A Word Like Love

You go into something knowing you're going to get your heart broken because it's everything the books said it would be and it's everything you expected but most of all it is what you've always wanted to write about- now that it's done though the words don't come having been eclipsed by moments of passion and sleepless nights where you question everything you thought you knew...because that's love- and that's all it will ever be.

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"We could watch a movie." I said, nervous as I tried to stand tall and be sure of myself like I had three days before when I'd asked him to hangout again, the memory of the Pez dispenser I'd given him for Valentines day with stuttering words fresh in my mind.

"Sure." He said, not looking directly at me, choosing instead for his eyes to wander across his game room whose center held a giant pool table and stacks of recently drowned beers- all subtly reminding me how far out of my comfort zone I'd already gone. Bachelor Kingdom.

"I have one in my car. I just picked it up at Target. They always have those ten dollar movie deals. I just love Target, it's-" I stopped myself. I was rambling again. At least the stuttering from Valentine's Day was gone, but being here so close to him I could feel it rising within me again- that's why I was pushing for a movie.

After a brief pause in which he seemed to remember I was there, "what movie?"

"Midnight in Paris." I said naming last summer's Woody Allen pic, which had been described by many a blog as "writers porn." I hadn't seen it yet but from what I knew of Daniel he probably wouldn't like it, but at that moment I didn't care- if we managed to talk some more there would never be another "hangout" and that saddened me profusely since I'd been waiting for this one since our last on New Year's day, after which we had badly exchanged a word much less a touch.

"What's that about?"

"Not sure." I said as he lead me down the dark staircase were only one light cast a shadow on the steps and whose only possibly descriptor is sketchy...sketchy sketchy.

Of course I knew what it was about, it was a love story at least on the outskirts of it's plot if only to interest possibly bored dates apart from the messages of history and literature and art at it's heart.

"Here it is." I said, halfway in my car as I reached over to the passenger seat to grab the white and red target studded bag, simultaneously allowing him a good view of my ass in my almost too tight jeans, hardened from my trademark long walks. I was desperate, but I was hoping it didn't show.

Slowly I turned around holding the DVD out to him, the trademark Monet painting blaring out from behind the film's star Owen Wilson like a great big sign reading "WARNING THIS ARTISTIC WRITER CHICK IS CRAZY! STAY AWAY" as if after the whole Germany Facebook song fiasco he didn't already know that.

He nodded, his normally bright blue ocean eyes dark and unreadable in the twilight. Once again we made the trek upstairs where it was considerably darker and he fed the DVD into his Playstation 3- a gaming system that went well with the bachelor decor of his house which I would later find out had defended only a couple months prior when his mom finally left.

I stood there like a fool watching him, not comfortably enough to invite myself to sit down nor willing to ask. Finally the video loaded and he turned around seeing me standing there awkwardly.

"You're free to sit there if you like?" He said, asking it like a question while motioning towards the big tan couch across from the flat screen TV.

Obeying, I sat on the couch and he sat on the other across the room like he'd done last time. I laughed to cover the pinch in my heart and the mild disappointment I could feel exuding from every pore.

Sensing this, or having been kidding all the while, he wandered over to me as pictures of Paris flashed on the screen in a montage.

He sat on one side of the couch and I sat on the other, a whole cushion in between our sweating nervous bodies, our eyes fixed to the screen except for a brief moment when they met.

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"Our first date." I said louging on the same couch four months later, now comfortably with the somewhat cleaner environment that was his house.

"When you kissed me."

"I did not!" I say swatting at him with my hand, him grabbing it and bringing it to his mouth.

"Here we were siting like this." I say grabbing back my hand and scooting comically to the far end of the couch.

"And we were watching a movie." He said bored with the role-play already.

"And then for some reason you gave me a low five because of something I said." He willingly complied hitting my hand with light force as I laughter.

"And then...." I said, feeling the familiar tingle as he grabbed my hand. "We were holding hands."

And then it all ceased to matter, and we kissed- not a soft kiss like we had all those months ago when we shared our first kiss under the meager light of his attic game room, but a hard kiss...passionate and uninhibited and unwilling to stop before we got to far.