Years ago now. End of Summer in a major American city, I was hanging out with a girl I’d been hooking up with on and off again but had since broken things off with. Now, this was supposed to be a test of whether or not we could keep hanging out as just friends – if we failed we agreed it should be our final time hanging out together. The tension of course, was palpable. You could have cut it with just a spoon. The plan was to grab a drink, bar hop with some friends in search of whatever trouble we may briefly get up to, then call it a night. Things went mostly to plan.
I met up with her and the group earlyish. And thank goodness the group was there, just looking at her, the eyes we made at each other, the knowledge that we weren’t supposed to- weren’t allowed to touch each other, not just in sexual ways, but casual familiar ways was nothing short of electric. We started buffered by a few friends and a table, but as the night went on, as people went to grab drinks or get up to flirt and enjoy themselves in any manner of ways, as we left and began heading to other bars to continue the night, of course we gravitated towards each other. Every brush against each other, every hand on a shoulder or back was like just a taste of forbidden fruit after you’d already eaten a bushel.