a date scheduled with a guy I really liked in a month. That’s like a decade in single college girl years. I could be pregnant with a senator’s baby by then. I could be getting matching salt-and-pepper shaker tattoos with a waiter I had fallen in love with at Waffle House. I could be in prison for “accidentally” rolling all my parents’ incense sticks in arsenic.
Luckily, Jason was having another get-together that weekend.
Ken looked fucking adorable. He wasn’t wearing the black that I so loved, but his light-blue button-down shirt made his eyes sparkle, and his dark gray pants were made out of something soft that hung from his hips, à la Christian Grey. It wasn’t edgy. It wasn’t punk or emo or rockabilly or biker. It was what a grown-ass man with good taste (and a very nice body) wore to a party after work. And I was surprisingly into it.
We talked all night. It was so weird hanging out with someone I was “dating” but had never even touched. So, I touched him—a lot.
If I went outside to smoke, I’d drag Ken by the hand into the cold March night with me. If I needed another beer, I’d tug him by the pinkie over to the mini fridge in the corner of Jason’s basement. I’d clutch his arm and whisper in his ear whenever I was talking shit about somebody at the party. And he let me, all the while smiling and making eye contact and leaning in to tell me his own funny stories about people at the party that I didn’t know.
It was a fascinating dynamic. I was obviously the alpha, but Ken held his own and carried himself with a strong, quiet confidence. I could totally picture him in his crisp shirt and tie, sitting behind the desk in his office, stoically firing people like it ain’t no thang.
Boom. You’re fired.
Boom. Collect your belongings.
This man was a boss. And he was letting me dominate him.
When it was time for me to leave, I didn’t drag Ken out to my car (even though it looked that way). He chose to let me pull him. And when I lunged at him and threw my arms around his neck in an overzealous good-bye hug, the intensity with which he held me took my breath away. I had expected to peck him on the cheek and scamper off in a cute little tee-hee-hug-kiss-see-you-around kind of way, but instead, I found myself caught against the length of his body, like an unsuspecting stick that had just been tossed into an electric fence.
I don’t even remember if my feet were touching the ground. I just know that Ken’s strong arms clutched me to his body for what felt like an entire courtship.
The sizzle was almost audible. Just as I was about to thrust my hands into his hair, wrap my legs around his waist, and invade his beautiful, sculpted mouth with my tongue, Ken released me and turned to go.
NO!
Before he could make it out of arm’s reach, I caught his hand and tugged as hard as I could. I tugged as if I were Patrick Swayze, and he were Jennifer Grey. When I successfully spun him all the way back around to face me, I grabbed two fistfuls of his sable-brown leather jacket—and, instead of lifting him over my head to the musical stylings of Bill Medley—I attacked him with a bizarrely aggressive closed-mouth kiss. It was like the worst TV kiss you’ve ever seen, or when a ten- (make that twenty)-year-old girl kisses the back of her hand pretending like it’s Ryan Gosling.
WHY was my mouth closed? WHY did I have to do the arm-pull-spin move from Dirty Dancing??
I still want to die when I think about the awkwardness of that first kiss.
Thankfully, Ken must not have been completely deterred by my enthusiasm because he stopped by Macy’s the next day to have lunch with me (which in those days consisted of a smoothie and three Camel Lights). It was the best…surprise…ever.
Unfortunately, I was so excited to see him that my now patented overzealous hug made a second appearance, prompting Jamal—the body-building, customized-Honda-Civic-driving, cologne-wearing slut of a sales associate I shared the cash stand with—to pull me aside and whisper-lecture me about “needing to slow my roll.”
Lunch was fucking delightful, and it was over all too soon. As Ken walked me back to my register, I dragged my feet and valiantly fought the urge to cling to him like