The Accidental Date

Sorry I've been slacking this month. Well, not really, but... I've been working on a different short story I wanted to post this month, but it's proving to be more of a bear than I realized.

Then the idea for this came to me and it was much, much, much easier to write... So... Hopefully I'll still finish the other piece for you this month, or early next. It's comic-book themed.

In the meantime, enjoy this one:

It was time to leave and I wasn’t sure what to do or say, or how to act. I’d spent all day with her almost by accident. Never before had I run into an acquaintance by happenstance and have it turn so quickly into an impromptu date.

I paid for the drinks and we sat down next to the front window of the coffee shop. The bright, hot sun of the early afternoon shone on the seat opposite her like a magnifying glass zeroing in on a picnic-invading ant. Despite the glare from the light, I got my first real look at her features and was delighted by her. Short, dark hair framed her face around a pair of black glasses that framed her deep, dark eyes. Every so often they would catch a reflection in the window and would glow warm and with a quiet ease. She grinned slyly and off to one side the entire time we spoke. The word to describe her, the one I’m looking for is “enchanting.”

After a few minutes, the sun became too much to bear and, quite politely, I asked permission to move my chair around the table, closer to her. As the sun moved over the course of the conversation, so too did I, like a minute hand to her hour hand. We began, metaphorically at 6:15 and by the time our drinks had been drained, we’d ended up in a 6:40 position. I was like a sundial, but instead of measuring time, it was a measurement of how much closer we’d become in so short a span.

“I need to move my scooter,” I remember telling her, “So I don’t get a ticket.” I’d spent more than four hours parked when I’d intended merely to spend fifteen minutes in a two hour parking space. “We can take a walk over there, if you like…”

“Sure,” she said in her sweet voice, giggling nervously afterward.

We walked closely side-by-side out toward the street where I’d parked, “What’s so funny?” I asked her.

“Nothing,” she’d said. “I guess I’m just nervous.”

“Nervous about what?” I could feel my cheeks flush, hoping I’d already known the answer.

“Nothing.”

By that time, we’d reached my scooter, an unimpressive little 80cc. “Here she is.”

“That is so cute. And love the color. Green is my favorite and this kind is very pretty.” It was a glossy, pearl green.

“Why, thank you. She’s not much to look at, but she gets me where I need to go. Her name is Maggie.”

She giggled nervously again. We had stood there for a moment, neither of us knowing what to say but I could feel that fire burning in the small of my chest, an aching request by my heart for more time with her.

“Do you need to get back to work?” I could tell by her tone that she must have felt close to the same way.

“No,” I lied. “I was just about to go grab some food. You want to go grab a bite with me?”

A smile crept across her face. It was a like a perfect moment, frozen in amber. She smiled wide, unable to hide a resounding and unexpected happiness. And then our eyes met. The wind gently swept her hair to one said and I was lost. Doubly so when I heard her response: “I’d love to.”

On the way to the restaurant, she rode on the back of my scooter, trying her hardest to keep her distance. Her hands grasped the side of the scooter and I could barely feel even her legs against me for the duration of the ride. It was understandable, but somehow disappointing

We ate at a lovely Asian restaurant at her recommendation, laughing and giggling together the whole time like we were in some sort of bad romantic comedy. As we ate, we spoke of many things, of dreams and wants, of the here and now, and even the distant past.

And before anyone could have known, it seems as though we could have been an item, where four or five hours before we were mere acquaintances. It would have been easy for people to mistaken for a couple, though nothing could have been further from the truth.

We weren’t that at ease with each other, though. I had to force a level of sangfroid that was almost foreign to me. The meal ended and the sun went down, but we remained, talking and talking.

We could tell the waitress was getting impatient, so I stood to pay the bill.

“What do I owe you?” She asked me and I laughed.

“I’ve got it. And for all the wrong reasons, too,” I replied and she laughed.

And then we walked out of the restaurant and it was time to leave. And I didn’t know what to say, or do, or how to act.

Where did we stand?

I truly didn’t know.

We walked mostly in silence out to the scooter in the parking lot. “Would it be okay if you gave me a ride home?”

“Of course. Trust that it would be my pleasure,” I said with a crooked grin. I was smiling inside and out.

I held the scooter steady as she got on, and I got on myself. As I started the engine, I could feel her against me. This time, she wrapped her arms all the way around me and leaned her head against my back. A few times I could feel her dig her chin softly into my shoulder, watching the lights and cars go by.

Though I could barely see the stars through the din of the street-lights, I felt like I was among them, riding down the city-streets with the wind in my hair. She guided me to her apartment complex, which came far too soon. I turned off the scooter and got to me feet. I offered her my hand and helped her off like one would imagine a lady being led down the steps of a carriage in an old movie.

She got to her feet and instantly embraced me, wrapping her arms around the front of me this time. Her head rested in my chest, I wrapped my arms around her and I could feel her beneath me take a deep, cleansing breath.

“I had such a good time today.”

“Me too,” I told her.

“Can we do this again some time?”

“Nothing would make me happier.”

We separated and she took a step back. She was twice as beautiful in the moonlight than in the glare of the sun. Or that could have just been how far things had progressed from that time to this. I really couldn’t tell. She took a few cautious steps backwards, toward the stairs leading down toward her apartment. “You’ve got my number. You going to use it?”

“I will.”

I watched her walk away, every cell in my body still smiling, that sense of smitten wonder rising in my chest. I’d been struck by something.

We waved again and smiled as she disappeared into her apartment.

Driving away into the night, I was struck once more by something else: the stinging realization that I should have kissed her.