I’d read the stories of recent biker violence. I wasn’t taking any chances. I stood up, dusted off my top, threw out my coffee cup, and followed Corey to the door.
And I decided to be as honest as possible for the moment.
“I gotta admit, Corey, you surprised me,” I said as we walked to our respective vehicles. “I wasn’t sure if you’d changed. And maybe you haven’t. But you at least know how to act like a gentleman now.”
Corey snorted, giving something of a guilty but knowing smile.
“Sometimes,” he said, “when I’m not around the boys. I’m not an asshole. Just…a group asshole sometimes.”
That was funnier than it should have been. I laughed harder than I wanted to.
And then things got quiet, and it hit that point in the…the meeting, I suppose, when physical contact seemed inevitable. And was I drawn to touching him? Oh, without question.
In fact, the way our eyes locked on each other, the way everything else seemed to fade into the background, the way I couldn’t think of anything but Corey at that moment, it seemed all but impossible that…
No, no, no! No, Melissa. Be stronger than that.
But I had to dosomething.
I bit my lip, looked down, and did perhaps the most awkward move of all.
I offered my hand for a handshake.
Corey looked confused at it like I was playing a prank on him. And in a sense, it was a joke. Who offered a handshake after a meeting like this? That was what twelve-year-olds trying out dating for the first time did, not two adults in their early thirties.
But if I hugged him or, God forbid, kissed him…
“Yes, it was a wonderful and formal pleasure to meet you, Melissa Cook,” Corey said, deciding to play up the joke by taking my hand and shaking it in the most exaggerated fashion possible. “I hope that I may have the honor of doing so again.”
“Of course,” I said without even thinking.
Well, guess we’re really doing it again.
“And maybe next time, we can do more than shake.”
I was left a bit dumbfounded as Corey winked at me before heading to his bike. Not another word was said as his engine revved to life and peeled out of the coffee shop parking lot.
But nothing more needed to be said. For better or for worse, things between us were progressing in a familiar direction. I could only hope that, unlike my handshake, what we were doing wasn’t a joke and would actually be something meaningful.
I can only desperately, truly hope.
I shook off my thoughts and headed to my car, trying to calm myself so I could think rationally about everything that had happened. That was, unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—impossible in the moment. Corey had shocked the hell out of me, and I wasn’t going to just shake that off so easily.
I finally turned the car on and made the short drive back to Hailey’s place, convinced I needed a third party’s opinion to see how things went. Hailey might have been younger and perhaps a little more naive about how things could go, but she was still my sister at the end of the day. I got out of the car, still gushing with warm feelings in me, and walked up the stairs to Hailey’s apartment.
She was on the couch, watching TV, more or less just as I had left her. A busy day she did not have. I didn’t want to say she rarely had busy days, but she’d apparently structured her life around YouTube videos enough that she got her work done earlier in the day and could completely relax otherwise.
“So,” Hailey said with surprising energy, “how’d it go? Give me some good news!”
I chuckled. Hailey sat up on the couch. I didn’t think she’d be so invested. She certainly wasn’t the neutral third-party that I’d hoped she might be.
“It was good,” I said.
“Will you see each other again?”
She was desperate for good news.
But could I blame her? She was the only one in the world who could relate to what I was specifically going through. She had her own heartaches and pains. She was always the more cheerful one, but now, it was as much an act as my cold shoulder had been to Corey.
