As the WWE's European tour slowly came to an end, Nina became more and more nervous. The far distance between them had created the illusion that it was safe daydreaming about the possibility of going out with him. Now that he would return in a couple of days, the fact that they had agreed to go on a date started to sink in more and more. She wasn't intimidated by the thought, just really really nervous.
She even checked the WWE's calendar to find out when he would be in the Stamford area the next time. In four weeks? Her eyes grew huge in wonder. How was she to survive four weeks in this dreadful state of uncertainty and anticipation?
Nina was not one to dwell and drive herself crazy over things like that, so she tried to keep herself busy. Since her hair was growing out she fixed herself an appointment with her hairdresser, she agreed to go and have dinner with Maria and the infamous Rodrigo on Friday night and even enrolled herself in a gym class - all for the sake of keeping busy and keeping her sanity. She was however losing grip on that sanity when he wrote her a message in which he more or less announced that he would hop on a plane and take a flight to Stamford next Saturday. The only thing left for her to do at this point was to ask him when to pick him up from the airport.
The rest of the week she was rather distracted. At work she managed to function comparatively well. She survived without any major mishaps, but once she was alone she started feeling those telltale butterflies in her stomach.
There was no denying that ever since he went to Europe something had shifted in their relationship. The shift was subtle and she was yet to work out how it would affect their way of interacting with each other as soon as they came face to face once more, but it was undeniably there and needed to be acknowledged.
Whatever reservations she had had were whisked away in an avalanche of texts, pictures, emails and phone calls. She could not help herself, she needed to respond to those cute little texts he sent her each morning even if they were just inanities like "Guten Morgen! I'm in Cologne. Fun town. Would be great to have you here as well..."
The message tone of her cellphone had become her closest and dearest friend in the last couple of days. It was like positive conditioning and kind of pathetic, but she didn't mind.
Finally Saturday afternoon had rolled around. Surprisingly she had managed to get to her destination without being involved in a spectacular car crash. It took her quite some time to find a parking space on the massive parking lot of LaGuardia airport, however. She and her trusted Mini Cooper were honked at and insulted several times. Already feeling slightly stressed out, she got out of her car. She ran her hand through her freshly colored hair, ruffling it a bit in the process. It was brown now, since she had decided to go back to her original color. She inspected herself in the side mirror of her car. She had reminded herself over and over again not to go over the top with her clothes and her make-up. This was just Stephen after all. He had already seen her in sweatpants and a worn out T-shirt and still wanted to go on a date with her, though this date thing had assumed new levels of seriousness when he had decided to fly in just for her. So basically "just Stephen" was the understatement of this still rather young century.
Anyway, she had tried to compromise by putting on everyday clothes, but making an extra effort with her make-up and hair without going overboard. Nina was wearing black skinny jeans and a dark red tank top, boots and her favorite leather jacket. She had chosen the last article of clothing because she needed something familiar and comfortable to hold on to, not because her old jacket looked especially nice with the rest of her outfit, which incidentally it kind of did by the way.
She sighed and resigned herself to the fact that she looked like she looked and there was nothing to be done about it now. It was time to go anyway. She grabbed a cardboard sign with a pink heart drawn on it from her backseat. The idea had sort of come to her on a whim and thanks to a glass of wine. As she briefly struggled with the sign, it had gotten stuck in the car door, she asked herself what had possessed her to make it in the first place. It was rather mushy and stupid after all. Then again airports and those signs sort of went together somehow. Perhaps her mushiness was forgivable when you looked at the bigger picture. A quick glance at her watch told her she needed to go, so she scurried away over the parking lot, in the direction of the main entrance that proudly announced "arrivals".
She had just breezed in through the door when her cellphone let out a loud beep. "Landed," it read. Compared with the last days that was a very practical sort of text. She chose not to answer this time. It seemed ridiculous now that they would see each other in only a couple of minutes.
She positioned herself on the other side of those automatic sliding doors that would soon reveal the arriving passengers. Her heart was beating rather fast and the amount of giddiness she felt was only comparable to the giddiness that had come over her shortly before senior prom, back when she was still a teen. This was ridiculous, embarrassing and sort of wonderful. She held up her sign with a grin. Her hands were trembling and her palms were sweaty, but she didn't mind.
