almost a love story

I put my hard-earned money in the jukebox and began to submit my selections. This jukebox was huge with a curved glass front and it threw off a lot of heat. After a couple bottles of beer, I was easily hypnotized by watching the vinyl discs get pulled from their slots, drop down into place and commence their spinning. My favorite bar, my favorite jukebox.

The first four songs were already punched in and I was about to enter the last when he slithered up behind me. He perched his beer bottle on my right shoulder, it was a Miller High Life that matched mine. His left hand slid down my back, found its way up under my ski jacket and now settled on my hip. I felt the heat of his breath on my ear as he whispered, “My name is Mark, give me some Warren Zevon.”

I gave the boy what he wanted.

Mark and I had a history. Our first actual encounter was a few years earlier in high school when he clipped around a corner too fast and knocked the books out from under my arm, he said, “Watch where you’re going, Kiddo.” I blinked a couple of times and started to cry. I really have no idea why I cried, it just happened. Sure, I had a crush on him … the kind of crush where they take your breath away and leave you speechless. I always figured I would come up with something clever and witty and brilliant to say and he would realize I was amazing. This was not occurring the way I imagined.

He was an athlete, easily over six feet tall and a party boy. I was quiet, barely five feet tall, studious and shy. Our paths crossed many times after that hallway crash, each time he called me “kiddo” as he blinked back a couple of fake tears. We had six classes together over two years, his teasing was relentless.

I punched B110 into the jukebox and played Warren Zevon’s Excitable Boy and spun around. The small of my back was now arched against the warm, curved glass of the jukebox. I hung on tightly to the hand that had been brazenly placed on my hip. While my intent was to make sure his fingers ended up some place safe so I could escape without being recognized, I inadvertently raked it over my lower stomach and across the top of my jeans where his thumb got stuck in a belt loop. This was probably the most incredible and accidentally the sexiest thing I had ever done.

Our eyes locked and he spoke, “Kiddo? Whoa, it has been a long time!”

He could still take my breath away, he could still render me speechless but this time I smiled as I ducked underneath his huge, college-educated arms and walked out the front door of the bar.