Sure enough, as we flew back to Minneapolis, I leaned back in my seat. I hadn’t seen Mark since that night, and now I was definitely never going to see him again. Hell, even if I wanted to, I didn’t even know his last name. He was a memory now, a memory that caused a flicker in my nether regions every time I thought about it.
For Lisa’s part, she took great joy in my torment about it. She teased me constantly, knowing how uncomfortable it made me. But even so, life quickly settled back in to normal. There was always more paperwork to do, more to fill out. And yet, I still found my mind drifting away in the middle of the day. I’d stare out the window of my little office at the great view of the parking lot and think about Hawaii, think about that night with Mark. I tried to force those thoughts to the back of my head, but no matter what, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. You need a hobby or something, seriously. You’re acting like some sort of sex crazed maniac I thought to myself as I fantasized about Mark once more.
He was pretty much the sexiest, nicest, best guy in bed I could possibly imagine. There was literally nothing he’d ever done that felt weird, creepy or anything like that. He was perfect. It was too bad I was never going to see him again.
Two weeks after I came back from Hawaii, I was settling in for an evening of relaxing in front of the TV. I decided to do some laundry, so wearing my pyjamas I shoved one of those ‘healthy’ TV dinners in the microwave and started flipping through the channels. I had a pile of work to do in the spare bedroom that had been turned into a home office, but whatever. It was Friday, the work I had to do could totally wait until the weekend. Right now, I was going to catch up on the episodes of CSI I’d missed.
Just as the microwave beeped to let me know my dinner was ready, there was a knock at the door. For a second I didn’t even recognize the sound.
“What the hell?”I muttered to myself. No one ever knocked at my door. The last time it happened had to be what – three years ago, when Mr. Ulstein down the hall had collapsed and his wife needed me to call 911 because she couldn’t see the numbers on the phone.
I opened the door, thankful that I lived in a safe enough neighborhood that I didn’t need to worry about there not being a peep hole, and my mouth dropped open.
Mark was standing there. Mark, from Hawaii. Sexy Mark, with that wavy brown hair that drove me insane and those glistening blue eyes that seemed to look straight into my soul.
What the hell was he doing here?
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, not realizing that my mouth said the words I’d been thinking.
“What, no hello?” he asked with a grin. That was when I realized he had a small bouquet of flowers in his hand. An orchid, some daisies, a few other exotic flowers I didn’t recognize. I’d never really been the flowers type of girl.
“No, you don’t get a hello until you tell me what the hell you’re doing, standing here at my door?”
My privacy was enormously important to me. It was something I took very seriously, and I didn’t like having a guy who was still pretty much a complete stranger finding out where I lived and showing up on my doorstep.
Mark’s smile faded.
“I thought I’d surprise you, that’s all,” he said, looking a bit dejected.
“Surprises are good when they’re not incredibly stalkerish,” I replied. I might have been a bit harsher than I otherwise would have been, but this was serious to me. I placed a premium on my privacy. My mother spent years trying to figure out where I was, trying get back into my life, trying to suck the life and soul out of whatever happiness I had created for myself. It was incredibly important to me that I stay as hidden as possible, and a man I’d met one night showing up out of the blue, unexpected on my doorstep was a sign that I wasn’t quite as hidden as I liked to imagine I was.
“Look, you’re right,” Mark replied, opening his arms wide, in a disarming way. “I’m completely out of line here. I’m going to go. Listen, here’s my card. It’s got my cell number on it. I’m going to be in town for another two days. If you want to meet, go out on a date, I’d love to see you again. If you don’t, I understand. Sorry for crossing a line.”
He placed the flowers in my arms, and the next thing I knew, he was gone. It was almost like he had never been there in the first place, but the business card and flowers in my hands proved otherwise.
As soon as I closed the door behind me once more I began to second guess my every move. I had never been the most self confident person, my mother spent my entire childhood making sure of that, but I didn’t think I was this paranoid about everything.
Had I overreacted? Was that a totally normal thing for people to do? Should I have invited him in? No, it wasn’t normal. It had definitely crossed over into the line of creepy.