Chalcea,
Last night you met V.
The plan was First Fridays. The weather had other ideas. Ninety-eight degrees, and none of us were going to pretend that was fun. V and I had already gone early so we could have some time to ourselves before you joined us, and by the time you got there we'd all quietly agreed that standing on hot pavement looking at art was not happening. So we went to BRGR downtown instead.
You ordered a drink that was too sweet. I got a white sangria. V and I split a cheeseburger and fries and the three of us shared fried pickles, which is the kind of detail I want written down because in ten years I'll have forgotten it and I'll be glad it's here.
Here's what I actually noticed at that table.
V was more open than usual. Not polite-open. Actually open. She talked to you more than I expected, and I want to be clear that my expectation wasn't that she'd be rude. She's just quiet. She's always been quiet. She takes her time deciding whether someone gets the real version of her. And from the start, you made her comfortable enough that she didn't need the time.
Then you two made a comment and started to gang up on me.
And I got to say the thing I'd already said to each of you separately, out loud, with both of you in the room: you are not allowed to gang up on me. You both laughed. And that was the moment it stopped feeling like an introduction and started feeling like a normal night.
I knew it would probably go well. But there's always a small chance something goes sideways, and I've had enough of my life go sideways to never fully stop bracing for it. It didn't. It went really well.
After dinner we walked to my car and drove to the board game place, the one that's half game hall and half high-end pawn shop, where you can play something and have snacks and drinks. We played a Dungeons and Dragons version of Clue. V won. Then we picked a second game purely off the box art, which turns out to be a bad game to play We had fun anyway.
Then karaoke started and conversation became a contact sport, so we left. I dropped you at your car. You called me when you got home and we talked for another hour.
Better than expected. Which is what every day with you has been.
But the part I'm actually writing this down for happened on the way to the car.
V said she likes you a lot. Then she said she likes you better than my past partners, and I need you to understand the weight of that, because she liked Rachel a lot. That wasn't a low bar she was clearing. That was a real comparison and you came out on the other side of it.
And then when we got home, she's the one who brought up the doggie birthday party. She's the one who said I should invite you.
She didn't have to do that. Nobody asked her to. She's nineteen and she has watched me date people and she has her own read on all of it, and she volunteered that.
I don't think there's a better sign than a quiet kid deciding on her own that you belong at the next thing.
Noel