“I don’t know where this is going,” she said to her friend after they’d taken their first sips of their coffees. “All I know is that I’m very happy with him.”
And isn’t that all that mattered? They both wondered as they sipped again. They’d taken a short moment, here in this coffee shop, It was important the two friends to realize to take moments like these to really let wonderful things sink in. Unlike when bad things happened. Which didn’t need any help sinking in.

Out of the corner of the room, next to the hors d’oeuvres, she walked up to me.
I had planned on walking up to her. She beat me to the punch. Actually, she was carrying two punches–red, liquor-ridden drinks–one for her, and one for me.
I accepted the punch and said “Cheers.”
We clinked plastic blue cups. The party was loud and yet we were able to get to know each other. The good parts. The parts you want to know and revel in about her and about yourself. It was a magical night.

He is a beautiful cat. He looks like someone poured black paint over his with fur starting from the top of his head down his back and covering his entire tail.
His face is a bandit’s mask. I love him so much.
And I don’t even know him. He just came to live with us yesterday. But he’s not a hider. He sniffed around and let us play with him, though he doesn’t yet let us pick him up or cuddle him. That’s when he bites a little. Not enough to draw blood but enough to make you careful.
He doesn’t love us yet. Not yet.

Father and son talked on the porch. I’d wanted to listen in, because I know part of it was about me. Some of it, at least.
I’d started all of this, if you want to know the truth. I’d come between them, made them doubt things about each other. Made them think the other was lying.
That had never been my intention. I’d wanted them to reconcile. But then, well, things turned out differently. So here I am. There they are.
“Join the military,” the father said.
“No,” the son said.
After that exchange, I could only hear whispers. I knew this part –the whispering–was about me.

She called to say she was on her way. We waited for her.

I was the only one on the porch waiting. The others were well-dressed, to make a good impression on her. Sunday best. Knife-pressed pants. Bowties. Pompadours.

Not me. I was shirtless. Sweating. Crossing my legs against the batter in Levi cut-offs. I wanted her to see the real me. When she arrived she smiled and said, “Alright, that will do.” and told me to put some clothes on.

But I refused. So she walked past me and entered the house, where everyone cheered. I followed inside, refusing to change.

It was in a shack, in the woods. A small house filled with empty cans of paint, cigarette butts and smashed aluminum cans of Diet Pepsi.
It was there that we declared our love for each other, as children. Then, as teenagers. It was so important then, to hide our love. Not because it was bad or wrong or against our family values. But because we didn’t want to share it with anyone. Unlike other love that you want to shout from rooftops.
The two of us wanted to whisper it, in each others ears. It existed only for us.
A selfish love. Dark, dank. Never to see the light of day.
I was told, decades later, that the shack had burned down. Even it hadn’t, it would have fallen eventually. It was just too old, rickety, even then. Such a fragile thing, that shack, ready to collapse at any given moment. With the slightest touch or whisper.

I know. You see him carrying on, as if nothing’s happened. And he would be right. Nothing has happened.
Not yet.
But you keep hoping and praying. You’ve gotten down on your knees at the altar of a Catholic church. You lit a candle.
And your an Atheist.
But you want him so badly.
Oh man.

I veered left on the wooded path and found that someone had stepped before me. Large shoe prints. It was him, I realized. He was ahead of me, waiting for me.
It made me want to walk slower–not because I didn’t want to see him but because I did. So desperately did. I knew he’d be there waiting. I love it when life works this way; when you want something and you actually get it.
I slowed my gait because I wanted to save the journey to him. Being there with him would be fantastic I knew. The hugs and kisses and all that. But it was the on-the-way their anticipation that really did it for me. Wondering, what would be wearing. A tank top? A moustache? Smelling like lime? or Musk.
The breeze tousled the fallen leaves and I crunched them.
He called out my name and dammit if I didn’t start to run for him, like a complete idiot.

It was a petal, from a blossom falling down. But I followed its fall, for it was so slow and flutter, it gave me enough time, seconds really, to reflect on how I felt about you.
Sometimes that’s all the time you need. I left the park, while other petals fell and then knocked on your door.
“You could have called or texted me,” he said.
But I didn’t want to do things that way. I wanted the old fashioned way of confronting someone, with one’s love.
So I did. And it worked.
We lived happily ever after.

I wanted to ask him on my own. But he wasn’t taking many calls or even visits. But there were some persistent people, like our mutual friend, Gary.
Gary never took no for an answer, when it came to us. He called and called, his voicemails to Steve more demanding. He knocked on Steve’s door.
Steve told him to go away. “I need to be alone.”
But Gary was persistent and broke into the house. He found Steve in the tub, naked with a empty fifth of bourbon.
Oh Steve, Gary said, attempting to pull him out of the bed.
Oh Gary, Steve said, as he squirmed through Gary’s hands. “I just want to be left alone.”
“Absolutely not,” Gary said and that, as they say, is that.