An adult stories – No Time To Doubt by YourEyes,YourEyes Style: Wholesome, First Meeting, Non-Erotic, Relationship-Focus, Wallflower
*****Chapter 1*****
I’ve always been a second-guesser. Every decision I make takes an age of back-and-forth internal dialogue. Even when I’m doing something I know I’m good at, I still make myself double-check everything, run through all the possible ways it could come unstuck, re-examine my previous decisions before I can build on them. I think that’s part of what makes me good at what I do – a blessing and a curse.
When you second-guess everything, it leads you down a path of taking less risks, ignoring your instincts and following the sensible option instead. Someone like me does pretty well at schoolwork, setting a high bar early and developing a fear of failure. Being around a lot of friends but never getting too close. Getting a degree in a technical and reasonably well-paid field, and spending a few years going from strength-to-strength in a career most people admire before the pervading feeling of discontent finally builds up enough to overcome your risk-aversion so you summon the courage to quit your job and pursue your passion of writing songs.
That is how I found myself in another country with the rest of my band, at the pre-drinks for a music awards ceremony. We weren’t up for an award – I think we only got invited because one of New Zealand’s most famous musicians was slated to receive a Lifetime Achievement award, and the producers of the TV broadcast wanted a ‘young Kiwis in the audience’ shot to cut to for half a second while he walks up to the stage.
Still, the pre-drinks was fun enough. A villa-style homestead opening up onto a wide, mostly-flat lawn, bordered by neatly manicured hedges along the boundary to keep the partygoers hidden from the paparazzi down on the street. Naturally, me and the band were out on the lawn juggling a soccer ball (I think Americans call it keepie uppie?), trying not to get the knees of our suit pants so dirty that it wouldn’t rub off by the time we got to the red carpet. We got a few weird glances from the other guests, especially when a wayward ball would bump against the legs of someone delicately holding a champagne flute while socialising with the other civilised folk, but hey – it was fun. Networking was never my strong suit anyway, so it’s not like I would have been doing anything else except chatting to my band, and after the last 6 weeks of touring we’d already run out of things to talk about.
That was when She showed up.
“Ugh, finally some real people… Do you mind if I join?”
“Sure,” I smiled as we shifted our circle to make room. She had kicked off her heels when she came out onto the grass, and dropped them by her feet while taking the last sip of her champagne. Adopting a wide stance in readiness, the slit in her silky black dress rode up.
“Oops, I’m not used to this,” she laughed while half-heartedly straightening it. “I’ll try not to flash anything I shouldn’t,” she announced.
“I’ll try not to notice,” I responded off-handedly. I don’t know if you would call that smooth, but I was a little surprised something like that came out of my mouth.
It earned me a quick sidelong glance. “A true gentleman,” she commented dryly, one eyebrow raised.
“A man can try…” I replied, using my best ‘I’m a nice boy, look at me being non-threatening’ face. I’m not sure how much of that translated before the ball was in the air and it was all action-stations.
She was very expressive, a lot of yelping and whooping, lunging for last-ditch efforts and cheering on the odd occasion it actually worked. We even attracted a couple of onlookers. Eventually we had to stop – suits are uncomfortably hot when you are dancing around in the evening sun, and even we weren’t shameless enough to show up to the ceremony all sweaty.
“I’m going to get a drink, do you want one?” I enquired while easing my collar. The rest of the band were already nursing half-drunk beers.
“Sure, I’ll come with you,” she smiled.
I was pleasantly surprised and happy for her company, until the second-guessing reared its head. She isn’t coming with you for your company, she is probably just trying to make sure you don’t spike her drink. I put it behind me as we wandered into the house, joining the line for the makeshift open bar.
“So, did you see anything you shouldn’t?” she gave another sidelong smirk and raised eyebrow.
“I managed to keep my eyes on the game. It was hard enough keeping track of the ball with some of the flailing coming from your half of the circle.” To be fair, none of us were that great at soccer, but she seemed like she would be fun to tease.
A cheeky grin flitted across her face. “Hey, don’t fault my commitment to the team okay?” Then with mock seriousness: “Also, you didn’t technically answer the question.”
