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It took him a few more nudges before I finally acquiesced, despite my better judgment. We walked over to their table, I made the introductions, Shane started talking to Nadia, and there I was, having a not-at-work conversation with a woman I had a hard time not thinking about.
“You know what?” Mila said after some stilted talk about the weather, where I realized she was maybe a little tipsy. “I like your shirt.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You wear white button-downs a lot.”
I looked down at the simple white shirt and then back up, smiling at her because she’d noticed what I’d been wearing. This felt like a good start.
“I … like white,” I said, and yes, it was a dumb comment. She was wearing the red dress, remember?
“I gathered,” she said, giving me an exaggerated wink.
“I … l-like your dress,” I told her, developing a stutter I’d never had in my thirty-four years.
She thanked me, and then the conversation moved to silence. One where we both kept awkwardly smiling at each other and then finding other places to look around the room because looking at each other felt strange. At least, that’s how it was for me.
We carried on like this for a while—stilted conversation mixed with confused eye contact—before I finally got up the nerve to make a move. After taking a deep breath, I opened my mouth and uttered the following words that will likely haunt me forever: “I’m dating.”
Yes, that’s correct. That’s what came out of my mouth. I’m … dating. I meant to say something like“Are you dating anyone?”or“Is there someone in your life?”to fish around and see if she was available or even interested, but those weren’t the words that came out of my mouth to the woman that I’ve felt more attraction to than anyone in my entire life.
Maybe I’d had a small seizure, or some kind of brain blip, because none of it made sense—the timing, the context, the absolute absurdity of my wording. As I’ve already stated, I haven’t dated anyone in years. My sole relationship is with AppInnovate. So why would I even say that? Was it karma? The universe trying to save me from myself? Even now, I still can’t wrap my brain around it. And to top it off, I couldn’t come back from it.
I’ve replayed it in my head so many times. At that point I could have laughed it off and then followed up with“What I mean to say is …”and then fixed it. Instead, I did a weird sort of cough/snort/laugh thing, and before I could try to take it all back, Mila said, “Oh, me too. I’ve got a boyfriend. It’s … Dave, actually. His name is Dave. Good ole Dave.”
“Dave?” I was confused. She had never talked about a boyfriend before. Not once. Maybe it wasn’t that serious. This sadly gave me hope.
Then she said, “We’ve been together for a while now. Like six months or nine months or something. We’re super in love. I think he might be the one, you know?”
“That’s great.” I gave her what I’m sure was a constipated smile and an okay sign. That’s right: a freaking okay sign. Does anyone even use that one anymore? “I’m happy for you and … Dave.”
I wasn’t happy, though. It felt sort of like I’d been punched in the gut. But there was this voice in the back of my head telling me this was probably all for the best. She’s dating someone. I can now move on from all this attraction and get on with my life.
That’s not quite what happened, though. Life moved on, and my attraction stayed and maybe even got a little stronger, if I’m being honest. Turns out Mila having a boyfriend didn’t help. My feelings weren’t like a switch that could be turned off. All that came of it was a sudden hatred for some guy named Dave.
“Thanks,” she said. “We met at a bar in RiNo. It was like a love-at-first-sight kind of thing.”
“That’s … so great.” I was repeating myself, but I didn’t know what to say and honestly didn’t really need or want the details. At this point, I was trying to think of a way to walk away and lick my wounds.
“Who are you dating?” she asked, reminding me of how we got started down this path in the first place.
“Oh,” I responded. “I … well, nothing serious. Not like you and … Dave.”
She nodded. “Well, keep trying. It took me a while to find my prince.”
This was getting worse. At this point, I looked to Shane for help, a way to get me out of this, but his eyes were completely glued to Nadia, and it was like I didn’t exist anymore to him. Now I know that’s exactly what was happening. At least something good came of it.
“Well,” I said, bobbing my head with no real intent or idea of where to go after that.
“Well,” she echoed. Then she picked up her phone and looked at the screen. “Speaking of Dave—I’d better call him.”
“Sure,” I said, grateful for a reason to get out of this.
“I’ll just pop outside.”
She must have underestimated the chair height or something, because in the next moment I heard her say, “Oof,” and then she was suddenly sprawled out on the floor in front of me.
“Are you okay?” I asked, quickly squatting down to assess how badly she was hurt.
