My Best Friend - Then and Now... Part 8

The clock finally struck 5:00 pm. Closing time. My heart was pounding so loudly inside my head that I was sure Alan could hear it too, as we walked in silence out the front doors to the street where his little purple (yes, I did say purple) Chevy S-10 pickup waited patiently by the curb. Alan finally spoke up, breaking the tension like a baseball hit through a glass window. "You look nice" he said. "Thanks...so do you." I replied. When we reached his truck, Alan opened the passenger door for me. (Score 1 point.) When we got in and fastened our seat belts, Alan reached into the center console and handed me something. "I thought you might like this" he said. It was the new Avalon cd and two baseball cards from his personal collection in a plastic collector's sleeve: Chipper Jones and Tom Glavine rookie cards. "He knows me so well already" I thought. (Score 10 bonus points). A cd by Smalltown Poets was playing as we drove in silence. There are not any good places to go on a date in our little town, so the nearest metro area is about 45 minutes away. I don't think I even asked him where we were going. It really didn't matter. I was finally with Alan, and instinctively I trusted him from the beginning. He ended up taking me to Macaroni Grill for dinner. I had never eaten there and it was great. I love Italian food, and they had every kind of pasta imaginable. I had some kind of chicken, mushroom parmesean fettuchini. I don't remember what Alan ordered. But I do remember that the place settings were served ontop of this huge sheet of paper and there was a basket of crayons along with the condiments in the center. I was too nervous to put much effort into my artwork, so while I drew the typical "girlie" doodles...hearts, flowers, smiley face sunshines..etc, Alan amused me by drawing cartoon characters while we waited on our dinner to be served. After dinner we went to the theatre where we decided to see the first of the new StarWars movies: Episode I. It was one of those great theatres with the removable armrests, so we sat close together -- Alan's left hand holding mine in his lap, his right arm around my shoulders. It was perfect, and the movie was great. (Later he bought me the DVD). We sat closer together on the way home than we had on the drive up, my knees angled towards him, his hand holding mine except for when he had to shift gears. (Dang and blast stick shifts anyway). I don't remember what we talked about now. Everything and nothing I'm sure. We got back to his grandmother's house where he was staying about 10:00 that night. (I had to be home by midnight). There were still lights on inside, and we hated to break the mood by going in, so we just sat for a while in his truck listening to the radio. Finally, by some non-communicated agreement we must have decided it was time to go in before someone came out to see why we were still sitting in the driveway. To this day I still don't know who made the first move. Whether he leaned over, or I leaned in...I guess it doesn't matter. "I wish the same for you...a chance for love" lilted in the background as we kissed for the first time. How can I describe it other than sheer perfection? It wasn't very long, nor all that intense, but it was perfect. And in that moment I knew with sudden clarity.... that this was the man that I would marry. This was my future husband. (To be continued).