“Okay, maybe there were a couple of flashes of skin that caught my attention but I was very quick to correct my glances.” I could feel myself starting to blush, and I hoped she put it down to the exercise.
“My hero,” she let out a sarcastic laugh, her cheeks slightly warmed as well, probably from the heat.
One of the annoying things about hanging out with this type of crowd is that you never know if someone expects you to know who they are already, and take offence if you ask them their name. So I didn’t. It didn’t really cross my mind to introduce myself first.
“I’m Cara,” she said, holding out her hand. I shook it. It was awkwardly formal but we powered through. “I like your accent, are you from Australia or New Zealand?”
“Want to guess?”
She thought a bit. “I’m worried if I get it wrong you’ll hate me,” she laughed.
“Yeah a bit,” I said, teasing (mostly). “I’ll give you a hint – I’m from the better one.”
At her expression of consternation I decided it was in my best interest to expand on my hint, listing off features: “Australia is big… They do a lot of mining… They’re richer… The people are more extroverted. New Zealand is small. It has lots of forests… Rains a lot… That’s about it,” I laughed. “So, which do you think is better? And yes, I will be judging you based on your answer.”
She mulled it over for a bit, while I deliberately kept my poker face to avoid giving any clues. “Well, obviously New Zealand…”, she ventured, then seemed relieved when I nodded the affirmative. “Whoo, I passed the test!”, followed by a tiny fist pump.
We chatted for a bit. She laughs easily. She is from Canada, also a musician, doing a tour off a solo record with some hired backup musicians to help play the songs live. We did the usual ‘I’ll add your music to my list of stuff to check out’ talk.
“I’m so glad I found you guys. My publicist makes me go to a bunch of these parties but the people are always so stuck-up and fake. Everyone seems to take themselves so seriously.”
“Yeah, it’s like if they break the illusion of being all glamourous and stuff their whole famousness will disappear.” Not the most elegant of sentences, but it got the message across.
By this point we had our drinks (we got matching cocktails) and made our way back outside to the band. What followed was a somewhat embarrassing conversation where they all tried to subtly talk me up in front of her, to which she gracefully played along, acting suitably impressed and interested in hearing their stories about me (not that I had much exciting to share). It came time to take the provided transport to the actual venue, so naturally I suggested she share a ride with us. Turned out we had enough in our group to take one of the event limo’s – I was glad I wasn’t paying for it.
During the ride we had a discussion about potential ways to improve housing affordability – an issue in both countries and a topic my bassist is particularly passionate about. Cara seemed thankful to have something substantive to talk about that wasn’t just the latest fashion trends or controversy amongst the celebrity class.
When we got to the red carpet we walked up in a big group, none of us famous enough to attract undue attention. Her allocated seat was on the other side of the theatre to ours, and as the usher pointed her away I started wondering how I should broach the subject of maybe seeing her again when she turned around and said innocently, “Would you want to meet up after this?”
“Sure!” I replied, and she broke into a smile before turning to rush off to her seat with a “Cool, I’ll see you later.”
I spent the whole awards ceremony questioning whether I was enthusiastic enough in my response to convey that I actually did want to meet again, and cursing myself for forgetting to exchange phone numbers, worrying about how I was going to find her in the crowd.
*****Chapter 2*****
After the ceremony, my bandmates went to take advantage of the complementary refreshments table, where a throng of attendees were milling around. Meanwhile, I wandered around the tables searching for Cara while trying not to look too desperate.
I heard someone call my name, and turned to see New Zealand’s most decorated musician, Lifetime Achievement trophy still fresh in his hand. An elder statesman, he was glad to see another Kiwi. I was surprised to learn he knew who I was – even in New Zealand my band isn’t world famous, and I’m not even the frontman – but he had a lot of kind words to say about our music which, to my shame, I was unable to repay with my full attention, too distracted by scanning the room over his shoulder, looking for Cara.
I felt a touch on my arm, and looked down to see her, a delicate smile as she held out a near-identical copy of the cocktail we had ordered at the pre-party, one of her own grasped in her other hand. “I took the liberty of getting us another round,” she winked. Yes, she straight-up winked at me, but I was too relieved at seeing her to process that at the moment.
