Just walked in the door.
After sitting on the sofa and curling my feet under me, I responded, staring at the phone with my lip between my teeth, waiting for his response like a crazy school girl with a crush, unsure if I’d get one. After all, he was a cop. It was his job to keep people safe. But, he had my number and I hadn’t given it to him, so he had to have gone out of his way to get it from somebody.
I’ll go back inside now and give up any hope that you’re gonna turn around and come back to me.
I think I may have giggled. I was thankful no one was witnessing this. I was even more thankful that Ansel couldn’t see me. I needed to respond. I was better with the written word than having to speak to someone. After taking my time, I finally replied.
I thought about it a few times. But I made it back here before I could turn around.
I read through it three times before pressing send. Was it even normal for me to be this excited about text messages? Was this a sign that I needed to get out more? Surely it wasn’t healthy for a grown woman to get this worked up over a few comments.
You seemed determined to go. If I’d thought there was a chance for you to stay I would have tried a little harder to convince you not to go.
We were flirting. Text flirting. The smile plastered on my face was nothing compared to the joy I was feeling. I tried not to overthink this like I did everything else.
It’s probably best that you didn’t. I didn’t want today to become a memory about a one-night stand. I would’ve been a disappointment.
I sent the first sentence after deciding the other contained too much information. No need to blab about my lack of experience. The safety of a text message where I didn’t have to hear voices or see faces with their expressions often made me brave. I wanted to see him again. Ansel had my number. The chances of me seeing him again were multiplying by the minute.
Tell me, Sugar, why is that?
His response made me nervous. I shifted into a more relaxed position. Grabbing a blanket from the back of the sofa, I covered my legs. I wanted to explain myself without opening my past to the vulnerability that I was feeling. Last night when I’d gone to bed, I’d been thinking of Ansel, never imagining that tonight I’d be texting him having already kissed his lips. This all seemed so unreal. I didn’t want to screw it up by saying the wrong thing or a series of the wrong things.
For starters we’d just met.
My response was basic and truthful. It protected me from my fears and insecurities. His next pause was longer than the others. I frowned, thinking I’d said the wrong thing. I didn’t think that it sounded like a bad response. When the phone lit up again, my lip was almost bleeding.
Technically it was our second meeting. And it felt like I’d been waiting on you for a fucking long time tonight when you were standing in my kitchen looking at me with those crazy beautiful eyes. I couldn’t think of one reason that it was a bad idea. When you walked out the door my, heart split just a touch. That . . . pained me.
“Oh my God,” I whispered to myself in the darkness of my living room. My heart pounded in my chest. He had me all tied up in knots with a paragraph. Ansel hadn’t held back a thing in his response. He wasn’t trying to say what he thought I wanted to hear. Again, he was blunt, honest without care, which was completely different than what I was used to. Ansel threw his cards on the table.
Does it help that I regret it?
I typed and sent before I could add anything else. I wasn’t ready to be that honest yet. He was braver than me. Ansel had more confidence. I had almost none. It was easy to be more confident than me. That wasn’t even a challenge.
No, that makes it harder. I’m going to go to sleep wishing I wasn’t alone. You’ll be in my dreams.
I closed my eyes and squealed. I wasn’t sure I’d ever squealed before. Like this. Doing this. I didn’t want to say something stupid. I thought about it a moment before preparing my response.
You’re making me blush. I’m not good at flirting. I don’t do it that often or get out much.
After deleting the last part, I sent it and waited. My mind plowed through a thousand possible responses. As the time continued to drag on with nothing from him, I imagined he’d fallen asleep, which meant I was boring him. I suppose he’d gotten tired of texting and just ignored it. I typed several things to further explain . . . then I deleted them.
Eventually I slept, clutching the phone in my hand, wondering what I’d done to end our texting. Was this a one-and-done flirt? I couldn’t be sure. Maybe Ansel had decided I wasn’t his type. If I allowed that to haunt me in my dreams it would do just that. And that’s exactly what happened.