Missed connections

Teddy sent Tyler off to his apartment to unpack and get food for dinner. Lily got his phone number and started a text chain with the three of them. The rest of the afternoon passed quickly, Lily and Teddy gossiping about sex and life and future debauchery. When closing time came around, Lily sent Teddy off early for his passionate night with Tyler. The sun was low in the sky by the time Lily started her walk home, taking in the quiet stillness of the seemingly empty town.

As she turned the corner on to her street, Lily narrowly avoided a man who was so engrossed in his phone he didn’t see her. As she pivoted to not get knocked over, her arm caught the guy’s phone and knocked it out of his hands. Stopping to help him pick it up, the man was profusely apologizing for his clumsiness when he stopped midsentence. Lily made eye contact “Kyle?” she asked- this was the asshole who’d stood her up last week, setting off this whole insane chain of events.

“Oh uh hi Lily um… shit I’m sorry I knocked into you” Kyle’s nervousness was palpable under the yellow light of the street lamp. Pity welled up in Lily’s heart, he looked miserable and she hadn’t really given him a chance to explain his absence at their date. “It’s fine Kyle, your phone ok?” He held up the device shielded by a heavy duty case “no worries, a chip out of the screen protector but it’s fine…” The silence hung in the air, neither really moving. Lily took the chance to look him over, he was really good looking all things considered. Wavy brown hair and a cute stubble, a slightly crooked nose and full lips, few inches taller than her but not overly tall.

“Look Kyle, um, didn’t really appreciate being stood up the other night. I haven’t really dated in a while but it’s pretty poor manners to not even let someone know you’re gonna ditch them.” Even under the streetlamps she could tell the poor boy had gone beet red “I’m really sorry, my roommate was in the hospital with a kidney stone, and I had to drive him there and left my phone at home. I tried to apologize the next morning, but you blocked me.” Lily’s mouth hung open, she felt a rush of embarrassment hit her, he'd seemed nice over texts, and it didn’t seem fair to fault him for rushing his friend to the ER. Without really thinking it through, she replied.

“That’s honestly a pretty solid excuse, sorry for not giving you a chance to explain. Look, my apartment is right up the street, we could have that drink and first date- but if I find out you’re lying I’m going to have my friends beat you up.” The man’s face lit up as he stammered out his acceptance and renewed apologies. They idly chatted as Lily took him up to her unit, it not hitting her until she’d closed the door that she’d just brought a total stranger into her house. Considering the wild exploits of the last week, maybe not her most ill-advised idea, but it struck her she could have just gotten his number and met him at a bar.

Kyle looked around her fastidiously neat little apartment, placing his sneakers politely by the door and hanging his coat on the rack. Lily smiled warmly at him and grabbed a pair of beers from the fridge. Sitting on opposite sides of the kitchen counter, they sipped their drinks and went through the usual first date questions. Kyle came from a big family, had moved up here for college and was planning to leave next summer once his program was done. He had three roommates, all poli-sci majors like him with aspirations of moving to DC.

Lily shared a somewhat truncated version of her own life, skipping over the fact that most of her family was dead and instead focusing more on wanting to go for a four-year degree and maybe grad school but she wasn’t sure what she wanted to study yet. They were still talking when they finished the sixpack, and Lily felt her cheeks a little flushed from how fast she’d had her three beers. Opening up the freezer, she snagged a bottle of rum and made two cups topped off with coconut water “It’s cold as shit up here but might as well pretend it’s still summer, right?” Kyle’s cheers’d her in agreement as they moved into discussing their latest TV binges.