“Ah, so this is who you have been looking for,” Elder Statesman said good-naturedly, before turning to Cara. “You know, this whole conversation his head’s been on a swivel, now I understand why…”
“Is that so?” she looked at me as she said it, a smirk of victory on her face. I was beginning to wonder if that raised eyebrow ever came down.
I declined to answer that, instead introducing her. She congratulated him on his award, which he downplayed with classic Kiwi modesty, but I could see he was secretly quite chuffed. I explained to her that, along with the stuff that made it overseas, he was involved in what I consider to be the greatest album ever made by a New Zealander, and it seemed like he wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that compliment, having already played the modesty card. I considered that a win, making up for my earlier distractedness.
“Well, I will leave you two to it,” he bowed out. “Make sure you keep her around” were his parting words to me.
After he left, she turned to face me. “So… divided attention, huh? Couldn’t last a few minutes without me?” She looked very pleased with herself.
“Hey, you’re the one who brought drinks over. You found me, not the other way around,” I said defensively.
“Well, maybe I just felt a sense of obligation after you gave me a ride here.” She was definitely teasing me now.
I decided to call her bluff. “Well, consider the debt settled. Don’t feel compelled to stay with me if you don’t want to,” I said smugly.
“Okay,” she said nonchalantly, and walked away.
I let out a sardonic laugh and waited for her to turn back around. Except that she didn’t. She just kept walking, over toward the crowd of strangers at the refreshments table, not looking back.
I was torn now. It seemed like she’d had enough of my company, and I would hate to impose myself on her if she truly was cutting ties. But when I think back on our interactions, she was definitely enjoying herself. I haven’t seen someone laugh that much in a long time. Is this a test? Am I supposed to chase her? She was about to disappear into the crowd, and I still had no way of contacting her. In the end, it was the wink that pushed me over the edge. This is a power play, she is trying to establish dominance. And I didn’t care – I wasn’t going to let her slip away that easy.
I followed her, keeping the back of her head in sight, her long hair flowing over her shoulders, until she stopped at the refreshments table and started snacking on some appetisers. “You’re crazy,” I said when I caught up to her. She looked up at me, face plastered with a smug grin. “You didn’t even look back once,” I said with a mixture of concern and admiration of her confidence.
“I knew you would follow,” with a bright smile and a cheeky shrug. Dammit. Now she knew I was into her. Then she ruined the boast by turning sincere. “Actually, in the spirit of honesty, I was about to turn around but then I realised I could see you following in the reflection in the mirror over there.”
I looked, and sure enough a giant mirror wall was mounted above the refreshments table. Man, whoever designs these events does not understand the word ‘garish’. At this point, all I could do is admit defeat magnanimously. “OK, well played. Cara 1 – Me 0.”
“Thank you, thank you,” she curtseyed, then suddenly changed topic. “Are you going to the after-party?” There was a hint of nervousness in her question, though I didn’t realise it until replaying the conversation in my head later.
As established, I’m not a big fan of these corporate events. “I wasn’t planning on it…” I said truthfully, before realising she might be there. “…But I could be convinced,” I added, trying to play it cool and not sure if I succeeded.
“I’ll go if you go,” she offered.
“Okay,” I accepted, almost too quickly.
“Wow. You didn’t take much convincing,” she laughed. “Poor negotiating strategy. You could have held out for a lot more.”
“Like what?”
“I guess we’ll never know,” she teased.
“Well, since we are doing the whole ‘spirit of honesty’ thing, you could have held out for more too.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. You could have made me buy ice cream on the way.”
“Dammit!” She actually stomped her foot. I think she was playing it up, but there was some real rage under there.
“Does that count as a win for me? Now we’re even on 1:1?”
“Depends, does it feel like a win knowing that you are missing out on delicious ice cream in my delightful company?”
It took me a while to form my response. “No, but I’m too prideful to admit it so I guess I’ll take the point.” I tried to tease back: “If you’re nice to me I might buy some anyway…”
She didn’t dignify that with a response, just a withering stare which I tried to block by putting my innocent ‘nice boy’ face on again.
