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I push the door open to the men’s room and turn around, locking it. Chest heaving, heart racing, I make my way to the sink where I turn on the water, twisting it to ice cold. I roll up my sleeves, lower my cupped hands under the faucet, and bury my face in the cool water.
Over and over, I splash water on my face, even holding my nose and mouth in my cupped hands. But the water slips through my fingers, and suddenly I miss the pool at the gym. Where I can fill my lungs with pain in privacy.
I blot my face with paper towel, and run a hand through my hair. We’re strangers. She is not mine to protect. But that doesn’t stop me from timing my exit from Crave to align with hers.
In the parking lot, as she walks to her car, head down as she scrolls through her phone, I come to her side and say hello.
It’s only one word but heat bands my collar and fills my chest as she glances up, stopping in her tracks. “Hi Cohen.” I stop walking, too, and we stand there in the center of the parking lot, street lights throwing glowing rings around our feet.
“Would you like to walk down to Rise and Grind and get a coffee?”
A neutral space. In public. Near work. And cameras will see us walk off the lot together. I don’t know how else to make her feel safe while I talk to her.
She glances over her shoulder then back to me, as if considering my offer. My blood stops pumping as I wait for her response.
“As long as I can get my car out when we’re done, sure.” She smiles and knowing that she wasn’t hesitant to say yes to me but merely wanted to make sure her car didn’t get locked in, makes me happy.
My toes curl in my boots and there’s a faint tick at the corner of my mouth. The anxiety I felt at the sink earlier all but disappeared.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let them lock up until you get your car.”
She blinks at me, her eyes smiling. “And yours.”
I forgot about myself. I’d only thought of her.
I’ve missed that feeling.
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I’m… enjoying myself.
I think when most people have out of body experiences, they’re doing something monumental. And I don’t mean that in a good way. I mean life altering ways: Witnessing a motorcycle accident, sliding down a ravine while harmlessly hiking or getting bad news that forever changes you in a split second.
I can honestly say I’ve never had an out of body experience. Not until now. And it’s from something so simple; being asked out for coffee.
I don’t consider it a date, but still, a man asked me for coffee. It’s been well over two years since I last hung out with anybody simply to spend an hour talking—to have a drink and enjoy their company.
I forgot what it feels like to walk next to a stranger, to have your arm graze theirs and wonder if they’re feeling the tiny pinpricks of electricity through their veins too, to talk over each other awkwardly because you don’t know their cues, to say you hate something they like and share a laugh because you’re both just so new to each other.
I forgot those simple pleasures are out there, and as I walk next to Cohen out of the Crave and Cure parking lot, they rush back to me. Every last one of them. It’s almost dizzying, the amount of potential happiness out there with the right relationship. Cohen asks me how my day went, and I answer, masking the sudden disappointment running through me.
I can enjoy the buzz of a proper not-date, but I can’t let myself get excited—I can’t date. I can’t give a man what he needs any more.
“It was good. Pretty standard today, but I guess you know that. You’ve been at Crave longer than me,” I say, tucking a strand of wavy hair back into my loose ponytail. Ahead the sign for Rise and Grind appears, a neon red open light flickering in the window.
“I have, that’s true,” he says, stopping in front of the antique store next door to the coffee house. I look up at him, taking in the slope of his nose, the perfect set of his eyes and the crisp shave on his chiseled jaw. My eyes drop to his chest, covered in an emerald and navy blue plaid button up, but I see the way his clothes hang off him, clinging to his pecs and biceps, falling loose in other places. He looks both fit and kind of gaunt, but I don’t have time to overthink it because his eyes are back on me.
“Mind if we go in, just for a second?” he asks, holding my eyes and really studying them.
I nod. “Sure.”
I expect to follow him inside, to traipse around after him in silence until he’s ready to have coffee. Instead, he pulls open the door and keeps his eyes on his feet. “After you.”
We browse the antique store, with Cohen quietly greeting the owner. After a few minutes, he turns to me and asks me if I’m ready to leave.
My eyes burn at the question. It’s so simple. The same way being asked out is so simple. But Pete never asked me what I wanted. Ever.