The doors opened, people were streaming out and even though Stephen's tall, muscular frame was fairly noticeable, at first she couldn't seem to spot him among the mass of arriving travelers. There were simply too many of them – hugging family, kissing lovers... Kissing seemed to be a general theme at airports. He wouldn't kiss her, would he? She blushed. Again her eyes scanned the crowd nervously. And there he was. Their eyes met. He was only a few feet away from her. A smile broke out on her face and her heart started beating faster. It even skipped a beat when he smiled back at her. It was a real, genuine, am-I-glad-to-see-you-smile and rather dazzling. Then he was standing right in front of her. After days and days of talking to him on the phone, she had almost forgotten he was so tall and charming and handsome. Where the hell did all those sappy adjectives suddenly come from? But he was charming and handsome. Undeniably so. Why else would she suddenly feel so attracted to him? Her sudden foray into girlishness and the unexpected discovery that she found him to be handsome were quite overwhelming. She didn't know what do to, but luckily he seemed to have an idea. He stretched out his arms. He wanted to hug her. The cardboard sign slipped from her fingers, completely forgotten. Nina more or less jumped into his arms with a squeal and he lifted her up in the air. She buried her face in the crook of his neck. They had never been this close before. She could smell his cologne, which was sort of spicy and woodsy and rather nice and was suddenly emerged in his body warmth. Again there was that feeling of being completely unprepared for this experience. She was somewhere between panicking and enjoying it.
"Nicest sign I've happened upon in a good long while and I see quite a fair share of them. But did you really have to put this fecking nickname on it?" she heard his familiar voice say into her ear.
Banter was something she was confident she could do. It was what they always did. And it gave her a certain sense security. "What's not to like about a heart with your name in it?" she smiled at him cheekily as he let go of her. That smile sort of lost some of its initial cheek and acquired a rather dorky and dreamy quality when she again became aware of his close proximity.
"Yeah, it is cute alright. But next time don't write that horrible nickname on it. I hate being called Stevie...," he said with a lopsided grin as he picked up his duffle bag from the ground and she did the same with the sign.
"Come on, you can't tell me you didn't find it at least a bit funny..."
"Right. Maybe this funny..." He held up his index finger and thumb in front of her face to indicate the amount of funniness. The tips of his fingers were almost touching. She stuck out her tongue at him. "Besides," he continued unflinchingly, "you're lucky you brought the sign, I almost didn't recognize you because of the new hair color..." He was still grinning at her. Her smile, in turn, grew even larger when he laid an arm around her shoulders. It was a casual gesture between friends, but nevertheless it indicated a certain level of closeness and belonging.
"So you like it?" she looked up at him expectantly.
He made a face, pretending like he actually had to think about her question. He was sporting one of his typical flat caps again, she noticed now. The corners of her mouth twitched in silent amusement.
The fact that he hadn't said anything yet, left her less than amused, however. She lightly hit him in the side, not putting a lot of power behind the punch out of fear of hitting a spot that was already bruised.
"Europe hasn't become you, Farrelly. You've grown more cheeky if that's even possible. I'm not sure I approve," she admonished him, still smiling, which let the whole attempt of berating him seem rather halfhearted.
"Well, I approve of your hair," he said finally, grinning from ear to ear.
"Oh, shut up!" Nina muttered and looked down at the floor with something akin to shyness. A slight hue of pink was coloring the tips of her ears. She quickly recovered, however. "Come on. Let's move," she nudged him in the direction of the exit.
"Hungry?" she asked as they were walking.
With his right arm he was carrying his duffle bag, his other one was still resting around her shoulders.
"Yeah," he answered. "A bit peckish."
She smiled, for once limiting herself to finding that expression cute in the privacy of her own thoughts instead of commenting on it.
"What are you smiling about? Cause I said peckish?" Unfortunately he was rather quick on the uptake. She nodded.
"You know, we Irish tend to get a bit creative with saying we're hungry...," he informed her.
