…and so then I told her, “I want to retire in Spain one day.” Her eyes widened.

It’s a funny thing, meeting people. Meeting someone.
When you’re in the dating scene and let’s face it:

– no one wants to be in that scene, and if they do then they’re either
crazy or they’re 24 years old or they’re lying or they’re about
to join the foreign legion but they’re not telling you because, you know,
just in case –

when you’re in the dating scene, we all have our protective masks on,
those images of who we think that others want us to be
without really knowing the difference between that and our true selves.

But once it a while, you just get vulnerable enough to say something deep
like “I want to retire in Spain one day” and “this is what I do” and
“I have a daughter. Oh, you do too?”

and then I noticed that her smile grew bigger and wider

A man leaned in, inserted himself between us, not for the first time.
He turned his back to me. Rude, I thought.

“Will you dance with me?” he clumsily asked her.

“Go ahead, it’s okay,” I lied. “No thanks,” she said. He left.

Then she said something and then I said something. That smile. And then she leaned to me, or was it that I leaned in toward her. We kissed.