For the first time in my life, a man had held my hand on a date. I wasn’t sure if I liked it. I wasn’t sure if I didn’t. It was just new. And strange.
And a bit sweaty.
So, obviously, I stopped paying attention to the movie and instead spent the rest of the time analyzing my feelings.
Two facts had burned into my brain lately. Number one: my dad had recently found love. He’d been a widower for twenty-five of my twenty-seven years of life and had gotten remarried last week. Number two: my ogre of a brother, Chad, who runs the restaurant in town, has a girlfriend. A girlfriend of three months. Which in Small Town, Idaho, meant it was getting serious.
Two down.
One probably never to go.
To clarify, I was happy for them both. But that didn’t mean a girl couldn’t still feel a bit of nerves and self-pity at the same time. This week, a distraction in the form of Briggs had been welcome.
So I held his hand.
Maybe flutters and feelings came later?
The interesting thing about me is that, under normal everyday circumstances, talking with guys was my one super power. My best childhood friends were both guys. I played basketball my whole life, and could respectably hold my own in any other sport. Guys were great.
Briggs seemed great.
But tonight, we were on a date. And he was about to walk me to my door. Historically, in my experience, this was the point for me where all systems seemed to break down.
I blew out a breath and got my game face on. If I could sink a winning shot in a championship game in college, I could hold out for a few more minutes.
Except, I didn’t sink that shot. I missed.
Terribly.
Briggs opened my door and held out a hand for me to take. I had cleverly evaded holding his hand in the truck on the ride home by sitting too far from his reach. But when I dropped to the ground, he held it lightly and began guiding me to the door.
“So…” Briggs trailed off as he looked around, probably admiring the lovely way the weeds in my dad’s flower beds had grown nearly out of control and the paint chipping on the one-story rambler.
“So…” I mimicked, attempting to match his lighthearted tone.
To my great and utter dismay, we neared the door.
Climbing the steps, I wracked my brain to come up with an interesting sports statistic to keep our easy camaraderie going. I turned to Briggs and was startled to find him already looking at me. Guys had always looked at me more like a fishing buddy my entire life, so I couldn’t help but feel the rush of nerves at the softness in his eyes. In spite of myself, I had somehow piqued his interest, and as much as it secretly flattered me, itterrifiedme a thousand times more.
“I like your hair,” Briggs said, lightly touching the glossy strands as we stopped at my door.
Oh. That’s right. For a second, I’d forgotten that my hair tonight was the stuff of Hollywood legends. That wasn’t me bragging; that was just a pure fact. Tessa’s jeans and fitted t-shirt that didn’t have the name of a gym or basketball teamscrawled across the front were a bonus. I was nothing but a mirage.
“I had a good time with you,” he said. For a split second, I allowed myself to revel in the warmth of his gaze.
Until I began mentally calculating all the ways I was presenting a lie to this man (i.e., better clothes, a push-up bra, unnaturally tamed hair) and my heart took a turn for the worse. And then his eyes dipped to my lips.
I froze.
Wait.
Was he going tokissme?
I’d been mentally rehearsing a high five, maybe a hug, and praying I didn’t say something stupid. I hadn’t dreamed I’d have to think through a kiss. It was only a second date. I’d already given him my butter-laced popcorn hands for the last half of the movieandtwo bites of my ice cream. Wasn’t that enough?
My lungs began panicking—real getting-the-wind-knocked-out-of-you, gasping-for-breath type of stuff.
Maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe I had something on my face, and he was coming to flick it off. His eyes, once again, landed on my lips. At least, I was pretty sure.