"Oooh. I sense another language lesson coming on...," she rolled her eyes in mock annoyance.
"Instead of peckish I could have said: 'I could eat the lamb o' Jayjus through the rungs of a chair.'"
"Seriously?" she chuckled. "Lovely imagery."
"How 'bout this one: 'I'd eat a farmer's arse through a blackthorn bush!'"
"Yuck! Even worse. I prefer peckish, I think."
They were by now standing in front of her Mini Cooper. She threw first her car, then him a speculative look. "Are you sure you're going to fit in there, big man?"
He just raised an eyebrow and tutted. She watched him open the trunk and stuff his duffle bag inside, while she twirled the car keys on her index finger. "Where are we going?" he asked as he closed the trunk.
"My place, if that's okay," she told him and got in the car. He nodded and got in as well. The first thing he did, however, was push the passenger seat back. Like way back.
She turned the key in the ignition and the motor sprang to life and with that also her sound system. The loud roar of Ken Casey's vocals, aggressive guitar riffs, drum beats and squeaking bagpipes filled the car.
"Woah!" Stephen turned down the stereo. "Getting in the mood, huh?" he laughed.
She threw him an admonishing sidelong glance before she took a right and drove off the parking lot. It would take them roughly an hour to drive all the way up to Stamford if the traffic played along. A long time to be listening to music you don't like. "You can put on something else if you want to," she quickly reached over and opened up the glove department in which she stored her CDs.
He nodded and grabbed the CD wallet without any hesitation. "So he doesn't like the Dropkick Murphys...," she concluded in her thoughts, but quickly had to revoke that judgment when he started singing along to the next song under his breath while he was leafing through her CD collection. She smiled. His voice was surprisingly pleasant. He was able to carry a tune, which was more than she could say for herself. Here and there his singing was interrupted by sounds of approval or disgust. When he had reached the end of the wallet, he snapped it shut and placed it back in the glove department.
She let out the breath she had been holding while he had been looking over her CDs. He smiled at her. "Did I make you nervous there, luv?"
She concentrated back on the road, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. "Well, yeah. Looking through somebody's CD collection is something fairly personal after all..."
"Oh, really?" she could tell he was playing dumb on purpose. Out of the corners of her eyes she registered that familiar mischievous glint in his eyes.
"Really. Don't tell me you wouldn't have considered jumping out of the moving car if you had found a Celine Dion CD..."
"That's perhaps a bit drastic... I would have politely asked you to drop me off somewhere along the road, however...," he grinned. There was a brief silence between them which wasn't uncomfortable as such. "Well, you're free to go through my music collection any time, luv."
She threw him a brief glance. "Thanks. Very gracious of you. And I'll so take you up on that offer," she winked at him. He smiled back at her.
As always making conversation with him was easy. It made her forget that she had been rather nervous to begin with. That nervousness set in again, however, as soon as they got out of her car in front of her apartment.
Nina kept thinking about what a proper date entailed and of what might be expected of her. She wasn't sure she was ready for all of that. She needed some time to test the waters between them and get used to the idea of this being a date first.
They were now standing side by side as they waited for the elevator. She passed the time of that wait, mulling over her emotional conundrum and playing around with the keys to her apartment.
"Nina...," she turned her head to look at him. "What's with the frowny face?"
She gave him a confused look. He gently touched his hand to her forehead which was still set in a frown to make a point. "You've been frowning ever since we got out of car. What's up?"
There was something charming and appealing about the way he pronounced his 'u's. She smiled despite herself, but as she realized she still needed to answer his question, that smile suddenly disappeared. "It's just well... Erm... What did you think when I said we would have dinner over at my place?"
"Sounds great? I'm hungry?" he supplied.
"Because that's what I meant by it. No subtext," Nina clarified, looking down at the tips of her boots in embarrassment.
"Of course," he agreed.
The elevator arrived. And mercifully cut the awkward situation short. They got in. He noticed how she quickly pressed the button for her floor and then leaned against the wall next to the control panel with the air of someone who had done that a thousand times. It was sort of nice imaging her living here, coming home every night to the same place. It was something he didn't have.
