Here comes the bride. But she didn't . Left him standing there at the altar. He was living that scene out of The Wedding Singer. Only he never got an explanation as to why she ripped his heart to shreds. At least his first wife had the decency to leave the ring and a note on the kitchen table. This one just took the ring and ran. Talk about your runaway brides!
Nice guys apparently do finish last or he would have the white picket fence, beautiful family and a faithful dog to greet him when came home. Well he managed the dog part, the wife almost twice. Weren't there any nice girls that wanted to settle down and have a family anymore? There had to be at least one out there that wasn't completely career oriented.
Like that girl over in the corner with her Starbuck's coffee mug to one side and her eyes intent on a laptop computer screen. Her hair pulled.......wait a minute. It wasn't tightly wound up on her head like it normally was. It rest gently on her shoulders and was light brown. She still had the thin framed glasses sitting slightly off the bridge of her nose. Her clothes were still somewhat conservative but she seemed more relaxed. She's a pretty girl. Like he wasn't going to notice that day after day?
He wasn't shy but every time he got the nerve to approach her, she was closing up her laptop and heading out the door. He probably could have asked somebody at the counter what her name was but deep down his heart belonged to another woman. Online romances were never supposed to work but three months after Leigh Anne left him standing like a fool in front of God and his family, he dove back in unintentionally.
They'd been chatting in the Christian singles chat room on Yahoo for three months when he asked if they could have a more private conversation. For the first time since their online introduction, she had a name. Maggie. That's all he knew of her other than the every day things they talked about. It was a nice, no strings attached relationship but he'd lost his heart. It was nice to have somebody to share your day with and not be judged but his heart started getting in the way despite his numerous attempts to reel it back in. He wondered if she felt the same. He didn't want to push anything romantic because they had a good thing going.
Another thing nice about it was that it gave him the chance to be anonymous. He didn't have to know what she looked like and she didn't have to know he looked like. He wasn't ashamed of his looks. It just felt nice to not have to dress up to be with somebody you really liked. But it also sucked.
He missed being intimate with a woman. Why his eyes lingered on the girl in the corner that day he couldn't figure out. She probably met someone anyway. Why else would she change her appearance? It seemed to be the only reason women did. His attention turned when his order was called. Only briefly though. He turned back and watched her. She was mouthing the words to some song. She was really getting into it. So unaware of the world around her. She must have felt somebody watching her though because the minute her eyes rose, so did the color in her cheeks. Like she shouldn't be enjoying herself in public or something. He knew he was the only watching her. He sent her a friendly smile and exited the coffee shop. She smiled shyly in return to him though. Maybe tomorrow he would talk to her.
How embarrassing! She didn't realize how much into her music she was. She was chair dancing as her college roomies had called it. Until college, she'd led a pretty sheltered life. Her parents never uttered the word sex in their household, they didn't have cable television. She wondered sometimes if her parents even had relations after she was born or if they were so stiff that the only other time they did was to have her brother. She didn't know what MTV was until her freshman year in school. She was the bookworm of her group. She really didn't have the typical party til you puke college experience that her friends did but they respected her values. She didn't kiss a boy until she was twenty two. Was taught to wait until she was married to be sexually interested in a man. It's not like she wasn't. Sex was something her friends had almost on a nightly basis at school. Maybe the noises they made is what kept her at bay about the whole thing. If that's what it was all about, no thank you.
Another reason she didn't have a lot of boyfriends. She had dates but when they realized they weren't getting any after dinner and a movie, they never called. She obviously was born in the wrong place and time for the set of moral standards she was brought up with. A time when men courted you. Took the time to get to know you. She dreamed of that all the time. There had to be a nice guy out there somewhere right? One that wanted a girl that just wanted to settle down and raise a family. Somebody that loved her for all the things that she was in this modern world.
She thought she'd met that guy online. She'd been chatting with him for three months. Apparently he'd gone through a pretty foul breakup. She could just feel it through his words. The way he told his story when they finally got outside that chatroom. She didn't have any sordid tales to tell. Men were never around long enough for her to have a relationship with. Maybe she was better off without them. There had to be more than sex to build a relationship. Although her eye wandering to the sweet, all American looking guy that shared the same coffee shop was starting to make her realize that's the base of it. There had to be an attraction and from those kind eyes to the nice behind she watched as he walked out of her life every morning, she knew it was true. There were things stirring in her that she'd been taught were wrong to feel until after a man put that ring on her finger. Like it was the key to unlock the chastity belt. Did they even make those anymore?
But the guy online? She finally found out his name. Brian. She was mature enough to know that she should keep her heart out of it but realistically, even at thirty, she was finding it impossible to not let him have that part of her. The part that was starting to feel something for the blue eyed stranger in her everyday world that finally smiled at her.
Story Notes:
Brian came back to play but not like you think. Join me for this new adventure, won't you?
