Ten years ago today, I got his phone number off the store computer. Completely illegal, but it was getting late in my last shift ever there, and he was too cute to let disappear. Turned out it was moot, he came anyways, and he pulled a tiny scrap of paper from his pocket with his phone number on it. He hates it when I get to this part of the story, because he blushed and stammered when he handed me the number, and later that night my friends validated that with that kind of blushing and stammering, the mandatory waiting period before the phone call is null and void.

Five years ago today, I shoved a ring on the ring finger of his right hand, and I couldn’t understand why it didn’t fit. Hours later, he finally managed to put the ring on his left hand, and we drank wine and ate dinner and watched belly dancers.

Tonight, we will ride the bus downtown. I think it’s been almost ten years since we rode the bus together. We will have dinner and a few drinks and maybe end up on some dark and sticky dance floor – if I get him drunk enough – which we also haven’t done in ten years. He thinks we’ll just feel old, and he might be right. But I figure it’s worth a try.