i love

Life. It's an absolutely wonderful thing.

The champagne was everything I could have hoped for and then some. I didn't make out with anyone. I got kissed. Yes. Kissed. Not with tongue (get yo' mind out of the trash!), but a gentle on-the-lips-we're-both-kind-of-nervous kiss. Oh my lord. I've never been that nervous before. Butterflies and all. The anticipation was almost unbearable.

Okay, not to get ahead of myself I'll try and explain what happened before I sober up and remember all the details that are too embarrassing to think about.

The night started pretty early, at dinner to be precise. I saw a young man that we'll call "Beatnik" or "Nik" for short, in the dinning hall when I was rushing back from tutoring. Nik has been a friend since my first days in the freshman dinning hall, but I never ever thought that anything would ever happen. Not because I didn't want it anything to happen, I've always had a little bit of a crush on him, but I just never thought it would. To be totally honest, I've always been a little intellectually intimidated by him. He is so articulate and witty (Jesus, I sound like I am writing a personal ad) that every conversation with him always leaves me impressed. Anyway, tonight I ran into Nik at dinner and it was the first time I had seen him since I found out that he had dated a girl here - he didn't know that his roommate had told me this little gem of information. Apparently they had tried to keep it a secret, but were pretty exclusive for about two months. Not a very long time, but long enough for the girl to count as an "ex."

I asked him if he were sitting for awhile and he offered to sit while I ate and guess who else was willing to sit and wait with us? Oh yes, the EX. Stupid exes. The worst part about her being his ex is that I like her. I had a seminar with her last semester and she is thoughtful, insightful, and interesting. What a fucking bitch.

I digress.

We wound up talking for an hour at dinner and then I asked him to swipe me into my dorm since my card has yet to be replaced. She proceeded to proclaim that SHE would love to swipe me in, but the gallant gentle man he is, Nik was not deterred. We then wound up talking on the bottom steps of my entryway for an hour and a half. She looked bored, but was not about to give up without a fight. She tried yawning. She tried saying that sitting on the steps was awkward. She tried saying she was cold. Luckily the conversation was interesting enough to defend against her complaining.

The champagne party had started by the time we realized that we should get the night going. I told him I just needed to change into pants (it was warm, I had been wearing a very cute skirt), and he said that he was going to check his email. She looked really annoyed and said she was going back to her dorm. She was pissed. I was not. To cut to the chase, she left, we met back up and headed into the party.

We got drunk off of good beer and cheap champagne and decided we needed to go on an adventure. We were with Eric and Courtney who ran off when we wandered outside for awhile. I called and texted Court who not surprisingly did not return my calls and texts. I called Eric once and he was on the phone screaming at me to come to Lowell. Before we even got into Lowell Nik and I found Eric stumbling out drunker than Mel Gibson at a Bar Mitzvah.

I won't rehash the whole Eric ordeal, but lets just say that there is some background information that might make this part of the story more interesting. If you don't know it, I don't think I am going to take the time to fill you in. Anyway, Eric starts being really drunkenly aggressive. He actually told me that he was going to "beat up" Nik. I don't even know what that means coming from him. He wouldn't listen to anyone, except for me and he kept on hugging me and being weird. Like really, really, weird. It took forever to walk Eric back to his room and by the time we got there I had taken quite a beating. Literally. I had been dragged, bear hugged, squeezed, and just generally put through the ringer. I was just really glad that Nik stayed around to help, he was a trooper.

Once he got back to his room things got even more weird. Eric started stroking my hair and at one point pulled me on top of him in his chair and refused to let me go. Then when I finally got him back into the room where his bed is (no, it's not a bedroom), he stood in the middle of the room, pulled me in for a hug, pushed my hair out of my face and pulled up my chin. At this point I was so weirded out that I almost ran to get Nik out of the bathroom. He had only been out of sight for about two minutes before things had gotten out of hand.

We finally pretty much just pushed Eric into bed, set his phone alarm and his radio clock alarm and left. He was black out, but not comatose. When we left we had to go back to Lowell and find Courtney. We found her. She then proceeded to confess her love for Nik (awkward) and dance with him in a way that definitely did not involve a third party. At one point she actually elbowed me in the face. Sweet.

Nik convinced her to come back to our dorm with us (yes, he lives in my dorm; yes, that's awesome) and once we got her back we were standing in the main foyer. The same main foyer Chuck was chased out of Halloween weekend. So much tension. He had his hand on my waist. He played with my hair. He leaned in. I leaned in.

THEN SOMEONE FUCKING WALKED IN.

Once they left it was really awkward standing there, so he walked me to my entryway. We were back to where we started. He started babbling in a very un-Nik like fashion. He was actually not making any sense and talking about vaccums or sky scrappers, or something completely random and incoherent. He wasn't that drunk, but I had no idea what he was talking about. Finally I just kind of put it out there and told him I thought he was cute.

That did not solve the problem and only brought on more uncontrolled banter. Once we both realized that we had been sitting in the hallway for over an hour it became an issue of now or never. I was standing in front of him and his back was pressed up against the railing. Then it was just a quick kiss on the lips. Then a hug. Then an "I like you a lot."

He said "I like you a lot."

One more time: "I like you a lot."

Pretty fucking unambiguous. Then he left.

He helped me put two drunk friends to bed. He put up with being molested all night. He was a perfect gentleman. He kissed me on the lips. With no tongue. Oh my God.

Speaking of "my God," did I mention he was Catholic? Yeah, like the kind of Catholic that goes to Mass every Sunday.

Oh God.