Her voice brought him back to the here and now. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not very good at this whole dating thing. It would be easier if there was a manual or something...," she admitted in a slightly disgruntled voice.
He grinned and patted her shoulder. "I'm not that complicated. I promise you don't need a manual for me," he reassured her.
"I'm not convinced," she replied, but flashed him a smile nevertheless. They got out of the elevator and walked up to her apartment door.
"I'll convince you. I can be very convincing," he told her, buffing up his chest.
She turned to him with her keys in hand. Moments like this she just wanted to hug him. Instead of a hug she settled for the next best thing. "I'm really glad you're back," she blurted out. She didn't wait for his response. She wasn't sure she could handle it. Instead she turned around and unlocked the door.
"Me too," she heard him say. His voice sounded soft and there was an unfamiliar and tender ring to it. It made her feel something... Something she'd rather not acknowledge yet, so she entered her apartment and bid him to do the same with a hand gesture.
He stepped inside and placed his duffle bag next to the door. His eyes were roaming over her apartment curiously. The hallway led into the living room. The shelves there were stuffed with books and DVDs. There was a flat screen TV and a comfortable looking leather couch. The place didn't look very girlish. Instead of art prints on the wall, she had framed posters: vintage James Bond, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley. They seemed to meet his approval because he inspected them with a curious look and even took a step closer to look at them. She grinned and turned around to stalk off to the kitchen. "I'll take care of lunch," she called over her shoulder. "You make yourself right at home."
Most men would have taken that as an invitation to sit down on the couch and watch some TV, he followed her to the kitchen instead. She opened the fridge and got out the lasagne she had prepared this morning. All she had to do now, was put it into the oven and get the salad ready. Even she couldn't mess that up despite her nervousness.
"There's beer in the fridge," she told him as she was fumbling around with the buttons of the oven.
She heard the glass bottles in the fridge emit that telltale bell like sound when he opened the door and closed it. Two bottles were placed on the counter. One for him and one for her, she presumed. Next he surprised her by slinging his arms around her midriff. The pleasant sensation of sudden excitement overcame her and intensified when he briefly rested his chin on her naked shoulder. His beard tickled her skin, but it was soft and not at all unpleasant. She could see their reflection in the door of the oven. Something about the two of them together looked right. Perhaps it was his goofy grin that was matching hers. "You've got to be the cutest girl I've ever met..."
"Cause I let you have a bottle of beer before lunch?" she smirked. "Your standards are pretty low, hon'." Her voice quivered ever so slightly when she used that endearment. It was meant to tease him, but it ended up sounding like she really meant it. Also with every second they remained standing there like that, she became more and more aware of the body heat his hands were radiating through the fabric of her tank top. They were resting on her midriff. She looked down and saw them there, his pale fingers spread over her tummy.
"So do you always have a fridge full of Guinness?" His voice was close to her ear and his breath tickled her skin. She felt goosebumps run down her neck.
"No. Only when I'm planning on having you over for lunch," she smiled. "The bottle opener's in that drawer over there, by the way."
His hands stayed where they were.
"Steve, I don't know how you like your lasagne, but you're making it pretty hard for me to concentrate on anything except for you right now..."
"Really?" he asked, the apparent delight in his voice was rather hard to miss.
"Really," she nodded. "Not that I'm complaining, but I still have to feed you. This way we'll either end up with a piece of charcoal or with completely uncooked lasagne..."
He begrudgingly let go of her and she immediately regretted having said anything. She suddenly felt cold, though she knew for a fact that the temperature inside her apartment always was at a pleasant 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
Stephen got the bottle opener from the drawer and opened both beers, holding out one to her. He clinked his bottle against hers in a toast. "Here's to Stuart."
"To Stuart," she smiled and drank.
He was now leaning against the kitchen counter, which let her briefly debate how she was going to prepare the salad now. She scurried over to the fridge to produce all the necessary ingredients like tomatoes, lettuce, peppers and mushrooms. With a gentle nudge of her hip she maneuvered him out of the way.
"Need any help with that?" he asked her.
