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“No, I wouldn’t think so,” I said. My voice lingered a bit as my eyes met hers and we had a moment of connection. Our eyes locked on one another and stayed there, as if exchanging information on a purely emotional level without words. Yeah, that was definitely there. Wow… I could feel it vibrating through my synapses and awakening another part of myself as I broke the gaze and glanced down at the pad on the table. There was a drawing of two people walking out of a restaurant on Main Street. The level of detail was amazing.
“Wow, that is fantastic, Julie,” I said. “Where did you learn to draw like that?”
“Thanks. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, actually. Over time I’ve just developed my own style. And there it is.”
“Well, it’s excellent,” I replied. “You paint as well?”
“Yeah, I paint and I do some sculpting also.”
“Have you ever had any shows?”
“Nah, it’s pretty hard to get a show set up, or a gallery,” Julie replied.
“I imagine nowadays you can probably make a ton of money online with this sort of stuff, right?”
“Um, yeah. You can, but you really need to know what you are doing as far as marketing. I’ve never been that great with that stuff. I don’t even have a website together anymore, but that is another thing I’m working on. I just haven’t had the time to devote to it, you know?”
I could hear that Julie felt a bit unsure of herself when she talked about actually selling her art work. I found myself wondering if she had any issues in the past that left a bad taste in her mouth when it came to actually promoting her work. I’d heard that the most successful artists were not the best, but the best at selling what work they did have. Maybe that was Julie’s problem as well. It just so happened that I knew some people who could help her. But first, this art discussion had given me another idea.
“Hey, there is an exhibit this weekend for an artist named Kyle Sheridan. I’ve heard he is a great painter. Would you like to go? Maybe grab some dinner on the way?”
Julie smiled and leaned forward slightly. She smelled delicious. “You mean, like a date?”
I hated that she put me on the spot like that, but I’d mustered the courage to say it in the first place so I wasn’t going to back down now. “Yeah, a date.”
She nodded. “I’d love to.”
I couldn’t believe those words were coming out of her mouth right then. A feeling of total warmth and relaxation washed over me for a second followed very closely by waves of tingles that spread from my toes up to my neck in a random haphazard pattern. It had ha
ppened. I’d made my interest known and secured an actual date for Saturday night.
“That’s great,” I said. “I’ll need to clear it with Katy to see if she can let Zoe just spend the evening there. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Fantastic,” Julie said. I could see in her eyes that she was happy I’d asked her out. I’d found a common ground, something we could connect on and have fun with even if there weren’t sparks of romance flying, and luckily from what I could tell, romance was definitely in the air.
I had a moment right then where I felt so happy that I wanted to grab her and take her in my arms, to make sweet love to her erupting with total passion on that table. But the moment quickly passed and we continued to chat a bit about types of art and what Julie hoped to accomplish with her own career.
When she finally went home a little after midnight, I worried about her. I wanted to call her to make sure she got home safely, but I did no such thing. I had taken the first step, but there could be no moving things forward at an accelerated rate. I had to just let things develop naturally.
I was no longer tired, as I had been after the ballgame. No, I was happy and a bit wired. I poured myself a few whiskeys and walked around the living room looking at the pictures on the wall and thinking that in a few days, I would be out on an actual date with this amazing woman. It had actually happened for me. And it hadn’t been weird at all.
If anything, it had been totally chill and relaxed. I asked and Julie accepted. The gleam in her eye when I asked her would play over and over again in my mind. I loved seeing that sweet look on her beautiful face.
When I finally laid down in bed later that night it was heading close to two in the morning. I began to think about how the date would go. What would I wear? Would I just let it be simple conversation? Would I put a little flirting in there to remind her that I was still romantically interested in her and we weren’t heading off to the dreaded friend zone. I’d heard nasty horror stories about that place. I couldn’t have that.
I closed my eyes and soon drifted off to sleep, where I slept peacefully for the first time in several weeks.
Chapter Twelve
Julie
I was actually out on a real date with Ricky. I couldn’t believe it. The whole thing had been set up and had happened so quickly before my eyes that I just didn’t understand what I had been so scared of before. Sitting there in Ricky’s kitchen, we’d been having a nice conversation bonding over the subject of art. He was surprisingly interested and knowledgeable about the subject, and then out of the blue he just asked me. I didn’t hesitate at all. I said yes right away. And that was it. There was no big deal, nothing weird between us. We resumed our conversation and things were easy between us.
That night as I drove home, I felt the excitement growing within me, until I was about to burst. I didn’t want to, but I knew there was no getting around it. I had to tell Tessa. So, when I got home I told Tessa the news. I thought she was going to have a nervous breakdown she was so happy. She instantly started jumping up and down and screaming for joy. I didn’t know my dating life meant that much to her. It was hilarious. She was a great, supportive friend. “Well, now we can get a bit thicker into things,” she said. “And I expect you to tell me all the juicy details about what is going on. I want you to pretend you are writing a romantic blog and describe it to me vividly. No, actually I want you to start a blog and describe everything vividly for everyone. The world must hear about this. You must give the people what...they… want...”
She had me laughing until I was almost in tears.
The rest of the week went by pretty easily. Ricky and I got along like always and occasionally we would mention our date and I could tell that the nearer that time drew, the happier he got. And so did I. It felt strange to me that it was finally happening. The buildup and suspense had been killing me for almost two weeks. Yet, there was a part of me that wished this event was still an unknown, like it had been, both because I missed that nervous excitement, and because no risk had yet occurred for either of us. There was no chance to be hurt, or to look foolish.
