Ex - Lovers

So I have recently come across some ex-lovers.  Or I guess they have come across me...and it's really got me thinking about writing a book about them.

So here is my attempt at one story in particular.

Cliche Bar Encounter

There used to be this really great bar in my college town called Tj's.  Or was it Tommy's?  Well, regardless, it had this rooftop bar area that had dancing and tables and was perfect for a July summer night.  There were white Christmas lights loosely decorating the walls and unlit tiki lights to create some sort of tropical ambiance.  People were packed to the max outside, and I remember you had to wait downstairs in a line to be permitted to go to the rooftop.  It often took a while to go up to the outside bar, because this was the only place in town that had an outside and on a hot summer night, there was nothing better than getting drunk outside and catching the eye of some dimly lit stranger.

This one night in particular I was out with a couple of friends and a guy I was "dating" at the time.  I was chatting with my friends when I notice this tall, handsome guy staring at me.  And I mean it's one thing to make eye contact and then look away, but this guy was staring.  Not loosing ground.  Looking straight at me.  Staring.  I met his gaze back with full force.  He was hot, why wouldn't I?  I pretended to be paying attention to the conversation I was listening to, but kept my eye on the guy.  I somehow slipped away from my group and walked up to him.

"I think you were at the last bar we were at," me.

"I saw you there too," him.

We had met eyes at a previous bar, and I had noticed his cuteness then, but up close he was even better.  He had these beautiful green eyes, dark hair and ever so enchanting smile.  He didn't look like he grew up here either.  Not a typical Colorado boy.  But I couldn't tell where he was from.  Wherever he was from they had fed him well.  He was tall, like 6'4", just the way I like them.  And he was slender and toned and he looked older than the rest of the twenty somethings at the bar.  Not like he was 21 and out for his first time, but like he was in his late twenties just out enjoying the warm weather and summer booze. 

"We should go out," him.

"Give me your phone."

I put my number in his phone.  I can't remember if there were text exchanges that night or what.  But the next day he called me and asked me when I would be free to go out.  Without wanting to seem eager, I told him I had plans that night (even though I totally didn't), but I was free Sunday.  

We decided on a nice Mexican restaurant that had the best margaritas in town.  We sat outside next to a bubbling fountain and I drank a mango margarita and we split the nachos.  He was sweet and talkative.   He was also very smart.  I could tell from the conversation that we were having that his intelligence wasn't just book smart either, he was people smart too.  He told me about how he grew up in Iowa, and how he had started his own company in our town.  He told me about growing up in a small mid-western town and I looked at him like a wide-eyed Californian.  I had no idea what it was like to drive a tractor, or spend an evening in a car in the middle of a corn field.  

He was very charming, and very enchanting.  I was nervous, which is unusual for me in a setting with a guy.  I mumbled and kept fidgeting and drank my margarita too fast, and then ordered another one...and then another one.  

I should have known not to drink so much, but I was nervous and he was cute and the whole thing felt surreal.  He was smart and funny and nice and tall and handsome and I was twitterpated over everything he was.  It was stupid really, but while he was talking I imagined what it would be like to marry him and how happy I would be.  I hardly knew this guy, and I had met him at a bar.  After dinner we wound up meeting some of his friends across the street a bar and hung out with them and enjoyed ourselves out on the town for a little bit.  It was nice.  Just getting to know someone and hanging out with their friends and sitting and talking and having a nice dinner outside in the summer warmth.

But then I did something really dumb.  Maybe it was the margaritas, maybe it was my nerves, maybe it was me trying to win over this guy who had somehow managed to wrap me around his little finger in a matter of hours.  I was such a sucker.

"We should go back to your place," me.

He laughs. "Okay."

Needless to say I left an impression.  I don't know if it was a good one or a bad one or a trampy one, but it was an impression none-the-less.  

Throughout the years we continued to hung out.  We went boating a couple of times over the summer at the reservoir in town.  We'd meet up at bars and chat, or I even went to his college graduation party.  We still talk every once in a while and now living in the mid-west I meet people who know him.  Since apparently everyone in the Midwest knows everyone else.  Without fail though, everytime I'd see him I'd get the same stupid feeling I got the first night we met outside, under the summer night sky, on the rooftop bar.