~*~Kevin~*~
I got home and started getting dinner ready. Threw the potatoes in the oven, got the salad ready, and put in a couple of steaks to marinade. I took a shower and changed into shorts and a tank. It’s hot. Tracie got home right when she said she would and I met her at the door, "There you are." I hugged her and kissed her.
"Wow, what did I do to deserve that greeting?"
"Make up for me being such a bitch the other day. It was your first day coming back here to me and I was in a shitty mood. I’m sorry."
She kissed me and played in my hair, "It’s fine. I didn’t take it personal."
I pulled her into my lap on the couch, "It isn’t fine. If you were a new girl I was seeing I would never do that. Jump as soon as you get here. I’d chill and just enjoy being with you. AJ and I talked about this today. The girlfriend rules don’t apply. Some of that is good, but some is bad."
"Kev, I think you being able to bitch without me taking it personal is good."
"Yeah, but it’s takes away from the fact that I am very happy with you coming home to me, or me coming home to you. Knowing that I’m going to see you." I held her close.
"I like that too."
This was one of those bad things. I felt very vulnerable where if she was a new date I wouldn’t. "Even right now, having said that I feel stupid."
She ran her fingers through my hair, "Baby, why?"
"You know I’m glad to see you, but this is glad to see you in a different way. I don’t want you thinking it’s some line, because I wouldn’t do that to you. I don’t know how to talk to you as a girlfriend without it sounding like bullshit because you’re already my friend. I was getting shit ready for dinner and thinking how I wanted it to be a nice romantic dinner, candles, music, all that." I noticed her smiling, "Then I get hit with feeling like that would look fake and be stupid. WE don’t do that. That is what I do with a girlfriend. You know that, I am sucker for romantic shit. Oh god, I swear this is gonna make my head explode!"
She had the softest look on her face, "We’ve jumped right into the middle of a well working relationship, haven’t we? We do all those things that couples do except the romantic stuff. Now we’re trying to do that."
"Yep." I let out a big sigh, "It’s fine then it’s hard, then I feel like an idiot."
"Would it help to know that when you said you wanted to make this a romantic dinner I felt really good?" I shook my head. "I guess we’re so far in we missed those little things like trying to impress each other. All those dating lines and romance. I know when I’m being fed a line, sometimes I just choose to believe it. If you tell me I look nice, or that you’re glad to see me, or that I smell good I believe you. You don’t have to tell me those things so I know that you’re a nice guy and worth going out with, or to try and fuck me. I already know that you’re a nice guy."
That seemed to call for a kiss. It gets so confusing. I get screwed up because we’re friends then seem to forget that because we’re friends we can talk about this and it’s not a big deal. And that we’ll work it out. Neither of us is hung up on sex where it would change everything, but it sure feels like it would. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe sex does change everything. Binds us together. "Trace, you are everything I looked for in a date. Beautiful, smart, funny, won’t take my shit, and you have your own life. You don’t have to be with me, but I want you to want to be with me."
"Kevin, believe it
or not I am very much a girl."
"I know that." I smirked, I could feel it.
"Pig! I mean I like to be romanced. I like candlelight dinners, and moonlight walks, and flowers. I don’t date men who aren’t good to me. I like to do things for the men I date too, to take care of them." She stopped and stared at me, eyes wide, "Damn, Kevin! That’s it." She got up and started walking around the room waving her arms as she talked, I sat and watched, "Last weekend we went on a walk on the beach in the moonlight. A romantic walk. We’ve done all sorts of things together, but we’ve never walked on a beach holding hands. That’s it. That crossed the line and made me look at you differently. You’re my friend who I love more than anything, but we don’t do romantic shit. It’s not that we don’t, it’s that we just hadn’t. That’s the only difference between us as friends and us now."
"Tracie, we’ve talked about this." I didn’t get how this was an epiphany, this is what we’d been talking about for days.
"I know, but that’s it. I didn’t know what did it. Why I went from not seeing you as a friend to seeing you as a lover. That’s it! That moment."
She was still pacing and flailing her arms when I got up and wrapped my arms around her, "Knowing how this happened is really important to you."
"It’s not to you?"
"I’m just glad it did. Maybe we’re thinking to much."
She laughed, "No way, not us."
"Yeah, right. We keep looking at how things are so different. They’re not so different. Neither of us are so hung up on sex that that would make such a difference. We’re still friends. Maybe the only real difference is in feelings. And that is the one thing we haven’t talked out. We talk about the words and all that, but not the feelings. When I first date someone it’s all about feelings, I’m not thinking about every thing. It’s about if I feel good, if I trust her, if I think I make her feel good, if we have fun. Except for making out and having sex we are doing exactly the same things, but the feelings are changing. Changing isn’t the right word . . . growing. I still feel like you’re my friend, and there’s more there."
She understood, of course, "This is just something else we do, not changing everything else. We’re leaving the friendship intact, we’re just adding in romantic walks, and holding each other, and candlelight."
"One more thing we do together."
She laid her head on my chest, "I like that. That’s feels good. Hell, this all feels good. Does it freak you out to hear that? I know feeling stuff to early wigs me out."
"Trace, we’ve been at this for over a year. How can that be too early? And no, baby, it doesn’t freak me out. I like it." We held each other for a while longer. "Why don’t you go upstairs and change while I put the steaks on."
"Ok, I’ll be down in a minute."
I smiled as she walked away. We may have hit the key. Not so much the things, but the feelings. That made me think of what AJ had asked, was I in love with her. If I wasn’t I was falling fast.
