“Sorry, I was late, I'm going over to my friends,” I pointed over to the table they were at, “over there.” My voice was very husky, but still easily recognisable to be feminine.
“Okay,” the waiter responded, “sorry, we just have to ask, you know.”
I carried on walking and saw that both of my friends had a man with them and I was the only one without one.
“Hi, I'm Tara,” I announced whilst looking around at my friends dates. “Sorry but my date was too ill make his appearance,” I lied, through my teeth, to not embarrass myself too much and sat down next to Sarah, a friend since high school, the only person from school I still knew, who was sat with her fiancé of two years. Carrie, the other friend, sat opposite me with a man wearing what looked like a very expensive tuxedo. Everyone had already ordered a starter so I sat talking, whilst envying them, for both their company, and their food. I was starving as I hadn’t had anything to eat since half twelve. Just after I had ordered my main course I was tapped on my shoulder. I turned round and to my shock, it was Heath.
“Tara, could I please have a word?” he asked.
‘How does he know my name, and what’s more, what is he doing here?’ I thought to myself, once again Heath put my head into a spin. I took a quick glance oat him before responding. He wore a pair of black trousers, with a red shirt, unbuttoned at the top, and held a jacket, slung over his shoulder. “Sure,” I responded. “I’ll be right back,” I informed my friends and stood up from the seat, tucked it in, and followed Heath to a spot, around the corner from my friends, out of the way from anyone to hear. “How did you know I was here? Why are you here?” I demanded.
“Can I please join you?” he asked.
“Did you follow me?” my voice starting to rise.
“I'm sorry if what I said before hurt you. I just want to know if I can join you.” once again, said in his calm voice.
I paused for a moment’s thought. “Fine, but I want to know why you’re here.”
“Later. I think you best get on with your meal now,” he said whilst taking a glance over my shoulder.
I looked round to see the waiter put down my meal, “Fine,” I turned my back on Heath and started walking back over towards the table. Everyone at the table was looking at us, and Sarah was looking at me with her inquisitive smile. I threw back a short, smug, smile as Heath pulled my chair out for me to sit on.
“Hi, I'm Heath.” he told my friends and they all introduced themselves to him too. For the first few minutes after that everyone sat in silence until Heath broke it and began asking questions about everyone and before long, everyone was talking, except me. I’d say a word or two, every now and then but not much else. He was exactly like I thought he’d be. He was an intellectual that wasn’t afraid to have fun. Laughing and joking with my friends. Heath joined in with dessert and began to know everyone; the men better that I, and even the women. After dessert, my two friends and I went to the bathroom so they could “freshen-up” but really it was so they could interrogate me.
“So Tara, who is he?” Sarah inquired.
“He’s a man from work.” I replied.
“Yes, and? There has got to more to it than that!”
“ No, that’s all. He offended me today, unintentionally, but now he’s followed me here. He must have known I was offended because he apologised before. For the rest of the day I did no work though. He said I take life too seriously!” I said in a distressed tone of voice.
“Well he has a point,” Carrie said, “I'm not trying to offend you but you wouldn’t dare break, or even bend, a rule. Work is work, fine, but your life is meant to be fun too! Also he apologised. Obviously he knew he must have offended you.”
“Do you like him though?” Sarah asked, picking the conversation up a bit, for me.
“In looks, you’d be stupid not to but, in personality, I don’t really know him so I wouldn’t know! All I do know is he doesn’t take life too seriously.” I said feeling dumb. “What about your date tonight, Carrie. Do you like him?” I asked, thinking it to be strange of her as she usually wont shut up about rich people being too “posh.”
“Well he’s a nice man, yes.”
“With deep pockets!” Sarah interrupted.
“That’s not why I’m with him. I like him. He just happens to have deep pockets. I can’t be blamed for that.” Carrie said sarcastically.
As we left the bathroom Sarah’s fiancé, Tim, decided that he wanted to leave. “Tuxedo Man,” nicknamed by Sarah and I, offered to pay for all of us. After Sarah and Tim left, Carrie and her “Tuxedo Man” decided to leave too and left Heath and me alone to talk. We walked out of the restaurant and across the sparkling, frost-covered car park towards a bench, which looked across the skyline of the City. Heath brushed off the frost before I sat down and asked once more, “May I please join you?” with his tranquil voice and his sexy smile.
“Of course,” I replied, in what sounded to me, too eager a voice. He sat down close to me, but to me, not close enough. For the first few minutes we sat in silence. ‘How did we come to being in this situation?’ I postulated to myself, ‘maybe we were meant to be together. That’s just stupid, why would he like me?’ I asked myself. The view across the city was even more beautiful now that I was sitting with Heath, the best looking man that had spared me more than the usual quick glance in months. It was a lot more decorated with lights than I ever remembered before. “So why are you here?” I asked. Again sitting in silence for a few seconds. Heath turned to face me, his eyes looking deeply into mine. He started moving towards me with his eyes gradually closing, before long his lips were touching mine, and he moved his arms so they were on my waist. He gently kissed me, applying pressure with his hands to my waist at the same time. When he moved away and opened his eyes he looked elegant, more attractive, than I’d ever seen him before.
