"Is this seat taken?" a strange, appealing voice with a thick southern accent asks me.
I stare for a second as his hazel eyes meet mine.
"Oh, umm. No. It- it's not."
I always have a slight stutter when I talk to strangers. Sometimes I don't when I'm with friends and I try to seem confident.
As he sits down I notice how tall he is even when he sits. During the service, I catch him glancing over at me and watching my hands fiddle around, as I do when I get nervous. I look over to meet his eye and then the world stopped. It was like when you open the fridge to find all your favorite foods or to finally find a perfect outfit after a hour of searching. It was simply bliss.
He smiled and looked away. I did, too. It was close to the end of the sermon when he looks at my hand once more. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"
"You're messing with your hands a lot. Most people do it when they're nervous."
I couldn't believe he knew this whole time. A rush of redness flew to my face as I simply replied, " I'm fine."
I looked down to let my hair fall into my face so he couldn't see me.
He looks over and asked with a wink, "Do I make you nervous?"
I replied, "Don't play with fire, kid."
"Kid?" he asked.
"Kid." I answered with my quirkiness hiding behind my smile.
The service ended and I headed to my car after telling him it was nice to meet him. I get to my car door and I see someone running towards me. It honestly scared me a little bit because I couldn't tell who it was. Finally, he reaches me and smiles. I hate it when he does that. It's too cute.
"I never got your name."
"Jorie. Jorie Noels."
"Well, it's great to meet you. I'm James Baxter. I was wondering if I could have your number? I'm sorry if this was to forward. I just really enjoy talking to you. I would like to get to know you better if that's okay."
"Oh, umm. Yes. Sure, that- that sounds good. Great. Yeah."
I hate having anxiety. We exchanged phone numbers, and he grins. I wondered what he was grinning about, but then I saw him lean over to me and snap a picture of the both of us. I smiled for the picture, of course.
"Will you send me that? It would make a good woman crush Wednesday." I started laughing and blushing. My face shows all my emotions. It's awful.
We finally exchanged our goodbyes, and he headed to his truck as I got in my car. It wasn't till I started on the county road about ten minutes later that I realized I was grinning ear to ear.
