What a forearm it is ...
Here’s the thing most people don’t get. For us, the people of the web, relationships made behind the screen are the closest thing we have. We live in and on our devices.
Except, small tidbits of my real life are leaking into my private online persona, and I don’t know how to mix business and pleasure.
My blog is helpful—I mean, look at the deal my reader got on laundry detergent. She’s singing my praises, but it’s also bullshit anonymous. Mostly, BS banter. It’s not me, but it is me.
I’m a nobody, and Reid is a somebody.
Anyway, I home in on a post from last November he’s pinned to the top, “Honey Barbeque Chicken, the Other White Meat.”It’s almost Turkey Time, Reid informs us, and we shouldn’t eat turkey until the big day. This way we savor it when we finally eat it. He’s prepared this decadent chicken on the grill, and I’m salivating. It’s perfect, juicy, not even burned. For a side dish, he’s made potato skins, also on the grill.
My mouth waters before I get to the picture of him in a flannel shirt, wearing one of his corny aprons—GRILL OR DIE—and that big, sexy smile. I promptly slam my laptop closed and squeeze my eyes shut. This is absurd. I know it all the way to my blistered-from-running toes.
Banishing any future crazy ideas of running into Reid, I force myself to sleep.
Don’t ask how. It’s private. I don’t like discussing BOB around these parts.
Meaning my home where my little girl sleeps.
Ican’t seem to push the girl from the fantasies in my head.
Woman, not girl. I make a mental note. Woman with a child, no less.
She was so hot, so right, so unexpected ... and sexy, real, natural, and funny. Yep, I could tell from only a few minutes. The moonlight on her skin, the way she tugged her cardigan tighter only highlighted her slight curves, and the gentle way she took with the girls—all selling points.
And I’m not even in the market.
Andi.
Andi what?
I don’t even know.
I’m a silly fool if I think I’m ever going to see her again. She’s a mom, maybe even has a man back at home? Didn’t feel that way, though.
It’s been a couple of days, and I’m unable to stop the ongoing obsession.
I wonder where she lives. Maybe near me? Then I decide it’s unlikely.
Don’t judge, men have feelings. In fact, we think about stuff too. We have a right to obsess whenever we want, and I like this woman. Like-like in a way I’ve never liked before.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been spending too much time on the blog? Alone.
I’ve never seen her before, and I’m always out in the neighborhood, running and grabbing coffee.
On one hand, it’s a good thing my neighborhood’s such a small bedroom community. Not many of my neighbors know about my blog, other than a few—three or four, and mostly because I had to try out recipes on them. The flip side is everyone knows everyone who lives nearby, maybe not intimately or what they do in their spare time, but they take stock of who lives where.
I make my way home from my office hours, my bag full of assignments to grade. Yeah, I have a teacher’s assistant, but these are midterms.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Speaking of my TA ...
I swipeACCEPT CALLand say, “Reid speaking.”
“Hey, Reid, it’s Tim.”
“I know. What’s up?”
Tim’s a bit skittish, one of those traditional stat types. We’re usually too serious for our own good, or pocket-protector geeks, or both. He’s the latter, complete with a bit of leftover acne. Sadly, I was neither, and grossly mismatched with my life’s work.
