Prelude to a Kiss

"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous."

~Ingrid Bergman

In my life I have happenstances which cause me to reflect back on memories past. Tonight at work such an instance presented itself and I was transported back a few months.

They had spent a blissful evening together, complete with baseball spectator-ship, watermelon wedges, and a quiet contemplative drive around the city. The night was waning and she had to be at work early the next morning. As they pulled up to her office so he could pick up his car, it was evident that neither of them were quite ready for the evening to end. They sat down in the driveway, started up a conversation and the time flew. They talked like they'd known each other for years, rather than their short couple of weeks. He asked her what she looked for in a guy. She rattled off the characteristics, memorized from several other such conversations, "Intelligent. Funny. Driven. Motivated. Attractive." Before they knew it, it was after 1am and they both knew that they should call it a night.

Inevitably, as conversations often do between guys and girls, the subject shifted to kissing. He asked how many guys she had kissed, and she obliged, afterward turning the question on him. As the conversation evolved, he asked, "Have you ever thought about kissing me?" Of course she had. Nearly every week when she passed by him at church she had verbally remarked to her friend how adorable he was. "I'm not going to answer that," she coyly responded. He looked her in the eye and asked what that was supposed to mean. She could see he wasn't driven enough to make the move, so she sauntered over to the driver's side and opened the door, saying, "Ok, I'm gonna go now. Thanks for hanging out."

He looked at her with a certain longing in his eyes, as if to say, Are you kidding me?? She knew he wanted to kiss her, and she him, but she was going to make him work for it. "Remember when I told you how I like guys who are driven and take initiative?" she asked him. He did - vividly. He came closer to her, the driver's side door acting as a buffer between them. He asked her not to leave yet. She asked why and he said he wasn't ready for the night to be over. She crept out from behind the protective barricade of the car door and asked if he was any good. He responded, "There's only one way to find out." He cupped her face with his hands, the only guy she had ever kissed to do such a thing, and kissed her.

As I ventured out of the front door of my office, down to the driveway where I was sent to retrieve my bosses' purse, tonight, I got to relive one of the sweetest moments of my dating career. It was ever so vividly replayed in my memory as thought it were yesterday.