The conversation stalled for a bit which gave my second-guessing a chance to catch up. She probably doesn’t want to hang out with you at the after-party, she just wants someone to travel with. Surely she’ll know people there who she would rather socialise with. I tried to figure out whether I had the courage to ask the next thing. Eventually I decided I had to. “So just to clarify, and like no pressure or anything, but is the idea that we are going to this thing together or did you have people you were meeting there?”
She seemed to retreat into herself a bit. “Oh, I thought…”
“Because like, I’m-”
“What did you want to do?”
…
Not for the first time, my second-guessing had made me give the wrong impression. At least I was getting practice at recovering. “Sorry, let me start over. I wasn’t sure if you were planning on meeting people there or anything, and whether you’d want me to tag along. I don’t want to get in the way.”
“Oh, no I wasn’t planning on meeting anyone. There’ll probably be a few people there I should say ‘hi’ to. What about you?”
“No I don’t think I’ll know anyone. To be honest, the only reason I’m going is you.”
She brightened up and let out a little radiant smile. “Good, we can be buddies! I was counting on you to keep it from getting too boring.”
I felt a smile break out on my face too. “Deal” – I offered her my arm – “Shall we?”
She took it with an elegant acquiescence, and we started making our way to the exit.
Will paparazzi photograph us if we leave together arm-in-arm? She probably doesn’t want anyone jumping to the wrong conclusions. I don’t know if we are famous enough for tabloids to care but what if she is seeing someone and we end up in the background of someone’s photo? I decided to try being more direct this time. “Do you care if we get photographed leaving arm-in-arm like this?”
“I don’t if you don’t,” she said with confidence.
Well, that was that. We agreed it would be much more pleasant to walk to the after-party than be driven, so after leaving the venue we ducked the velvet rope and set off into the crisp night air, together.
*****Chapter 3*****
During the walk I spotted a waist-high stone wall which looked fun to climb on, so I veered over (Cara in tow) and jumped up onto it, holding out my hand for her to follow. She scrunched her face at me, but the grin of her inner child was not to be contained, so she jumped up too. We continued our walk along the top of the wall, now in single file with me leading the way, her following with heels in hand and arms outstretched for balance.
“You could have told me were going off-piste so I could have worn proper shoes,” she admonished me in mock anger. “This stone is really cold to go barefoot.”
I couldn’t think of a witty response to that, so I didn’t.
When our bridge was interrupted by an opening for a path into the nearby park, we kept up our game of ‘floor is lava’ by leaping between the bollards to reach the wall on the other side. Cara pulled it off rather gracefully, except for the nervous shriek she inadvertently let out mid-jump, followed by a look of frustration at acting so ‘girly’. My silent smirk was met by another withering stare, the effect somewhat diminished this time by the blush creeping in, but I went back into ‘innocent boy’ defence mode anyway, which seemed to make her smile.
Once we were back down on the path she almost immediately linked her arm in mine again, which even my second-guessing self had to admit was an unambiguously good sign. Maybe too good. This can’t be real. Maybe she is a con-artist. One of those girls who fakes being into you so she can steal your life savings.
Before I could go too far down that road I got distracted by her smile. Initially I saw it out the corner of my eye, her face illuminated from the side by a passing streetlamp and split with a wide grin, which she quickly tried to hide once I turned my head to look at her.
“What?” she laughed, seemingly embarrassed.
“Were you smiling?” I teased, not entirely sure why she was trying to hide it.
“No,” with false innocence. She was still struggling to supress it, a faux frown battling with cherub cheeks.
“You know, you’re pretty cute when you’re trying not to smile.”
That just made her try harder, but it was a losing battle and for a moment the sun came out again. We both laughed, her in exasperation, me in a sort of relieved confusion. “I’m allowed to be happy, okay?”
“Of course! You’re also allowed to smile…”
“I know, but then then I would have to explain why I’m smiling, and I’m not quite ready for that.”
Well now I was definitely curious, but it didn’t matter – I was happy she was happy, and as we both stared straight ahead her infectious smile made its way onto my face. Two fools, beaming into the night instead of at each other, but beaming nonetheless.
