“When you dance down the street with a cloud at your feet … You’re in love,” Aerin and I sang while looking at each other, and then offered each other our glasses in a toast to one another across the table. Just before we each lifted our glasses to our lips to drink, she blew me an imperceptible kiss. For a moment, I allowed myself to imagine that we were dating. That I was her girlfriend or something. Her girlfriend. The delicious thought made my cheeks flush in excitement and gave me butterflies. This is insane! This is amazing. This is … something I’ve never, ever felt before.

When she broke our brief, flirty look, to look at Thad, who’d leaned over and said something into her ear, I glanced at Annie, who was sitting next to Aerin. I saw that she’d been looking at us. After a moment, she shook her head, as if trying to brush a thought away, and then clinked glasses with the maître d’ who’d bent over her seat and greeted her loudly in Italian. Offering her well-wishes, I suppose.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Aerin

“That was fun, huh?!” Annie exclaimed, cheeks flushed with excitement from the singing, and the alcohol, looking at me, eyes glinting. I nodded in agreement and passed the laminated song sheet down to Jim, one of Aerin’s college friends, who sat at one end of the table. He’d offered to collect everyone’s copies, to hand them all over to the maître d’. We were sitting in the biggest table of the restaurant, and were about 20, all in all, around the table, mostly sitting as couples.

I looked over at Harley who was across from me, squeezed in between Katy and Michael, Katy’s husband. Together with Rachel, they were all laughing uproariously at something, with Harley blushing prettily from head to toe, it seemed like, about something Rachel was teasing her about. Couples all around us in this table. I wonder if she and I would soon become a couple ourselves? I thought to myself, and suddenly felt giddy at the thought.

Calm down, Aerin. Take things slowly. Important to handle this carefully, just like Chris had been careful with you, remember? It had been important that she’d made you and her take the time to talk over things first, instead of give in to the attraction, right?