It’s strange. I’ve always been comfortable sharing things with them because they’ve always made me feel safe and accepted. But as much as I would like to share this with them, especially as things intensify with Eric, I know our relationship hasn’t reached that placeyet.
We’re getting close, though, and the more time we spend together—even in the closed quarters of his condo—the more I come to appreciate the man Ericis.
But I don’t want to sit around his condo. I want to take him on a date. A realdate.
I’m not ashamed of him or what we’re doing. Although, I know even wanting that doesn’t make our lives any easier, especially considering his situation withTy.
When I finish having dinner with Charlotte and Stan, I head out, not driving to my place, but toEric’s.
* * *
What’s startedoff as a few nights a week has become more and more frequent. Even when I don’t go to his place, I find myself wanting to call him or check in on him for the night. It’s a little obsessive, a little possessive…and I’m not ashamed of being thatway.
I feel like I’ve been gradually pushing through hisbarriers.
In the beginning, we would just fuck, but that turned into dinner and then messing around some more. Eventually, that turned into chilling, hanging out, having a beer or a glass of wine while we work on a jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table in his livingroom.
The one we’re working on now is a landscape photo of a lake and a log cabin. We’ve finished the edges. As we work our way toward the middle, Eric struggles to find a spot for a piece. I inspect the edges, and a realization hits me. I hold my handout.
“Really? You know where this one goes?” he asks, eyeing meskeptically.
I wave for him to hand it to me, and when he does, I set it in a spot it fits perfectlywithin.
I didn’t know for sure it would fit, but it worked out in my favor that it did. Eric looks impressed, and it’s my favorite look onhim.
“I told you I’m not too bad at thesethings.”
“Maybe I should have gotten children’s ones for me, so at least I could practice. You and your parents do these a lot?” heasks.
“All the time. We actually would just have an ongoing puzzle, so even if one of us wasn’t home, the other could come around and work on it. Eventually after a week, we’d finish one, and then we’d have to getanother.”
I have tons of these I haven’t done before. Charlotte and Stan give me these things as gifts because I enjoy doingthem.
“It’s obviously not the most ideal date, you have to admit,” Ericsays.
I can see the disappointment in his expression, and I wonder if it’s his own disappointment for himself, or forme.
“I’d say I’m having a pretty great date.” I lift my glass of Chardonnay off the table. “Here I am working on a jigsaw puzzle, with a sexy man I plan on fucking around with as soon as he becomes so annoyed with this puzzle that he can’t stand to do anything but ravage my body. And getting a little tipsy in the process. I would say that’s a pretty good night, wouldn’tyou?”
“Are you about ready for me to ravage your body?” he asks, a mischievous expression on hisface.
“I think we can fill out a few more pieces. I don’t know that you’re at that particular level of annoyance I need you to be at so you can take me and bang the shit out ofme.”
He takes a sip of his own wine, then sets the glass down on the coffee table, beside the puzzle. “Then I better work hard to get annoyed a littlefaster.”
I feel like an idiot, because it’s the silliest thing for me to be grinning at, but I can’t help myself. Eric gets me giddy and excited in a way no one else really can or ever has. Sure, I’d have fun with Whitney all the time, but it wasn’t like this. Eric might not find this to be particularly fun or the best date in the world, but there’s an intimate connection we formed, in even these most simple of moments, a connection Icherish.
“Tell me,” he says, “what would be your ideal date if we didn’t do thistonight?”
“Ideal date?” I pretend to muse on the thought longer than I really need to, because I’ve already been considering it, more and more frequentlyactually.
“I think my ideal date would be going out on a nice long walk—a hike maybe, during the day, in the woods. Maybe a romantic picnic, and then we’d stay out late, wait for the stars, and look at them. Start a fire, grill somefood.”
“That doesn’t sound like a date as much as it sounds likecamping.”
“Well, I’d want my date to be camping, then,” Iconfess.
There’s a seriousness in his expression, as though he’s once again recognizing the limitations we’ve placed onourselves.
