I Don't Bite

I was 20 years old when I met Brian. I was in sales at Springfield Ford and he was the Senior Master mechanic in the service department. But we never actually conversed until I moved over to the service department to be their scheduler and a fill-in service writer and I didn’t have the slightest idea as to what I was doing. The first time I answered the phone and the caller had a question as to what could possibly be wrong with their car and neither of the other service writers were around to ask, I went running to the shop to find someone to answer the question. It just so happened that Brian’s bays were the closest to the doorway. (I had also been told that he was the senior master, so if I had any questions about anything, I could ask him.) He was nice enough to talk to the caller and really didn’t give me any grief about it, so any other time I had a caller with a question, I just took the phone to him.

Eventually, I had started to get curious about what he was fixing and asked him to show me what he was doing. From then on, he was always explaining things to me and if I didn’t have any other things that were pressing to do, I would stand there and watch him. I’m sure it got irritating after a little bit, especially when I would get in the way, but he had an incredible amount of patience and never turned me away.

The first time I met the boys was at work when their mother dropped them off to Brian from their visit with her. Timothy was five years old, small, skinny, shy. Thomas was three years old, smaller, skinnier, and even shyer than his brother. Neither of them would come to me, much less talk to me… until the candy. Once I gave them candy, they opened up a LOT more. Little did I know, they had me hooked from that moment on.

One day, Brian asked me to go to lunch with him and the guys from work – it was their wing Tuesday special at BW3. I said yes. Much to my surprise, he asked me to go to lunch with them almost every single day after that.

Then another day, I went into the shop to ask Brian what was for lunch that day and he told me that he had to run home to get something and wouldn’t be going to lunch. He caught me off guard when he invited me to go with him, but I did anyway. That was the first time we were alone.

The next time he didn’t go to lunch was when he wanted to go to the nursing home where his ex-father in law was to take him some pictures. Again he asked me if I wanted to go with him. Again, he caught me off guard. And again, I said yes.

Eventually, Brian asked me to go to dinner with him. (Can you guess what I said? Yea I know, I’m predictable.) I spent the few days before looking for a new outfit… something nice and casual, not over dressy but still classy. I decided on a nice pair of jeans, heels, and a fitted black v-neck long sleeve shirt with a blue lacy undershirt. We decided to go to TGIFridays but I wanted to meet him there instead of having him come pick me up. When I got there, I was shocked yet again. Brian showed up in a button down dress shirt, dress pants, and dress shoes. I’m used to being the one that is over dressed… but not the other way around! It wasn’t awkward like I thought it would be. I actually enjoyed his company very much.

Not too long after that, Brian asked me to go to his house so he could make me dinner. Who knew he would actually be a good cook? (Anyone that knows me well knows I am not the best cook… I can make a few things and that’s about it.) After I realized that I wasn’t going to die from his food and he realized that he would get to show off, I started going to his house for dinner on a pretty regular basis.

One night while the kids were away, I went to his house to watch Talladega Nights since he hadn’t seen it before and I had it on DVD. He started out on his end of the couch and I started lying in the corner of the couch facing the TV. But then he said it… those three little life changing words. Ones that I didn’t ever think would affect me the way that they did. Can you guess what those words were? Close, but no. Not those three words, but ones that you wouldn’t expect to be said and then proceed to lead into what happened next. (Which I will not be describing by the way… you can use your imagination if you so choose.) Those words were:

“I don’t bite.”

Really? I didn’t think I was THAT into him. But, hey, what can I say? What happened, happened. No going back. Needless to say, our relationship was given a shove into serious after that. We continued to see each other outside of work pretty often. Things were going pretty perfectly.

But then we got the news. (No, I wasn’t pregnant.) The owner of the place where we were working made his announcement that the dealership was closing the following week. The night before it closed was the first night that Brian and I spent together. We rode into work the next day together which pretty much confirmed to everyone there that we were together.

Every day after that for about two months, Brian would ask me to spend the night again. Finally, he cleared out a few drawers for me (I still had my own apartment for several months while we were together) and then eventually, I took over one of the closets in the master bathroom.

The rest is history – our history – together.