*****Chapter 4*****
The after-party was a crowded club, the sort with a writhing dancefloor where bass-boosted house music played too loud while drugged-up socialites jumped up and down because there wasn’t room to do anything else. Luckily, there was an upstairs area that looked a bit quieter, and we arranged to split up and meet there after I got us drinks and Cara went to the bathroom.
After braving the crowd around the bar I found her upstairs. She was leaning against a balcony overlooking the dancefloor, looking slightly uncomfortable as a gussied-up guy leaned in too close trying to talk to her. A look of relief crossed over her when she saw me approaching.
“Thanks babe,” she said as she took her drink from my hands while giving me a look that said ‘pay attention’. She then turned to the guy and introduced me: “This is my boyfriend,” she said while waving her hand at me.
Catching on, I was more than happy to play the role of her saviour, and managed to mostly mask my initial surprise as the Gussie looked me up and down as if to say ‘who, this guy?’
Normally, I’m not socially adept enough to navigate situations like this with any sort of poise, having a tendency to get in my own head. But in this case it was different – instead of being me, I was being asked to play a role. The ‘boyfriend’ I was imagining was suave and magnanimous, so I would be too. I guess that must be what gave me the confidence to put my arm around Cara and draw her to me in a side-hug while giving the Gussie a courteous smile and a polite “Hi”. Cara initially stiffened in surprise at my hug, but quickly recovered and melted against me, playing along.
Turns out the Gussie was a ‘friend’ of Cara’s from her university, now working as a publicist (yuck), hence his invite to this after-party. “How long have you guys known each other?” he enquired after some awkward introductions. I guess he was trying to one-up me.
“Uh, what’s the date today?” I asked.
“24th.”
“About 5 hours,” I answered with mock sincerity, even though it was true.
“Oh shut up,” intervened Cara, twisting in my embrace to hit me on the arm. “He means 5 months. I’m still getting used to his Kiwi sense of humour.”
The first rule of improvising is to play along with your scene partner, so I smiled innocently and said “Sorry, sometimes I can’t help myself.”
It was Cara’s turn to improvise. “The first time he met my parents he introduced himself as a ‘boyfriend for hire’, that goes around helping closeted lesbians convince their parents they aren’t gay. My mum still tells me she ‘would love me anyway’ every time I’m on the phone with her, no matter how many times I tell her it was a joke.”
“Yeah, in hindsight it wasn’t a great first impression for me to give,” I added, giving Cara an extra squeeze for emphasis.
The Gussie gave a polite chuckle then excused himself and melted away to look for easier prey, leaving us holding each other. I decided I wasn’t going to let go until she did. It seems she decided the same.
“Thanks for playing along,” she said.
“Any time,” I responded truthfully.
“That was fun,” Cara said, looking up at me with a content smile. “You should pretend to be my boyfriend more often. But maybe we should agree on some background details to avoid another ‘5 hours’ incident.”
“Or…” I began, “we could make up new details every time and the other person has to play along. Unless we are talking to someone you actually care about.”
“Oh no…” she said in resignation, hiding her smile in her free hand because she knew she was going to accept and was already imagining how wrong it would go.
“Cara!” came a voice from the side, as a woman around our age approached with excitement. Cara had to let go of me to give her a hug. I learned this was someone Cara had toured with, and they had got on well. After introducing me as her boyfriend, the newcomer asked “So, how did you guys meet?” That was the opening I was looking for.
“We were both in the same sailing class. They had little one-man sailing boats to teach us. Cara managed to lose control of hers and ram into me, which basically capsized us both.”
“Hey!” Cara said defensively, “You’re leaving out the part where you turned like right in front of me. The instructor said you didn’t follow the rules for right-of-way.”
“Anyway, she felt guilty enough that she was obligated to buy me a drink after that,” I finished. Knowing I had instantly thrown her under the bus, I looked over to see a trademark withering glance coming my way.
“Wow!” Cara’s friend jumped in. “I wish my first dates were that exciting.”
It was Cara’s turn to get revenge. “Yeah well on our second date he parked in a no-parking zone and his car got towed so I don’t know if you’d call that exciting.” She stuck her tongue out at me.
“I still maintain that the sign wasn’t there when I parked there.”
