I walked into the coffee shop that was right behind the bus stop. Followed the usual routine by grabbing a newspaper, immediately diving into the pages, not looking up once, walking over to the counter and ordering my… “Double shot latte, right?” said a voice coming from behind my paper wall. I looked up to see a girl I recognized. I guess I recognized her because I saw her every morning, but I’d never really looked at her. I turned around, half expecting to see every person gazing at this girl’s beauty. My throat began to quickly close due to lack of saliva, but the air had no trouble getting past my jaw which was nearly hitting the floor. She began to smile and look around like she didn’t know what to do. “Uh…um, yea,” I quickly tried to cover for how much of an idiot I must have looked like, “Yea, sorry I didn’t hear what you said at first.” She laughed, “Right. So what’s your deal? Like the company of a newspaper more than a person?” “Ha, no, I just hadn’t realized that there was anyone in here worth talking to.” “Nice, I’ve heard a lot, but that was good.” “Ah, so weird, antisocial men drooling in front of you is a norm.” “Well…try fifty year old married guys.” “Yea, I get a lot of those too.” She laughed and handed me my coffee. “I guess our time has expired. It was a nice date though and I’ve decided I would like to see you again.” “Same time tomorrow?” “Bright n’ early,” I gave her one last smile and walked away. We talked every morning I went in. I found out her name was Danielle. I almost convinced her mine was James Bond. I began to realize I had a crush on her, but I wasn’t going to make it anything serious yet. Apparently, she had other things in mind. “So when were you planning on asking me to dinner?” I was amazed by how forward she was; it was intriguing. I tried to play it off as though I’d already had something planned out.“Oh, well…Friday actually.” She laughed at my obvious attempt. “Friday’s fine.” So we started dating. Dinners, boat rides, movies curled up under a blanket on my couch, it was great. She ended up changing jobs. We didn’t like how much less we got to see each other after that, so she moved in. Pretty soon we became a completely functional household couple. She started to become quite the business women and I was still finishing med school. We didn’t want to make any complete commitment yet, so we stayed as just a couple. I could never apologize enough in advance for what would happen those next few years. I smiled the most after leaving that spot and made my way back home. The stairs groaned under my feet as I made my way up to the apartment. This scared me because I happened to be living right above the landlord who I was sure was the Wicked Witch of the West. I slid open the door as quietly as possible. The rooms were filled with a dim blue light that passed through the windows.
I crawled back into my warm bed. Danielle hadn’t moved since I’d left. I put my arm around her and closed my eyes.
“Have a nice walk?” she murmured.
“Yea. Go back to sleep.” I pulled her in closer.
She rolled over a bit and looked at me over her shoulder. We just looked at each other before she put her lips on mine. “I love you.” At that, she rolled back over and we both fell into a peaceful sleep.
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