So where were we? Happy hour.
A and I became friends. We were good friends, we hung out outside of work more and more frequently, but never just the two of us.
One night in May, 2006 A invited me over to watch Lost with him. It would’ve been the first time we hung out together by ourselves, outside of work, and not at a bar. I was nervous. I AGONIZED over what to wear. How to look “casually cute”. From what I hear, A spent hours cleaning his condo, and even hired a maid. He claims he bought candles and lit them and really spruced the place up to impress me. Except it never happened. That afternoon at work one of our mutual friends (who had a HUGE crush on A and may or may not have kissed him more than once at this point) invited me over after work. I went over, expecting to leave… but she wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t tell her where I was going because I KNEW I was breaking the cardinal rule of girlfriends, and she didn’t understand why I would want to leave when I could just watch Lost at her house. So I texted A. Told him I wasn’t coming. And apparently – broke his heart.
That was in May. We kept hanging out, kept going to happy hours together, and talked more and more during downtime at work. Finally, one fateful happy hour in December rolled around:
Shortly after this picture was taken A mentioned he was going to go outside to smoke a cigarette just stand there because neither one of us have ever smoked IN OUR LIVES. I told him I’d join him. Out we went. We huddled under a heater and shared a cigarette since neither of us were big smokers stood there. We came to a lull in the conversation and it would’ve been the perfect time for us to both go inside. We were both cold, (it was December after all!), and there was no reason for either one of us to continue standing there… but stand we did. I think neither one of us was ready to go back inside and join our friends. Finally, I got bold. I looked at A in the face and said “why haven’t you kissed me yet?” And without hesitation. He did. Our first kiss.
To be continued….
