It Wasn’t Love on My Mind ⁽ᵖᵃʳᵗ ² ᵒᶠ ³⁾
It wasn’t love on my mind when I left the apartment to meet my dreamy British coworker for our date… Nor when I ran into Martha at the Tipsy Elephant, already three margaritas in… And it definitely wasn’t love on my mind when she ordered us those shots… and that damn delicious bottle of…
I was a glass of prosecco and a few shots of tequila down, courtesy of Martha’s bewitching tongue, when the boys arrived. They strolled in together, carrying themselves like frat-boys three years their juniors, stumbling as though they, themselves, were each a few beers gone.
They plopped into their seats.
(He sat across from me!)
I was so chill the whole time.
“Hey, boys! Just in time to get the next round. What’re we all drinking?” As expected, Martha kept the conversation spinning all night. More than once, I thought she must be plucking questions from my own mind.
“So, Mr. London Boy,” she said, sipping her umpteenth margarita “How come it took you so long to ask my fine friend out?”
Harry shifted on his stool, took a swig of his whiskey. “I don’t know. This whole thing is still kinda new to me. I didn’t have the greatest people in my life… Back in Newcastle. Not London.”
He took another swig.
The gleam in his eyes I had come to adore dwindled then. Hoping to keep it alive, I pivoted, blurting out, “Newcastle is where Chelsea’s from?”
“Excuse me?”
“The soccer — er, football team. Chelsea. They’re from Newcastle?”
“You’re joking, right? Chelsea? From Newcastle? No, mate. No.”
The gleam returned. And his grin, as adorably stupid as I remembered.
Conversation stretched through the night, winding from football and video games to a not-so-quick interjection about women’s rights and pay discrepancies — courtesy of Martha, of course. A warmth of gratitude swelled in me for having rolled the dice and tried my hand at this night. So seldomly I took my eyes off Harry, I thought I might accidentally weld a piece of me onto him. He reciprocated.
The moon shone, a crown amongst sparse stars, when he invited me outside with him, a menthol calling his name. He offered me one. I refused. We stood looking at each other. His eyes swept across me. Seeing me.
It wasn’t love on my mind, it wasn’t. But that moment was exactly what I needed. Us… Together under smoke and stars. And I think he needed me, too. I think some part of me needed him to.
“I still can’t believe it,” he said, a silver wisp streaming past his lips. “I’ve wasted six months pretending I didn’t notice you. Pretending I wasn’t…curious about you. And for what? Shame? Fear? My own damn cowardice?”
I leaned into him and rested my head on his shoulder.
“You weren’t ready. I can understand that. It’s hard sometimes to accept that we are who we are. You’ve lived in the shadows of your own life for so long. And I don’t blame you. But you’ve noticed me now, like I’ve noticed you...”
Our eyes locked and held briefly, then he turned away. He was still so used to hiding when things got real. So, I let him hide. I saw his markings, though. His bruises. It was such a surreal thing — how his looked so much like mine.
I wrapped my arms around him, held him not too tight. And we shared that moment. It was nice. Really nice.
