Alex, a friend from middle school who I’ve remained in touch with over the years (whom, I might add, is happily married with kids), decided to suggest a friend to me via le Facebook. Of course my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to check out who he thought I should be cyber pals with. Curtis? Hmmm. The name didn’t immediately ring any bells and so I checked out his pictures, and right away it clicked. It was Alex’s younger brother that I haven’t seen in, well, let’s just say a really long time. I still was not interested in adding him to my list of cyber friends, but at that point I wasn’t sure if it was just plain rude to ignore him, so I clicked “Add.” A couple of days later he wrote to me and said that he wanted to catch up.
A few more days passed before I decided do anything, and it would have been longer if I didn’t happen to run into Alex at one of the happy hour bars we usually hit up. He filled me in on what his brother had been up to all these years, that he’s a cop now and loves his job. Just to think, this is all based on some images I have posted up on the ol’ trusty cyber-web. Alex really nudged me to be fair, though, and give it a try. He also gave me a speech about how dating is hard for people in his brother’s line of work. I tell him I’ll think it over.
I stop by my nearest and dearest (and most ridiculously honest) friend Janey’s house on the way home to have a chat and see what she would think. After about five minutes of continuous laughter, I shook my head, “What was I thinking? I should have just said no outright.”
“Saffron you break too many rules to date an authoritative man. You will push his buttons on purpose just to see what will set him off. BAD IDEA.” Her words have so much truth to them, and yet, they made me more inclined to say yes! Just to show that I’m not always that person.
The very next day I emailed Curtis my number. Soon after he called back and we made plans to meet up for a quick drink. On the way over I played out the whole thing in my mind — pick a place I could walk to so he wouldn’t see me drink and drive, not talk about anything too crazy, and, cross my fingers, hope he hadn’t already run a background check on me. Kidding?
We met up in front of the bar and I almost didn’t even recognize him. His golden locks were cut down to a buzz cut and there was a deep permanent line in between his eyebrows that made him look like he was scowling. As we walked to find seats, he seemed to tower over me. I was full on nervous. What did I get myself into?
He ordered a long island iced tea and downed half of it before we got settled. Okay. He must have been nervous too.
We started by filling each other in on all the time that we missed, and the conversation just started to flow. The more time went by, the more I could see the kid I knew back in the day, goofy as hell and a troublemaker. But there was an edginess to him now. He was so open about other women he’d dated in the past, including the issues they had had, and I talked briefly about my sordid past with this guy and that.
At the end of the night he had inched his way from sitting across from me to sitting directly next to me. And, to be honest, I didn’t mind it one bit. I found myself attracted to this tall, confident man, contemplating what it could really be like to date a cop. I mean, was it such a bad idea? We stuck around until the last call. We both had a couple too many and, to my surprise, he was actually considering driving home — not so square after all? — but, then again, what sort of responsible citizen would I be if I allowed him to?
More to come about the man with the cuffs.
