Ugh. Today was learning patience when I just supremely don’t want to.

I worked for several hours, and around 4pm Mike came to the office to drop off a check. It was a bit of a mess (the check, I mean) and we got it all straightened out around 4:15p.

Then we talked.

And we talked. We talked about hiking and camping and streams… campfires and all kinds of silly stuff.

Then I started to clean off my desk, and he said it was time for him to go. I walked him out into the lobby area. We were still talking, and he said something silly and I took a jab at him, joking around. So we started sparring.

Damn, he’s really good at it. With no effort at all, he nearly sends me to the floor. Of course, being the gentleman he is, he catches me.

Then of course he smacks me in the face.

On accident. And he did the sweetest thing. While I hardly noticed the bump, he apologizes and cups my face in his hands. I lost all my breath at that point.

Next time, he says, he won’t try to catch me.

And he doesn’t. I land solidly on my butt in the middle of the floor of my waiting area.

Told ya, he says.

Another who-knows-how-long of this and he says, again, he needs to leave. He puts his sunglasses on and we wander to the door.

We stand there, talking, about just about everything … music, movies, you name it … and I glance at the clock. It’s 5:50p.

He’s sitting perched on the chair closest to the door. I’m standing at the door, leaning on it. Neither one of us makes any move to get further out than that.

By the time he left, the sun had gone down, and he had to take his sunglasses off. We joked around a little that we’d been standing at the door for half an hour. He comments that I’d been blocking the door; I gently remind him that he’d made no move toward it either.

We smiled at each other, and I closed the door behind him.

And I remembered why I’d fallen in love with him in the first place.

Fingers still crossed,

michelle