As he walked up to me, my heart pounded harder than the lightning and thunder of a violent tempest. I couldn’t remember a day I felt more in love with him, and I couldn’t imagine a time that was better. Too many emotions were flooding in, breaking down the levies and walls that protected my heart. Breathing became harder to control and my palms grew thick with perspiration. Trying to keep the trembling down to a minimum, I wiped my hands on my faded yellow sundress and took a few deep breaths, smiling wider and wilder than a five-year-old in a candy store.
The dress I’d worn four years ago when I first met him at a food bank. We volunteered on the same days, Sundays (after I got out of church) and Tuesdays. The food bank was only open on those days. He always wore a t-shirt and dark blue jeans. He reminded me of James Dean, and he laughed loudly and made every customer smile.
Today I wore the little dress for him, knowing he’d see me, smile, and make a joke about how I looked like a sunflower. He’d swat the air around me playfully, shooing away invisible bees and “hummer birds”. I had the pale, ebony skin of most northern black women, and the dress accented my skin’s cinnamon color. The first time he’d seen me he had performed the same antics and when he told me that I looked like a sunflower I burst out in a fit of laughter.
I stood in the middle of the quiet little café, watching him approach me on thick tall legs, the muscles in his jeans flexing as he strode closer showing off each sinewy muscle in definition. His large hands were in his pockets and his thumbs were hooked on belt loops. He wore a white, v-neck t-shirt that was rippling from the broad muscles of his chest, shoulders, and upper arms. Black and colored tattoos inked the pale peach skin of his arms. He was looking down at the ground, seemingly somber, but his face was still handsome. He wore a black beard that was trimmed around his neck, and his eyes almost glowed with the dapple grey color of a silver moon. His thick black hair was short and messy as if he'd just got out of bed.
He looked up at me and warmed me with a smile that sent a conflagration through my blood so fast I almost swooned. Today, no joke escaped his lips when he saw me, just the handsome knowing smile that turned my blood to liquid fire. What seemed like a lifetime of waiting for him to walk up was only a matter of seconds, and then I had him. My arms wrapped around his steel flanks, my hands found his stone hard back, and I pulled myself into his chest and squeezed. He gave up a deep grunt, and as he put his enormous arms around me and lightly hugged, I thought silently “oh how I love him”. A full hug would kill me, but the light hug made me sigh. I could hear his massive heart slamming like a sledge hammer against a steel wall, and I knew at once that he was just as in love with me as I was with him. We didn’t say anything, and what felt like an eternal embrace lasted a short eternity. He pulled his chest back and with his giant left hand gently raised my face to meet his snowy-eyed gaze.
He bent down close enough so that I could smell his thick breath with scents of cookies and coffee, and said, “You’re the most beautiful woman on Earth, and I love you more than I’m capable of loving.” He leaned in and kissed me with his soft lips as his bristly facial hair caught the flesh around mine own lips sending shutters up my spine. I brought my hands around the back of his head feeling the cartilage of his ears and the plushy softness of his hair folding around my fingers. I pulled him tighter, and I closed my eyes. When we left each others' lips a soft gasp escaped my mouth. I looked up into his beautiful sculted-stone eyes again, and I realized that this was the happiest moment in life that we were both experiencing, all in a small town coffee shop.