"Yes," she smiled and quickly produced a second kitchen knife and cutting board from nearby a drawer before he could take back his offer.
After having washed the ingredients, they stood there chopping away quietly. Suddenly her soft giggle broke the companionable silence.
He threw her a questioning look. "This is so not how I imagined it to go, but I rather like it," she clarified.
"Why?"
"Well," she put down the knife and looked at him. "This right here," the knife tip was first pointed at him then at her, "is obscenely domestic. And I rarely do domestic. But I'm surprisingly okay with it now."
"You don't do domestic? Does that mean bad things for our lasagne? Should I be worried about food poisoning?" he smirked while he chopped the green pepper in front of him into small pieces.
Almost automatically her fingers closed around an innocent little mushroom. She threw it at his head. It was rather small and bounced off his temple without doing any damage whatsoever.
He slowly turned his head to look at her. She had seen that look on his face before. A hint of flaring temper and a grin - that usually meant trouble. "Have you really just thrown a mushroom at me?"
"Hmmm," she looked down at her own cutting board as if she was contemplating his question. On one side there were peppers, on the other mushrooms. Mushroom or pepper? Difficult. She had acted on impulse. "I'd say yes, but that would have some dire consequences, huh?"
He nodded, laid down the knife and calmly cleaned off his hands on the kitchen towel that was lying next to him. To Nina's immense relief whatever cruel and unusual punishment he had designed for her would have to wait, because the oven timer went off in precisely that moment and saved her from his wrath.
They had a surprisingly peaceful and tasty lunch. During their little chat over two steaming plates of lasagne he gracefully worked in a couple of compliments for her cooking skills, which she soaked up like a sponge. She was rarely compliment on those kind of things, probably because she rarely prepared a meal for anyone other than herself.
"So what did you get me from your little trip to Europe?" She asked conversationally as she carried off their plates to the kitchen. He offered his help, but she turned it down, saying she had a rather nice dish washer to take care of the dirty dishes, which afforded him some time to produce the aforementioned souvenirs from his bag.
When she came back, he held two objects wrapped in simple brown paper under her nose. "This one first," he thrusted a slightly longish and oddly shaped parcel at her with a proud grin.
"Okay," she said with a shrug and started unwrapping it. From the rustling paper emerged something like a red feather which upon closer inspection turned out to be a feathered quill that came complete with a little ink well. She chuckled.
"I reckoned that since you are a writer, you should have all the instruments of the trade..." He was rubbing the back of his neck. Was he nervous?
"Nice thought," she praised him, trying to boost his ego a little.
"Yeah?" A grin lit up his face and almost tempted her to touch his cheek in a gesture of affection. She suppressed the impulse for now, because it took her by surprise and she didn't quite know what to make of it yet.
"What's in the other one?" she asked. She had always been rather curious, even as a child. Her parents always had to make sure that all her presents were hidden away properly before festivities like Christmases or birthdays. Her hands reached for the other parcel. It looked book shaped.
He handed it to her with a smile that was lacking the usual playfulness most of his smiles possessed. It made her pause and look at him for a second before she ripped through the paper. It was indeed a book: 'The Taming of the Shrew'. "Wonderful!" Nina let out a bark of laughter and hugged him. She got on her tiptoes and pulled him down to her. Without giving it much thought she pressed a kiss to his cheek, right above his whiskers.
"It's from London, right? You've been to the Globe, haven't you? That's the only place they have those editions. I always wanted to have one, but when I lived there I was short on money all the time. I barely had enough money to buy a ticket, let alone afford a souvenir. Of course you couldn't have known that or else you would be working as a fortune teller and not as a wrestler," she started rambling, clutching the book to her chest like a trophy. He took in her enthusiasm with a smile.
The positively impish look that turned up on her face shortly after, however, admonished him to stay on his toes. "That book title better not be an allusion or anything, Farrelly..."
"Never! Cross me heart!" The fact that he even made the gesture to accompany those words appeased her somewhat. That and the puppy dog expression on his face. Apparently he had that one down to scratch. It was rather effective.
