Sunday, November 04, 2007

taking a breather

I invited him back to my place. We'd just seen a depressing movie and I knew it might be a hard switch into what a fourth date might involve.

I turned on a good playlist and took out a chilled bottle of white.

"I feel bad that you're opening a whole bottle."

"Don't feel bad. What's a bottle of wine for if you don't open it? Speaking of which, are you any good at opening these?"

"Yeah, I can do it."

"Oh wait. Never mind. It's a screw on."

"Screw on cap?", he laughed. "Only the best...?"

I held my tongue, but I wanted to say, 'Hello!? Are you new?'

That wine comes from a winery I visited in Napa. It was more than I normally spend.

It's one thing not to know much about wine. Frankly I don't either, but it is a whole other thing to not know much about wine but pretend like you do.

Maybe he's just nervous, I thought. He's human, right? I let it go the same way I convinced myself I was mistaken when I thought I saw him stick his gum under the table on our first date.

"I love this song", he told me when November Rain came on. "They played it at my budddy's ex-girlfriend's funeral though, so now it's all my friends and I can think of whenever we hear it."

I took a slow sip of wine, remembering the song they played at Toby's funeral.

He looked up at my. "Now don't start getting all morose and telling funeral stories. I shouldn't have brought it up."

His tone startled me. I'm not sure if I would have said anything about Toby. I doubt it, but there's a chance I might have. Either way I came out of that exhchange feeling cheap somehow.

"Hey", I said, "you're the one who brought up funerals and picked a depressing movie that made me cry."

"You cried?"

"Well...yes. A little. It was incredibly sad at the end. You didn't notice?"

"Not a thing", he lied grinning. I got the sense it wasn't to protect my dignity, which might have been endearing.

A few minutes later he moved toward me on the couch. He pulled the elastic out of my ponytail, letting my hair fall across my shoulders. Then he kissed me, leaning me back against the couch.

I expected that I would warm up to it. I tried to let myself go, but soon it was clear to me that I wasn't feeling it. Yet had I not come too far to be considering my options now? I tossed that around, but finally I pulled away from him.

"Are you ok?"

"I'm fine.", I told him, kissing him gently one last time, a hand on either side of his face.

I sat up and reached for my wine.

"I just need a little breather."

He stayed a little while longer.

3 comments:

Transcience said...

If you do hear from him again, I think you should ask him point blank about the gum at the restaurant. Lately I've been trying to be really open with people about what's on my mind. The conclusions seem to depend on how close you are with the person. If it's someone you don't know that well, it's possible this will really backfire, but this honesty is really refreshing with the people who get you. So that's what I've been doing, and it's led to some answers. Not that they were necessarily the answers I wanted to hear in the context of dating, but at least I know.

Tired Dad said...

Seriously. What are you doing with these imbeciles? If you're ever in England...Well. I've got stereotypically bad teeth but can at least get through a whole evening without being a cunt and thinking it's funny.

Probably.

Rachel said...

Funk, I think that takes balls, but if you can withstand, what you get in the end is something more real. The truth shall set you free or something like that.

TD: These poor imbeciles. I think I make them sound worse than they are. Nah, you're right. Cunts.