Meeting the Pen Pal

        It all started with an innocent email. One of the girls she worked with at the hospital, Kathy, had given her his email. Her brother, Justin, is his best friend. They had met in Army Ranger training. Kathy said he didn’t get much contact from home because he didn’t have much family and only seemed to be close to the guys from his unit. The guys had decided to recruit a pen pal for him, just someone to trade email and give him a chance for some normal conversation.

        Livonia Killenger, Livi to her friends, sent an email to Staff Sergeant Mason Dryden that very night. It was little more than an introduction, saying who she was and how she’d ended up with his email.

        Three days later there was a return email in her inbox. And so began a flurry of emails exchanging life stories and photos. This progressed to video chat then hand written letters. Soon she was sending care packages and they even shared a few short phone calls.

        They discovered all they had in common and the things they didn’t. He likes mushrooms on his pizza and she is repulsed by the very idea of eating them. She likes romantic movies and he much prefers action. They both like to read. She confessed that she likes to write fiction. It took him a while but he convinced her to share the stories with him. He would read every story she sent him and he especially like the steamy ones. They both love to travel. They both love Chinese food. Each of them wanted to get a dog but couldn’t because of work. Late one night Livi discovered that Mason hadn’t ever really been in love, neither had she. That is when they discovered each wanted, one day, to find ‘the one’ have a family of their own.

        It wasn’t very long after that fateful conversation before they each were thinking that it would be so nice to meet face to face. They agreed at some point after he returned safe and sound from Afghanistan that they would. His return fell during a time that she couldn’t be off work long enough to travel to another state. He had troops to re acclimate to living stateside and couldn’t come to her either. Fate seemed to be against their meeting.

Six months later . . .

Livi checked her email like she did every morning. She was wearing just a pair of old blue jogging pants and a light blue tank top. Her long dark auburn hair was up in a messy bun. She sipped coffee, trying to wake up.

  “What are you doing on this lovely day?” Appears on her screen when a new IM window pops up. 

Livi smiles when she sees who sent the message and quickly replies, “Not much I'm going to read a book and be lazy.” She didn’t expect to hear from Mason today. He’d been out of town for his job and was supposed to be on his way back home this morning.

There is a slight pause then the window flashes with his reply, “Want to meet me for breakfast?” He sits back in his seat in anticipation of her answer.

She laughs and sends back, “It would be lunch before I got to where you live, lol. Then I’d have to turn right around and come back after we ate because I have that thing with Kathy early tomorrow, remember?”

The reply is immediate this time. “Not if I'm already near you.” Unbeknownst to her he is smiling to himself mischievously.

Her hands begin to shake as she types, “Where near me?” They’d chatted about meeting in person but distance and his work for the military had not allowed the opportunity. Until now that is.

The reply comes, “I'm parked next to a huge statue of a pink elephant.  I'm looking for his circus tent but can't seem to find it.”

She laughs and types, “I know exactly where you are!” She pictured the diner with its long Formica counter and chrome trimmed, hot pink, vinyl stools and the pink and black parquet floor. The décor is straight out of the 1950’s.

He sends back, “Are you going to have breakfast with me?” He could hardly wait for her reply. It had taken some maneuvering to clear his schedule for today and tomorrow. Only her saying she’d be there would make all that worth it.

She takes a deep breath, mind racing. “Yes, I am.” She types resolutely. She had waited so long for this face to face moment.

He replies almost instantly, showing his own impatience. “How soon can you get here?” Pops up on the screen.

She looks at the clock trying to figure out how long it would take to get dressed and drive there. “25 minutes.” She types in, biting her lip.

“I'll be waiting.” He replies. The first meet, his heart skips a beat, as the beautiful woman he’s spoken with countless times has said yes. “YES,” Rings out in his car. Mason looks around the parking lot to make sure people weren’t staring. He shuts down his laptop to wait for her to arrive. It is going to be one of the longest twenty-five minutes of his life. He opens the pictures of her on his phone and touches the screen where her face smiles out at him.

She logs off and runs to the bedroom. She grabs a white button up shirt and puts it on over the tank top she’s already wearing. She then grabs her favorite jeans out of her closet. Buckling her belt, she grabs her hairbrush and drags it through her messy hair. She picks up her purse off the table on her way through the dining room. Her shoes are by the back door where she’d taken them off the night before. She throws on a coat then she opens the door with one hand while digging for her keys in her purse with the other. She doesn’t pause even for a moment to second guess going.

He sits in his dark green SUV. Now that the moment has come to meet the woman he has been dreaming of for six months, he’s incredibly nervous. He’d seen her picture and chatted with her so many times late into the night but what if after all the intelligent, funny and yes even erotic conversations there is no physical chemistry?

    She finds herself speeding and slows down. The drive seems to be a blur. Before she knows it, she’s at the entrance of the restaurant. She parks across from the double doors to the restaurant and gets out of her dark grey Jeep Cherokee. She shuts the door and turns toward the restaurant. There he is, waiting. The sun is glinting off his ultra short pale blonde hair and a light blue button up shirt hugs his wide shoulders. She absently smoothes her hand over hair, the gesture betrays her nervousness. He pauses to admire the first sight of her. She’s petite and curvy in all the right places. He realizes he didn’t need to worry about chemistry . . . on his part at least.

She smiles and he starts walking across the lot like he cannot wait for her to come to him. He stops in front of her, "I'm going to kiss you hello." He says with a smile. His hand slides behind her neck, feeling her hair brush softly against his fingers. He presses his full lips to hers, firmly but yet somehow with gentleness. The cold winter air seems to fade in those moments, a familiarity once thought is now known. Their lips part and they both exhale at once, creating a laugh between them. “Hello, beautiful.” He says staring into her hazel eyes with his own dark brown ones.

They smile that knowing smile and stroll into the restaurant for the formal introductions and finding out about each other. But inside they already know this is the beginning. They felt it in their first words, at the first sight of each other, in that first touch and in their first kiss...