Myself - Chapter 4 - Part XXVII

I left the house and drove to the café. Once again, April was being April, and it was beautiful outside. The trees were blossoming. It was comfortably warm. Birds were chirping. These are the things I noticed as I drove to see Molly.

I arrived at the cafe, and there she was. “Molly!”

“Hey there, hot stuff.”

“Hot stuff?”

“Does that make you uncomfortable?”

“Uh…”

“Okay,” she said. “That’s your new nickname from now on.”

I rolled my eyes. “Let’s sit down.”

I again got hot chocolate, and she again got something with more shots than syllables, which there were more than enough of. “Do you ever sleep?” I asked.

We sat down. “I’ve been thinking a lot about you,” she said.

For me, for the first time in years, I had not been thinking non-stop about her. I had other stuff going on in my lives.

“Like, what does it mean that we’re in love? Are we, like, a couple now?”

“I guess so.”

“Wow,” I said, and paused. “First time for everything.”

We looked at each other without saying anything. After a couple minutes, she kicked me under the table.

“Why’d you do that?!”

She giggled. “You were holding up the conversation.”

“So you kicked me?”

“Well, now we can talk about your sore ankle!”

“You’re crazy, you know that?”

“If I wasn’t, you wouldn’t even know my name!”

“Touché.” Another moment of silence. Another kick.

“Hey!” I squealed. “It was your turn to say something!”

“ ‘Touché?’ That’s not enough!”

“This is an abusive relationship, you know that?”

“And it’s only three and a half minutes old!” She was holding back more giggles with a big smile.