"It just happens to be me favorite," he explained. "Back when we studied Shakespeare at school, me teacher forced me to read that one. I wasn't very big on reading, I'd rather play football with me mates. Good old, Ms O'Brian! The woman was scary like a demon bat straight out of hell..."
"So why is it your favorite?"
He rubbed his beard pensively. "I guess because Kate's a right little spitfire. I kind of like that."
She let out a hum of approval and once again hugged the book to her chest like a teddy bear.
"I'm going to put those things away and then we're going to go out," she informed him.
"Go out?" he asked in surprise. Going out was usually complicated. People tended to recognize him eventually. Especially in Stamford. Not that he was adverse to going out, but right now he wanted to focus on her and nobody else.
She returned. "Yes, go out. But not to worry, we're going to go to the last place anyone will be looking for you... How do you feel about mini golf?"
"Have you really just said mini golf? I must have misheard..." He gave her a funny look.
She nodded enthusiastically. "Hear me out, I have thought this through..." Her smile was so endearing, he decided to grant her that particular wish. He crossed his arms over his chest, curiously waiting for whatever arguments she would come up with to convince him of her crazy plan. "If we go to the movies or to a bar, people will expect you to be there, ergo you'll get recognized. At the mini golf course that won't happen. Besides it's going to be fun... Plus, if you don't feel like playing, we can sit down and watch other people make complete asses out of themselves..."
"I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that you just said 'ergo'...," he joked.
She slapped him lightly on the left upper arm. "Concentrate," she admonished.
He sighed. "I'm probably going to regret this, but okay."
So that was why about twenty minutes later Stephen was clutching his mini golf club tightly, shooting daggers with his eyes at a miniature windmill that was blocking the ball's path to the hole. He had the tendency to always want to excel at things and his mood was growing exponentially worse with every mistake he made. He finally managed to shoot the ball past the rotating wings of the windmill. It landed in the hole behind it with a final thud. "Yay!" she cheered, after all she had reason to be cheerful, she seemed to have some weird, inexplicable talent for mini golf.
She wrote down something on the little notepad the guy at the entrance of the course had handed them. Probably their scores for this hole. He didn't even want to know. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her to the next station of his own personal Via Crucis.
It was blocked by two elderly ladies who were arguing with each other about something. He heard the words "You cheat!" "You liar!" being screeched in trembling, but angry voices several times. This was going to take a while. Nina tugged at his sleeve indicating a little bench, which stood a little to the side of the course, allowing for some privacy. She sat down first and he, being quite unnerved by the old ladies and by discovering for the first time to be a complete failure at a sport he tried, occupied the rest of the bench by stretching out on it. He positioned his head on her lap, taking of his flat cap for the first time today to run his hands through his unruly hair. If she was surprised by his sudden proximity, she didn't show it. Instead she gently plucked the hat from his hands and positioned it next to her on the bench.
"What...," he started, but fell quiet when her fingers started stroking his forehead and hair. They were cool and smooth and massaged his temples. He let out a hum of approval, forgetting the world around him. His eyelids fell shut. He wanted to concentrate exclusively on the sensation of her touch. Her fingers trailed up his cheeks, over his temples and disappeared in his hairline to caress the sides of his head. She repeated the motion over and over. He suddenly felt very much at peace with the world. Perhaps coming here hadn't been such a bad idea after all.
"Steve," her voice was soft, "I know you hate mini golf, so if you'd rather leave..."
His eyes snapped open. "I'd be crazy to say I want to go now...," he told her. His voice was rather mellow and somewhat sleepy.
"So you want to fall asleep on this bench right here?" She leaned a bit forward to be able to meet his gaze. Upon hearing her move, he opened his eyes. They needed a couple of seconds to adjust and soon enough her face hovering over his came into clear focus. There was a teasing sparkle in her eyes. He noticed that and also the fact that her left hand was resting on his chest rather casually. He grabbed a hold of it and traced his thumb over her palm with a pensive expression on his face. Right now he resembled a petulant child not wanting to go home just yet, which was rather cute considering that he had shown a whole lot of signs of wanting to leave earlier.
