Spiritual Networking

Spiritual Networking - Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Sitting alone with her head lowered and covered with her hoodie, Millie clutched her cell phone like a life preserver and asked herself, “What am I doing here?” She was early, waiting to meet Paul at the coffee shop they had arranged the night before. Pulling her hoodie tighter around her head, “I’ve never done anything like this. I should just go home. I should have never come.”

The longer Millie sat there, the more she convinced herself she needed to leave. What would Paul think if she left before he arrived? She wanted the safety of her binary world where digital images and chat were the norm. A world where her life was lived out in tabs: Facebook, Google, e-mail, PhotoShop, Flickr, YouTube,  Wattpad. . . a life lived behind the safety of a monitor.

Two years, she had known Paul for two years, but today, they were meeting for the first time in person. What would he think? Would he take one look at her and run? Would he embrace her, the real her, and see where this friendship / relationship was going?

The one thing they had promised each other was honesty, and although Millie tried, how much can a relationship on the web prepare you for the real thing? Then it hit her, “What if he is not really him? What if after all of this time, his inner heart was all an act?” Millie shook her head knowing that was not possible. She knew the real Paul with all her heart and she knew he was different.

“Millie?” Paul asked as he walked up to her in front of the coffee shop. He knew it was Millie, she was wearing her hoodie pulled around her face.

Her petite frame straightened as she looked up at him and the most beautiful golden brown eyes locked on his through thick brown lashes. One word came Paul’s mind, stunning.

“Hi!” Millie smiled and added, “You have no idea how many times I thought about leaving, and not coming at all.” Millie bit her lower lip and lowered her head to hide her shame in wanting to run out on him, but she could not break the contact of their eyes locked on each other.

“Well, I am glad you did come. I would have forgiven you, but I would have been crushed. I could hardly sleep last night.” Paul offered Millie his hand and helped her up on her feet, “shall we?”

Millie took his hand and stood facing him, “Can I?” Paul asked nodding towards the hoodie. Millie lowered her head to think about it for a minute and then nodded. Paul slowly raised his hands gently placed his fingers on the edge of the light t-shirt like hoodie and slowly pulled back her covering, the security that she had needed for so many years when she ventured outside of her computer based world.

The intake of air from Paul was evidence that she took his breath away. Sure, he had looked at her face in Skype for about a year now, but it did not prepare him for her silky smooth skin, the golden color of her hair and how beautiful her eyes sparkled in the morning sunlight. “You are so beautiful.”

Millie shyly smiled and said, “Well, you ain’t half bad yourself.” While he had been studying her, Millie had been studying him. His hair was golden, but darker than she expected. He was taller than her by a good five or six inches. And his eyes were crystal blue like clear pools, and she thought she could lose herself in them.

Paul reached out and took her hand as they walked into the little coffee shop. Paul had been here hundreds of times and Millie had driven by it several times as it was less than a mile from her apartment. The coffee shop was quaint, there were tables and even a couple of booths and there was a sofa and a couple of comfy overstuffed chairs where people could casually sit and talk.

They had picked a good time, there was a man at a table working on his laptop and talking on his cell phone. There was a mother with a child in a stroller. The baby was asleep and it looked like the mom was a new mom, her hair was a mess and she had something white on her shoulder that the baby probably left after the last burping. There were two people working behind the counter that looked up and smiled when they came in.