The Date (Part 3)

After I parked in front of her house, Stacy looked me in the eyes briefly, then looked down at her hands worrying over her keys. She kept turning them over and over in her hands, and would occasionally ask me a simple "Yes or No" question about my past, while glancing up ever so slightly at my face. She would bite her lip after she asked, as though she were thinking through something really hard and couldn't reach an acceptable answer to her problem. I stole a glance at the clock which read 10:45, and quickly looked back at her. "Am I keeping you from something," Stacy asked.

Crap. She noticed me look at the clock. "No, not at all. I was just wondering what the time was," I explained quickly. I really didn't have anything to get to. I was actually cataloging how much time we were spending together, but I didn't think that response would be well received. "Oh, okay," she replied. "Well, I think I'm gonna go in anyways. It is getting pretty late." Her eyes fell again to her hands still worrying over her keys. I wasn't ready to leave her yet, so I got out, and went around to her door and opened it for her. I walked her up to her door, and we stood there looking at each other again. She was still worrying over her keys in her hands. My mind, all night, had been seeing the scene from Hitch playing in my head, as if Will Smith was teaching me what to do instead of Kevin James.

As I'm about to awkwardly make my move, she suggests, "You know, you don't have to leave right away. If you don't want to. My room mate is probably already asleep and the living room is on the other side of the house. We could talk some more in there." My face lit up as she said that. For one thing, I was saved the possible embarrassment of going in for the kiss when she didn't want one, and, two, I got to spend more time with her. "Yeah," I answered, "that sounds great."

She opened her front door and we go in and make our way to the living room. "Make yourself at home," she says when we reach the living room. "I'll be right back." She went into a room just off the main living room and closed the door. I went and found the bathroom and ran water over my face attempting to wash the sweat and dirt off. I took my shirt off and splashed some on my armpits, hoping that would cut down on any odor that escaped my excessive use of deodorant earlier. I threw my shirt back on and went back out to the couch and was left to my thoughts. These ranged from everything to "Does she want me to kiss her?" to what she was doing in her room.

I didn't have to wonder about that much longer, for she came out and I saw that she had changed into, presumably, what served as her pajamas. Stacy sat on the couch and looked at me. "There," she said, "I'm much more comfortable now. Sorry, I don't have anything for you to change into. I'm sure you want to get out of those clothes."

"Don't worry about it," I told her. "I'm fine." After that, we keep talking, taking turns asking questions about our pasts and what we see ourselves doing in the future. We talked for a long time, and as time passed, we inched closer to each other. I didn't really notice it at first, but I looked one time and we were several feet apart and the next time, we were only about 18 inches apart. I, then, started watching her whenever she shifted positions. I began to realize she shifted so that she was closer to me, and I, subconsciously, was reciprocating the movement. We got a little closer, and then the moment came. I looked up and we locked eyes again. This time, I wasted none thinking through. I moved my head towards hers and she reciprocated. My eyes closed when our lips touched, and I was suddenly hyper aware of her proximity. My hand moved to her face and softly caressed her cheek, while one of her hands wound its way under my arm to my back.

My next conscious thought came a minute later as our lips came apart. "Well," I said, letting the word speak for itself.

"Yeah," she countered. She looked back at me and smiled. She bit her lower lip again, but this time she didn't look like she was thinking through a hard decision, more like remembering something exciting. Her eyes looked as though they were smiling wide in joy. After a moment, she curled herself into my side, pulled my arm over her shoulder and intertwined our fingers and said, "I guess this counts as date number one."

The End.