A pleasant shudder went through her body as his thumb traced back the invisible line it had drawn on her palm earlier. She could feel her head fogging up as her senses started to zero in on him and the way he touched her.
"I've got a perfectly nice couch at home where we can stretch out without two elderly ladies insulting each other in the background," she suggested.
His chest rose and fell as he chuckled. "Sounds tempting. Though that would make it kind of official that we're presently doing something like snuggling with each other..." He enclosed her hand between his larger palms. They were warm and sort of rough. "Are you sure you want to go? Wouldn't that be a bit scandalous? Isn't that kind of worse than us being just friends?" he teased.
"No, I don't think so. It would just be a natural progression to the next level," she smiled.
"Natural progression to the next level," he chuckled. "Fancy words, luv. Very posh. Your hands are all cold all of a sudden."
"I'm nervous."
"You're nervous," he echoed.
"Yeah, so what? It happens. Does it never happen to you?" she challenged him.
"It does. I'm kind of nervous right now, too," he admitted.
"How come you don't show it?"
"Cause faking confidence is part of my job?" he supplied. "Put your hand right here," he grabbed her hand and placed it right over his heart. "Can you feel this?" Underneath her hand she felt his heart beating pretty quickly.
"Yes," she nodded and their eyes met. For a moment the world around them melted away. Then she blinked and became aware again of their surroundings.
"Okay," she said, her voice sounding slightly breathy. "Wanna hear something funny...?" Nina asked eventually, laughing a – true to her earlier words – nervous laughter.
"Sure. I'm a funny guy, you know that," he smirked. Her face fell. Somehow his words or his teasing tone of voice had discouraged her. He apologized. This woman was puzzling. One minute she was brave like a lion, the next shy as a deer. Not only puzzling, but fascinating. "I'd really like to hear what you wanted to say...," he supplied.
"Okay," she agreed. "You'd think someone grown up like me, with a job and stuff should be able to... I don't know. Not revert into a total teenager when she's going out with a guy she likes?" she asked tentatively. He could detect a certain self irony behind her words. He raised an eyebrow and she felt a need to explain herself further. "It's because you make me act like a freaking teenager. My heart beats faster every time you touch me. If this continues, I'll probably faint by the time you'll try to kiss me. To think that I was going to be all mature about this! Act seductive and what not... I'm such a freaking loser."
He didn't seem to think that however. He smiled up at her with that smile of his that always made her heart do a little joyous leap. "I don't think you're a loser. I think you're rather cute. And if you do faint when I kiss you," she noticed his use of a very assertive 'when' instead of a less secure 'if' there, "I'll catch you."
"Eeeeeww, that sounds so cheesy. We're so cheesy!" she cringed, but he could tell she wasn't completely serious about it.
"Are we?" he asked back. "Is that a crime?"
"No! God! You know what the worst of it is? I think I've been completely brainwashed. I do sort of like it."
"Really? Now I'm completely disgusted with you," he told her and traced his fingers over the back of her hand.
"Yeah, me too. I feel very ashamed," she teased back.
"So, actually we're doing the public a service if we don't expose them to our disgusting cheesiness," he reasoned.
She smiled at him. "Yeah, in the name of decency and for the good of the unsuspecting masses, let's head home."
He let go of her hand and slowly got up. When he stretched his legs, he let out a soft groan. The bench had been harder than he had anticipated. She held out his cap to him with a smile. He took it from her and put it on. She was still sitting there, looking at him sort of expectantly. He held out his hand to her and wiggled his fingers for emphasis.
She got up and took it. He collected their discarded golf clubs from the floor, never letting go of her hand. They had made it to hand-holding. He'd be damned if he gave up that privilege so easily.
In practically no time they had left mini golf course behind and were strolling back to her apartment, which was a good ten minute walk away. She had grown uncharacteristically silent and he turned his head to look at her. She was smiling.
"What are you smiling about?" he asked.
"Hmmm, I don't know. Us?"
"Hmmm hmmm. What's so funny about us?"
"Nothing," she looked at him, her smile possibly more radiant now. "I kind of like holding your hand."
He smiled back. "Me too."
They walked the rest of the way in silence.
