How We Met

I used to live just a few blocks from where he worked. I would go there sometimes for Get Back Juice* and a little people watching. Occasionally lunch. Once when I was about to order this guy with fantastic blue eyes asked if I was Brittney. Startled, I looked behind me for the candid camera. Once I was sure no one was there I agreed that I was. “You’re a good writer,” he replied, and all the sudden I felt really confused.

He informed me he read my weblog from time to time. That was the first–and last–time anyone had recognized me from my site. I already sort of liked the way he smiled at me, so after that day I stole a few extra glances.

A few weeks later I came in for a salad when he plopped down across the table from me. Finally. After afternoons of us sitting at tables apart, he on his break, me having an espresso. We began conversation easily. It was all about his job and my job and newspapers and MTSU and music, I think a little bit. We also talked about movies. We talked about how we both love to see independents, which you have to drive the 30 miles to Nashville in order to see. And then it was time for me to go to work.

I changed clothes at work, told a couple of people I might have a crush on the coffee shop dude, then left after a meager 6 hours. I left at around 10 p.m. but noticed halfway home that I left my shoes and a piece of cheesecake at work. I could have lived without the shoes, but the cheescake I had to have so I went back. I parked my car in the front lot, which I never did, and ran in for my forgotten things. When I came back out I was balancing all my shit when I heard a loud, “Hey!”

It was the coffee shop dude. He came over to my car and I kind of don’t remember at all what he actually said, or what I actually said, but that somehow after some noises came out of our respective mouths we’d agreed to a date. In Nashville, to see some good documentary or foreign film.

And I was excited.

But this story gets way better after I learned about the VCB’s personal circumstances that evening. Turns he was kicking himself for not asking me to a movie while we were talking earlier at the coffee shop. He thought about it as he worked all night, helping move a frozen keg that his boss had stupidly stuck in the freezer. Long story short, the VCB ended up with beer-soaked hair. Which, it turns out, did not stop him from taking a trip by Outback where I used to work, to see if I might be there. He said he was just curious, and that he’s made a bet with himself. That if for some reason when he drove by, I was out there, he’d stop and ask me out. Which, he says, was his way of making sure it wouldn’t happen. Because, seriously, what are the odds?

Which makes the part about me making a second trip back to the restaurant to pick up shoes and cheesecake quite the coincidence. Had I not gone back I’d have missed him, especially since I never use the entrance where he was parked.

A week or so later came the first date. Three hours and a bottle of wine at the Indian place made us miss Spellbound, which I still haven’t seen. We saw the very commercial 28 Days Later instead.

Otherwise, it was a fucking perfect night.

*Coffee