We met for lunch, his face a beacon flashing towards me like a ray of sun at midnight as I walk through the door. I want to throw my arms around him, breathe him in, but my hopes for some sort of physical sign of camaraderie or affection are dashed when we continue to the table without a hug or handshake or kiss. I'm starting to see that it's just his type.

It's hard to pay attention to what he's saying when I can't look directly at him for fear of being blinded by his sun (or being entranced so that I don't see anything but spots when I look away). We talk. I had a cup of coffee this morning to perk myself into conversation mode.

When he's nervous, he talks. When I'm nervous, I'm as silent as death. He talks. I listen.

There's an eyelash on his cheek that I envision myself brushing off with my thumb every time I glance at him. I look around and think he might be embarrassed with the few other couples in the restaurant. I brush it off in my mind, instead. On the way to the car, I envision a thousand different scenarios, each being contained by the wrought-iron gate of civility.

He drives me to my car and I assume he'll be embarrassed to kiss me in public, so I extend my arm to the side and aim my face for the side of his head and move in slightly but before the embrace is tightened, our lips meet. Shit, someone's going to see us! I pull back but he doesn't move and suddenly I'm overwhelmed by this sense of shamed regret as I notice that he was moving in for a kiss.

Everything falls away and I bumble around for something to make it up to him, anything that would show him that I wasn't pulling away as a sign of disinterest or embarrassment on my part. I was trying to respect your space. I grasp in the dark and find nothing, instead patting him on the arm before slipping out the door. Real good.

As I walk to my car, he pulls slowly past. My arm works on it's own accord and waves him down. Someone else has taken over and he walks my body up to Steve's jeep.

"Hey, uh... Do you want to maybe stay the night on Friday?"

"Yeah," he says, beaming a smile at me, "I'd like that." «

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