“Oh yeah, I suppose they put the sign up at the same time they painted the ‘no parking’ symbol on the ground – you know, while you were parked on top of it…”
“They could have towed me and then painted it. We didn’t check if the paint was still wet.”
Cara rolled her eyes exasperatedly at her friend, who had a wide smirk at our banter. “Wow,” she laughed, “you guys are really cute together.”
“Thank you,” I said, at the same time Cara replied “We know…”
*****Chapter 5*****
There were a handful of other people Cara said ‘hi’ to – the best roleplay we did was when Cara claimed we were engaged and then I had to quickly improvise an explanation about why we didn’t have rings because “Love is an emotional connection, not a physical connection, and it transcends material possessions.”
Somehow Cara convinced me to dance. My theory about dancing is that to look good you have to throw away your inhibitions and just do what comes naturally, but I still wasn’t quite ready to look like a complete idiot in front of her, so I mainly tried to copy what she was doing but in a slightly more masculine way. She looked like she was having fun, so I had fun too.
Once again I cursed suits for being so hot, and when we left the club into the cold night air the steam rising off us mixed with the fog from our breath as I began walking her back to her hotel room. The coldness of the night didn’t stop Cara’s eyes from lighting up when we saw a late-night ice cream stand during the walk – by this point I was confident enough to say “I’ll buy this round if you get the next one,” that way she would be obligated to see me again. We each got a taste of the other’s ice cream on the walk back, which if you have ever done you will know feels weirdly intimate.
As we approached her hotel I started getting nervous how I would say goodbye. We had pretended to be in a relationship for half the night but I wasn’t sure what was real and what was ‘playing a character’, and I didn’t want to presume any attraction on her behalf. Was this a date? Is she expecting a kiss? Or was it just a platonic activity to make the night more bearable? Probably best to just ask to meet again sometime and then walk away before it gets too awkward. And don’t forget to ask for her number this time.
Before I could act on this plan she stopped, turning to me and taking my hands. The yellow light from the hotel lobby washed over the smoothness of her cheeks, distracting me from her nervous expression. “Don’t get the wrong idea, but would you like to come in for some tea or something? Not in a ‘invite you back to my place’ kind of way, I don’t really do that sort of thing, more like a ‘I don’t want the night to be over, let’s keep hanging out’… I don’t know, maybe there’s a board game in my room or something…” she let herself trail off.
“Oh,” I was caught off guard, “um, yeah… that sounds good.” I managed to end with a smile, which she gratefully returned.
She kept hold of one of my hands as we entered the lobby, and while we waited in the lift, in what I feared was becoming an awkward silence. Our connected palms were clammy, her grip a little too tight, so it was a bit of a relief when she had to let go to pick out her room card.
By this point I was in my own head, cursing myself for being unable to find anything to break the silence, the panic only making it harder to actually think of something. I accepted her offer to make tea even though I don’t really care for it, just because it would’ve felt more awkward to refuse. That left me sitting quietly on her couch while she boiled the kettle, not sure what to do with my hands. She disappeared into her room for a moment, then came out with my saviour – an acoustic guitar.
A guitar has been my shield for many a social situation. At family gatherings I used to play it so I could sit to the side of the group conversation and listen without having to engage in small talk, but still feel like I was participating. Sometimes I play a guitar when having a difficult one-on-one conversation too, absentmindedly plucking away to control the mood and fill the silences. This was where I felt at home.
She took it out of its case and handed it to me. “Play me a song,” she requested with a smile. There wasn’t a question mark at the end, she knew what she wanted and she knew I would deliver. I could tell she was expecting something special – a one-on-one performance between two musicians rarely isn’t, and the night leading up to this was a perfect primer for a moment of connection. I tuned the guitar while she finished making the tea, then plonked herself down on the floor since there wasn’t any other chair that would let her watch me. I wanted something soft and sweet, and I happened to have a song like that I’d written when I was younger, about chances at love passing by. So I worked up the courage to play it (albeit without telling her it was one of mine). I’m not a great singer, but I know enough to understand it’s more about feeling the emotion than it is about raw ability, and the emotion came easily to me tonight.