“I hope that explains why I'm here, and any other questions you wanted to ask me,” he said, with the first sign of embarrassment I’d ever seen in this man. Indeed it did answer all the questions I wanted to ask. He looked at my arms, saw the goose pimples, and took off his jacket and put it around my shoulders. “Do you mind if I take a trip inside to the bathroom?” he questioned, obviously not wanting to leave me on my own. I shook my head. “Do you want to come inside too?” he asked with courtesy. I shook my head, once again. I wanted to stay alone, in serenity, to think of what had just happened.
When Heath arrived back I stood up and smiled. I had another glance at his face, his body, him. As I looked down I smiled, and went slightly red and turned around. The smile stayed on my face as I heard him pull his zip up and his muttering’s. “Man, why do you always do this. Everything was going great.” As I turned around his annoyed look changed to a sweet, embarrassed smile. “Would you like a lift home?”
“It’s okay thanks, I have my own car.” I announced knowing he already knew.
“Why take two cars to my house, instead of one?” he asked.
In the first two weeks of Heath and I seeing each other, we went on four other dates, which luckily all turned out to be the most perfect dates I had ever been on. Since the first however, I had been producing only a fraction of the work that I had when I had first started. I couldn’t stop thinking of him. It was nearing the end of the week and Heath had invited me over to his place on Friday night, to have a romantic meal followed by a film. On the Thursday night I had been invited out by Leon, another one of my best friends that I went to college with. It had been a while since I had seen Leon so I was quite looking forwards to seeing him again. He had become a lawyer and worked in the capital city, so seeing him was rare. At the end of work I rushed out of the building to get home and changed out of my work clothes. The traffic was no different than it usually was so it took me twenty-five minutes to get home. When I arrived, Leon was already waiting at my house and smiled as I arrived. As I got out of the car he wound down his window and shouted across to me.
“Glad to see you finally saved up to buy a car worth having!” he yelled with a broad grin across his face.
“My other car was worth having!” I shouted back, trying to fake an offended face but like always he saw straight through me. “Are you coming inside for a moment then?” I asked.
“I was waiting for that question.” He said as he wound his window up and got out of his car and walked across to me.
“I’ll be right down. Just make yourself at home.” I said as I walked up the stairs. I decided to put on the dress I usually wore to go out for a drink in. It fell just below the knees and was a nice shade of red. When I arrived downstairs I saw Leon with his feet up on my new apothecary table. “Get your feet off that!” I shouted, sounding like a mother bellowing at child.
“I'm sorry, mummy,” Leon said sarcastically. “Are we off then?” he asked.
“Sure,” I replied and started walking towards the door. The phone began to ring so I paused where I was.
“Leave it for your answer phone, I want to get out on the town.” I still stood paused in the middle of the room. “Come on, put the alarm on.” I carried on towards the door, put the alarm on, and stepped out of the door.
We never did actually get “out on the town.” We went to a pub in the outskirts of the city, and enjoyed a top quality pub meal. We talked, all night, about our jobs, relationships, and things we’d done since our last meeting. He told me about his plans to move to another country to take up international law. He offered to pay for my meal but I thought I should pay for half as he wasn’t as high paid as I was, yet.
The following morning I woke up late and ended up leaving the house on an empty stomach. The morning wasn’t one of great production but I had done more than I had over the last two weeks. When lunch arrived, so did Heath. We walked out of the offices into the city and found a nice, small Chinese restaurant. Once we had sat down I noticed Heath was looking uneasy. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes, I'm fine. Are you? You look tired.”
I was slightly confused as to if he might be imposing something. “I'm not too tired,” I answered.
“Were you up late then?” he asked.
“No not really. I was out with a friend, Leon, until around twelve,” I said, bewildered.
“Who’s Leon?”
It wasn’t until he said this that I understood what he was getting at. ‘Does he think I’m cheating on him, just because I went out with another guy?’ This was the first man I had ever met, able to put my head in a spin, more than once. I looked deep into his eyes and saw that he really believed I had been cheating on him, and what’s more, he had the look of pain there also. “He’s my best friend,” I replied, which ended our conversation abruptly.
Heath looked flustered after what I had said. He stood up from his chair and tucked it under the table. “I have to be somewhere,” he lied. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I didn’t want our relationship to end like that. It had always been my dream to date a man, with a good personality and good looks. I stood up too and began to follow him. I caught up with him and pulled him around by his arm so he was facing me. “Let me speak.” I ordered him, standing there with a surprised look on his face. “I have known you, properly, for two weeks and already you have began to influence a change, for the good, in me. I don’t want our relationship ending that way.” I said. Heath began talking but I interrupted. “A close friend once told me; don’t take life too seriously, you’ll never get out alive anyway.”
