in me to be much longer? What if the side he was seeing of me that he liked, was the side that would be getting pushed aside soon in favor of mommy-hood?
I knew I was ready to move on to that next step, but was he? So soon after meeting me, would he be ready to witness that transition?
There were other things. Comments made throughout the night that made it clear he is nowhere near ready to have kids in his life. Mentions of friends of his who he felt had given up so much of their adventurous spirits once they became parents.
Tiny shadows of doubt creeping up in my head as I thought “This boy is going to adore me… Until he finds out the truth. And then; he is going to run.”
I wiped those doubts away though. Pushed them to the side and willed myself to ignore them. Reminded myself to live in the here and now.
And here and now; I was on a ridiculously fun first date with a guy who totally made my heart skip a beat.
A guy who was dripping sweat and holding my hair up off my neck because he could tell it was driving me crazy. A guy who still looked at me like I was adorable, even when I tucked all that hair up under a Fedora borrowed from a stranger and stripped down to just a tank top because I had literally begun to soak through my own shirt half an hour before.
A guy who jumped and danced and lost all inhibitions, only to come back to my side and kiss my sweaty neck.
Don’t believe me when I say we were absolutely disgusting?
He found a picture online today that was posted by the local paper. It happened to highlight the situation pretty well:
Yep, that’s the boy. Right there in red. Mr. Fix-It.
Do you see how soaked his shirt is?
The funny thing is that I’m standing right next to him in an equal state of disarray, but thankfully – the camera let me hide behind him just perfectly. So you only get a glimpse of me in a tank top with black bra straps hanging out.
Classy-class in a big bad way.
Thank goodness for small miracles. Because I think I would have cried if pictures had surfaced of how awful I truly looked.
After all the effort I had put into looking cute before ever leaving the house.
There we were though. Sweaty and disgusting; both laughing hysterically at the twist this night had taken.
And when the show ended, we slowly put our layers back on and headed outside.
Only to discover that after an entire day of wet snow/rain, everything had frozen over.
We had met at the restaurant initially, and then when we decided to go to the concert had opted to take my car since he had been driving his work vehicle.
The plan was that after the show, I would drop him back off at the restaurant and he would head back to the other side of town where he lives from there.
As we were slipping across the parking lot however, I assessed the situation. He was sober for the most part, but after a few beers; he wasn’t as sober as I was. The roads were icy and we could already see a few slide outs. My house was a few minutes away, while his was a much longer journey.
The idea of him driving all that way less than completely sober on roads that were nowhere near ideal made my stomach churn.
So, I took a leap.
I told him he could stay at my house. I laid down the rules (no hankey pankey), but let him know that if he wanted, he could stay with me and I would take him to his car in the morning.
Being a boy; he didn’t think about that offer for too long.
When we got back to the house, we both immediately took showers.
So at least we recognized our own filth.
Then we crawled into bed with the intentions of sleeping, only… we couldn’t stop talking.
We talked about everything. Faith. Family. Interests. Middle names.
Everything except for the veritable elephant in the room.
We touched on my illness a bit. I had told him about my passion for writing, and when he asked what I tend to write about – I couldn’t tell the truth without mentioning my endometriosis. It was a short conversation though. He didn’t ask many questions, and I didn’t push the subject.
It had become clear throughout the evening that he had no clue about my plans. That he had never taken any notice of that calendar I had been so worried about.
Which really does show such a difference between men and women. Had the roles been reversed…? Well, let’s just say I tend to be quite observant when I’m interested in someone.
The time wasn’t right though. We had been having too amazing a night, and honestly… I was scared. Scared that when I dropped that bomb, the magic would end. Scared that when he knew the truth, he would no longer look at me the same way.
Scared that telling him would ruin everything.
So I didn’t. We talked about the events of the previous day, and he confessed he had been excited as soon as I opened the door. Told me that he just kept thinking about how pretty my eyes were, and that he didn’t believe his co-worker when he came in and told him I had mentioned that if he was single he should call me.
He didn’t believe that I was interested in him.
Which is mildly amusing. Especially since it had been his eyes that pulled me in immediately as well.
Kind eyes. Warm eyes. Eyes that you can’t help but fall into.
I’ve always been a sucker for eyes.
And beards. A confession I made while cuddled up in his arms as his beard tickled the top of my head. To which he responded that he's always had a thing for girls with curly hair.
How does attraction always seem to work like that? How does it happen that two people ever manage to find exactly what gets their blood pumping in another person?
As we lay there, starting to drift to sleep, my back to his chest; I made another leap.
“Do you think it’s a little weird?” I said. “That you’re here, in my bed, cuddled up next to me, and we’ve never even kissed?”
Silence. Crickets. No words were spoken for what must have been hours.
“Well” he said. “You sure know how to put a lot of pressure on a moment, don’t you?”
I busted out laughing. This is of course a specialty of mine; creating awkward scenarios.
Convinced that I had ruined the mood, I snuggled in content with getting no kiss for the evening.
And it was in that moment, that he flipped me over and planted the sweetest, most gentle kiss I have ever had upon my lips.
As I giggled throughout the entire thing.
No one ever said I was a master of finesse.
We got very little, if any sleep last night. It turned into bouts of talking peppered in between with more of those sweet kisses. Until alarms were going off, and it was time to return to the real world.
I drove him to his car, and we kissed our goodbyes. He was planning on going out of town tonight with his dad for a weekend trip, and he knew I was leaving for Seattle on Wednesday (although we obviously hadn’t discussed the details of why). With both of us traveling, we made no future plans.
But even now, as I type this, I have been texting with him for the last hour.
I have all the faith in the world that there will be a second date.
And the question becomes; when is the right time to spill the beans.
To tell him the truth.
To take him out of the dark.
When is the right time to trust him with the details of my life, and hope that he won’t run?
