There's a knock on the door, someone who is heavy-handed, but taps very lightly. "I'll be a minute!" I yell from down the hallway in my room. I am currently wrapped in a thick bathrobe, my hair twisted in a towel turban on top of my head, attempting to figure out the perfect outfit, not that I'm going out for the night. It's movie night, a quiet night at home, and I'm expecting my boyfriend, Tom, any minute now. The doorknob clicks and I hear his velvety British voice echo throughout my flat. "Darling, I hope you don't mind, I let myself in." I look at the clock, damn, he's a half-hour early. We've only been dating for a few months, and not very seriously at that, what with him gone working half the time, but he had yet to be late. For anything.
"Hi, Tom," I call, "I'm just getting dressed, I'll be just a few more minutes." I hurry myself, picking out a pair of dark wash jeans and a Doctor Who shirt. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that Tom can geek out just as easily as I can about things, Doctor Who being one of them, and he absolutely loves when I let my Nerd Flag fly. Before I met him, I never would have expected Mr. Perfect to be such a dork. But he is, and an adorable one at that. In my haste, I decide to forgo the socks and shoes, preferring to keep with the casual theme and slide on my fluffy pink skull and crossbones slippers. Flinging the towel from my head and at the chair in the corner of my room, I decide to also forgo the blow dryer. Instead, I run a quick brush through it, pull it back and secure it with an elastic band. It is only after I have walked halfway down my hallway that I realize that I have also forgotten to put on a bra, but the shirt I am wearing is fairly baggy, so I think, "Fuck it," and continue towards my living room.
Tom is standing near my window, watching outside, his back to me. I can tell he took my announcement that this was to be a casual date seriously because he is wearing black sweats and a t-shirt. I am so used to seeing him in suits, or at least slightly dressed up, that it seems surreal to me. He doesn't hear me behind him, my footsteps muffled by thick carpet, so I wrap my arms around his waist, nuzzle my face into his back between his shoulder blades and take a deep breath. "Mmmm, you smell good," I hum.
Startled, Tom jumps slightly, then turns around in my loose embrace. "I didn't hear you behind me," he grins sheepishly. He wraps his arms tightly around me and picks me up, crashing his lips into mine in a passionate kiss. My mind goes haywire when he does that, almost like it's the human equivalent of a short-circuit.
When he stops kissing me and sets me down, I get dizzy. "A girl could get the feeling she'd been missed with a kiss like that," I swoon.
"I did miss you," Tom answers. He had been gone filming a movie for over a month and this was the first weekend he had been home. Unfortunately for the both of us, there was no way for me to visit him on set, either. "Oh," he says, his eyes shift around like he's remembering something, "I brought you some flowers and Peanut Butter Cups." He reaches toward the table that's next to him and produces a bouquet of red roses and a bag of candy. Now, he's playing to my every desire, roses being my favorite flower, Peanut Butter Cups being my absolute weakness, which he can appreciate, being a connoisseur of chocolate himself.
Taking them from him, I gush, "Thank you! I missed you so much." I move to grab a glass from the table so I can take it into the kitchen and put the roses in some water, but Tom still has his arms around me and doesn't seem to want to let go until I say, "Let me put these in some water so they stay beautiful." He reluctantly lets go, but follows me to the kitchen and, as I take care of the roses, stands behind me and begins to softly kiss the back of my neck. A bolt of electricity shoots up from my spine and out every nerve ending. "If you keep doing that, we're never going to get to watch that movie," I sigh.
"That's what I was hoping you'd say," he growls in my ear before lightly nipping it. To be fair, I know he's trying to create a distraction because he let me pick the movie and I, being a fan of horror movies have chosen to introduce him to a wonderfully creepy, low-budget 80s movie called "Superstition." Tom is not much of a horror fan, in fact he admitted to me one day that most of the time, he gets so scared he watches them through his fingers. On the other hand, I think he secretly enjoys being scared by them. Me, I don't get scared. I'm the joker who makes fun of them.
