Where You Are

McGulvery Park

Jesse

My mobile was still vibrating hours later. Birgitta had noticed, but was being very polite about it and was pretending not to notice.

'Sorry,' I told her, pulling my mobile out of my pocket and tapping on it angrily. I knew it was a mistake telling my friends that Birgitta was coming to visit. I was just too excited.

'Is everything alright?' She asked.

'Yeah, fine,' I answered. 'Just my mates trying to get me to play rugby tonight.'

'Oh, right, you mentioned that you do that,' she said with a gracious smile. 'I don't mind if you want to go.'

'No, I want to spend time with you,' I told her, shoving the mobile back in my pocket. I reached for her and tugged her close to me again. We'd already had lunch, gone on a leisurely walk around my neighbourhood, and now she was showing me photos of some of the places she'd visited before we met.

'It might be fun,' she said, placing a hand on my chest.

Instantly, I felt my defences go up. Old instincts, I knew, but hard to lose once gained. An ex-girlfriend had cheated on me with one of my old rugby mates. I knew it was silly, but I was afraid for Birgitta to meet my mates lest the same thing happen again.

I took a slow breath in and out. This was different. I knew it was. Birgitta was different from my exes. Already, we discussed things that I hadn't even come close to with the others and I felt a stronger and deeper bond with her than I ever had with anyone before. We'd talked about real things, like what we wanted out of life and what our goals for the future were. Not frivolous, unimportant things like mini breaks and what she wanted for her birthday like my past girlfriends usually enjoyed discussing.

Maybe this could be a sort of test. See how she does meeting my friends and go from there. Our relationship was only two months old, if it was doomed to fail, best get it over with now then months down the road when more feelings were involved.

'Are you okay?' She said, smile falling a bit.

'Yeah,' I lied, moving my hand up to the small of her back. 'Yeah, alright, I'll go out with my mates, but you're coming with me. The only reason they're being so persistent is because they want to meet you.'

'Okay,' she said, smiling slowly. 'But then we have to come back here and snuggle under that blanket like you wanted.'

My heart swelled and I beamed at her.

'I promise, we will,' I assured her.

Birgitta

One thing I absolutely loved about Windsor was that everything was close by. You didn't need a car to get around, Jesse's flat was within walking distance to anything you could possibly need. Supermarket, pharmacy, park, fish and chips, even Windsor Castle was only a ten minute walk away.

Jesse changed into exercise clothing and running shoes and then we were off again.

I'd only seen rugby matches on TV a few times before so I really had no idea how the sport was actually played. I didn't want to ask out of fear for sounding stupid, I knew rugby and football were a big deal in the UK. Also, Jesse looked extremely attractive in his long-sleeved, blue and green striped rugby shirt and shorts that may have been considered a bit too short by Canadian standards. My mouth was practically watering, I had no idea his legs were so muscular underneath those jeans and dress pants I usually saw him in.

I loved the way he held my hand tightly as we walked and pointed out spots along the way, like the buildings where his friends lived and where he bought his groceries. Before too long, we arrived at a park. It was large and open, with pitch markings and nets on either end. On one end, there looked like there was football practice going on for some school-aged kids with parents watching on the sidelines. The opposite end had a small group of adults around mine and Jesse's age. A man with a red and yellow rugby shirt on had a ball tucked under his arm, there were four other men and two women, but the women didn't look like they were dressed to play. I assumed this is where we were headed.