The Beginning....Take 2

I wasn't exactly sure where to start this story, so I guess I should start at the beginning.

It was Mardi Gras 2006 in St. Louis and some of my sorority sisters from U of I and I had come down to stay at my parents' for the weekend and celebrate (St. Louis has the US's 2nd largest Mardi Gras celebration, after all).

I don't remember how exactly I met him. We had mutual friends (he too went to U of I) and he claimed we had met before at one of the bars on campus. I digress. Either way, we met and I was smitten. Immediately. And I so had a boyfriend. And I was so tipsy.

I was dating one of these guys that is just so nice. We met on campus while teaching workshops to freshman about sexual assault. He had plans to go to law school that he later scratched to go work for Obama and now he's in the White House. Impressive, eh? I thought so too. I had been dating him for a few months, and was determined to make this relationship work. I had spent the last three years bouncing around in relationships that were 2 months max, and I wanted that chapter to be done. But that was the thing, he was very nice, so when I met The Boy, I knew I was effed. Big time. We had the kind of chemistry that everyone notices. The kind that makes your girlfriends, 'Oh no, this is trouble'.

At this point, I want to say that I mulled over what to call him here. Although my name is clearly out there, I don't want his to be. So I've decided to call him The Boy That Stuck. TBTS. It's long, but it works.

As the day went on and I became overserved, things get a bit fuzzy. I had become fast friends with TBTS and we were together all day. At one point my girlfriends and I decided to go to a piano bar across town. As we were running down a highway off ramp to jump into the only empty cab in site, I yelled over my shoulder the bar that we were going to, and sped off with my girlfriends, giggling.

About 45 minutes later he showed up with his best friend in tow. They had literally walked about three miles in 20 degree weather in a city that neither was from to find us. I remember sitting next to him at the bar - at one point he put his hand on my thigh. Then he asked for my number. And I gave it to him.

I don't know how we parted that night, but I fully expected to never hear from him again.