When I was finished she had an ‘Awww…’ expression, perhaps even a little teary, so I knew I’d done alright. “You’re turn,” I passed her the guitar, mostly managing to hide my pride at her reaction. She played a slowed-down version of a rock song, I knew enough of the words to sing along to the chorus. Unlike me, she was a lead vocalist, so naturally she knocked it out of the park.
She sat next to me on the couch, while we nursed our teas. After a short pause she spoke up. “Tonight was fun. I really like hanging out with you, my face hurts from smiling. You should be my boyfriend more often…” She was looking straight ahead, but cast a furtive glance in my direction at the last part.
It took a second for me to process what she said, then I replied “Deal” a little too quickly, like a used car salesman who was expecting to have to negotiate a lot harder to close the sale.
She laughed and then scooted closer on the couch to lean into me. It felt so natural to put my arm around her, and we snuggled into the warmth of our tea cups.
“I get to repay the compliment now. You have an amazing laugh, and you make me want to do things outside my comfort zone just so I can experience them with you. It’s actually sort of dangerous. And as your boyfriend, I can tell you that you have the cutest smile I’ve ever seen.”
She was too shy to look at me during the shower of praise (which was good for me because I was blushing furiously), but I could tell the smile broke out again. I planted a kiss on the top of her head, since that was what I had access to, and she cooed so I did it again.
She turned now, and there was a brief moment of transcendence where our flushed faces made eye contact, before she launched herself into me and our lips mashed together.
What followed was a primal make-out session where we each tried to suffocate the other. Without stopping, she climbed onto me, straddling my lap while holding my head between her hands. I don’t know what my hands were doing at this stage. She was grinding into me now, her silky dress sliding between us. I moved my hands in through the back, pulling her closer, feeling her heaving breaths through the weight of her warm body against mine.
This is going too fast. You’re going to ruin it. The second-guessing brain isn’t always wrong.
She sensed my momentary distraction, and pulled back to breathe for a second. I put my hands on her legs for safe keeping, catching my own breath.
“Cara, I really like you but I think we should take it slow. I want to build a relationship, and I’m worried if things move too fast we’ll burn out before we actually get to know each other.”
She looked embarrassed and I felt her legs squeeze around me as she tensed up. “Sorry, I don’t really know what came over me, I swear I’m not usually like this…” She got up and slumped next to me on the couch.
She looked dejected and I couldn’t resist the urge to pull her into a hug. “I know what you mean. Since I met you it’s like I haven’t been entirely in control of my body. It’s a little scary, in a good way.”
I became aware of her smooth softness pressed against me in our hug, and my hands started to glide along her silky contours. She hummed and buried her face in my collarbone, but this exposed her neck to me and soon my lips were tiptoeing their way up and down her nape.
Her wriggling intensified until she sat up and put her hands on my shoulders, looking me in the eye with a forlorn yearning. “I can’t…” she trailed off.
“I have to go,” I said. “If I stay here, I’m not going to be able to stop myself from kissing you, and then it’s going to keep getting more intense, too much too fast. I feel like if I don’t leave now I’ll drown.”
She agreed, “I know, you should go, but I don’t want you to.”
I stood up and put her down on her feet.
“Come back tomorrow?” she asked plaintively.
“Absolutely.”
“I can do breakfast, come as soon as you wake up.”
Her face was so cute I couldn’t help leaning in, and suddenly we were back at it. Lip-locked while she pushed me back towards the entrance to her hotel room, shuffling awkwardly until my back was against the door. I blindly found the handle with one hand and twisted, letting me start squeezing out, still craning forward to maintain contact with her. She put a hand on my chest and pushed me out into the corridor, breaking our kiss, and we shared one last furtive look before she used both hands to close the door between us, a definitive click reverberating through the hallway.
Standing in the corridor, I found myself shaking, staring at the closed door. After a few seconds I heard a thump.
“Was that you sitting against the door?” I called.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that,” came the muffled reply from somewhere around waist-high.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t.”
She let out an exasperated laugh. “Bye.”
“Bye,” I replied.
It took until I reached the bottom of the stairs for me to realise I still didn’t have her number. Never mind, you’ll get it tomorrow.
**********