More than a Feeling

We were lying in bed, spooning and watching TV. I was drifting off to sleep when he put his hand on my shoulder so I'd roll over and look at him. I kissed his cheek.

"What?" I asked.
"Will you say something to me?"
"Huh?"
"Will you tell me something?"
"Tell you what?" He scowls.
"Never mind."
I turn back to the TV and realize what he was asking. No, I can not tell you something. If there's something you want to tell me, you can put yourself out there a little and say it.

An hour later. Now we're lying side by side, about to go to sleep. He stares at me seriously for a second, and then in a quiet little voice, he says, "I love you." For one brief moment I tell myself not to say it back. My conventional mind tells me this isn't the way it goes. First comes commitment, then comes love.

But I love him. I do. Despite the non-traditional way this entire relationship has gone, I have grown to really love him. So I say it back.

And it feels so, so nice.

Beso

No matter who you rooted for this World Cup (VIVA ESPANA!) you have to smile at this beautiful moment between Spanish goalie and team captain Iker Casillas and his journalist fiancee Sara Carbonero.

Now, if only I understood Spanish...

Well then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do

It began, as most romantic comedies do not, with the World Cup. I was about to turn 21 years old and I was studying abroad in Dublin. He was a floundering college student taking some time off to work and find himself, as so many young Europeans do. He was so endearing and I liked him immediately. "Do you want to meet me at the bar?" I asked. "Yeah," he answered, "Be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail." Oscar. My European love affair.

I don't know if most people can pinpoint their best kiss. Mine happened in the most mundane of settings, in the most common situation. We had been watching a World Cup football match at a favorite bar of ours. He was wearing a white polo shirt and he bought me a pint. We stood close at the bar and smiled a lot and fidgeted and touched each other lightly and should have been social with other people but we weren't. I was so incredibly comfortable with him and told my ridiculous jokes and said stupid things and all he did was laugh along and act as a catalyst for my personality. I adored him.

The match ended and I had planned to go out with the girls later. We left the bar together and I was in such a happy haze that I forgot to pay my bar tab. The sun was beaming down onto Dame Lane in an unseasonably warm early July day in Dublin, and the sunshine and the warm air and the pint made me feel floaty and dreamy and drunk.

"So, I'll text you later," he said. He smiled. He reached out and grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him, and then he kissed me. It was nice. It was gentle but given with purpose. And when I opened my eyes, I saw that his were still closed. His eyelids lifted slowly, and he grinned.

And it was perfect.