my night inside a chick flick

I shouldn't have listened to my insecurities. I shouldn't have worried so much. I shouldn't have been so pessimistic about it. Although, I guess that's the thing about optimism, is it always seems that much more striking in the face of such persistent negativity.

But I should have known better than to think I could resist. Not that I really wanted to. Or wanted to at all, in fact. Because just like I remembered, as soon as he smiled at me, I was disarmed. And I think I made it an entire five minutes before I just HAD to kiss him again. What can I say? I had to see if it lived up to what I remembered.

And, good lord. Did it. He put his hand along my jaw, just barely grazing my neck, and pulled me into his kiss. And just like I remembered doing, I melted. Urgency increased, his grip around my body strengthened, and we found ourselves falling into my bed. Or maybe it was the lounge chair in my room. I really couldn't say - I was already floating away.

I didn't used to be this way. What I mean is, I haven't been this way before. Where someone's kiss literally makes me weak in the knees. Clouds my head and distracts me from everything else I should be doing and where I should be going and who I should be seeing. But that's what happens. I forget there's anything else, and focus on the butterflies. Damn butterflies. Sneaking up on me like that.

At some point, we remembered that we had places to go and people to meet and time to spend together. So we walked, hand in hand, to the neighborhood bar to meet my roommates for a drink.

When the spontaneous evening plans we had fell through, we turned the car around and headed back to town. "We could take a walk around the lake near my house, if you wanted," I suggested. He agreed, recommended we grab a bottle of wine for the stroll. A bottle of wine became a bottle of champagne to accompany the perfectly warm night. And the stroll became finding an outcropping of grass and sitting near the water's edge, looking at the stars and the city lights.

Over champagne we shared secrets and laughter and those kinds of conversations that only come about when you're really interested in what the other person is saying. I kept looking from the city buildings to the sky which had cleared itself of clouds ("Just like I knew it would. I knew it would be a beautiful night," he tells me, without irony.) then back to him and I can't believe how often he's smiling at me. And how all of this seems so surreal and cinematically perfect.

Like when I suggest I want to go spin, and he stands up with me and takes my hands and we spin in circles until we're giggling and collapse on top of each other. And he kisses me in the grass until I'm breathless again and then helps me up.

We strolled back to the car, his fingers intertwined with mine. I drove us back to my house, where my roommates were drinking and listening to music. They greeted us with broad, warm smiles, told us how happy they were that we were back early. By the time I'd returned with our drinks, he was already engaged in conversation with my roommates, who seemed to be enjoying his company nearly as much as I was. ("Beautiful social graces," was my roommate's term for how open and inviting he was, and how he brought conversation out of even my quietest roommate.)

I lost track of what, exactly they were talking about, because the conversation went on for at least an hour. If there was any break in the flow, I didn't see it. As I stopped buzzing around the house and returned to the party, he situated himself near me, and put his hand around my waist. We stole a kiss here and there, and eventually excused ourselves. I blamed the need to wake up for work in the morning.

I stepped out before he did, so I sat down on the grass outside and stared up at the stars again. Took a deep breath, and couldn't stop smiling a smile I felt through my entire body. He followed a minute or two later. Kneeling in front of me on the grass, he murmured, "do you have ANY idea how hard it was to keep my hands off you in there?"

"Well, why did you, then?" I asked.

And with that, he was on top of me. Kissing me hard, and passionately, and so perfectly that I could do nothing but melt into him.



And the best part? None of this is fiction.