Angie, a live-in-the-now singer-songwriter on the cusp of fame, sweeps Mike, a proper Mama's boy and a structural engineer by day, off his feet the moment they shake hands.
They can't deny the chemistry between them, so they start with a boom. What'...
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▪️Saturday, February 20th, 2018▪️
▪️Chicago, IL▪️
Walking through the Academy is like entering a computer game that turned into real life. The surroundings are so familiar. The Benjamin Moore Balboa Mist color on the walls is the one we've picked together. The gray engineered wood floor in the hallway is the compromise instead of using the cheaper linoleum and refinishing the old oak floors that outlived their lifespan.
The frames on the wall are the modern black version Mike replaced the seventies aluminum ones with. But the photos inside are still from various decades. One is of Mike and Ben as teenagers. I touch the glass, wishing it were a digital picture like the ones I have of Mike on my phone, so I could zoom in and examine the details of his face.
"I'm less awkward now," says Mike.
He's right. Nothing about Mike I've known over the last three months is awkward. Even his hesitation is at worst cute and at best too-hot-to-handle. "Are there more of these?"
"Many more. Mom has a shelf full of albums of Louka and me. She'll be crying with happiness if you let her spend a day or two telling you the story behind each and every one of them."
His words hold so much future behind them. My sitting down with his mother is not an if but a when. And the surety of it doesn't make my skin crawl. Does not make me want to break out of the grasp of his hand and run. I hold on to him tighter. To the promise he's making me. To the life I want for us to go through together. "That'd be lovely. I hope there are lots of naked bottoms in there."
"Loads." Mike grins. The lines by the corners of his mouth are my favorite ones, formed by laughter and smiles. By joy. I imagine Mike at forty, at sixty, at eighty, with more of them. "Maybe a full frontal or two. You'll be happy."
I'm already happy. We need to talk, clear the air, and make sure what I shared through my music is what he understood. I don't want any miscommunication between us. I took down all the fences. There are no more doors to block him from knowing exactly what's going on and from us making plans. I'm excited to make plans with Mike. Whether they are about staring at the photos of his naked bottom with his mom or about what's next for each of us. I'm prepared.
Mike closes the door to his office, and I recognize the table he sent me the pictures of. It's the same one the previous owner used. Even though I was begging Mike to reconsider and buy a modern one to match the rest of the decor, this is one of the points he would not budge on.
The photos had to stay. The logo had to stay. The desk had to stay, even though it's wide and takes up a quarter of the room. The smell of fresh paint that followed me through the hallway is less potent here. The walls that used to be covered in the seventies shabby paneling are smooth and tinted with enough graying beige to leave plenty of white to make up for a single narrow and long window on top that doesn't let too much light in.
