Only One Chance (Only One 2)

“Watch it, I put the dirty ones on the bottom,” I say when she picks the last one on the bottom. She looks at me and then looks at the paper. “I’m just kidding.” She opens it. “Or am I?”

She reads the question and just looks at me. “It’s not a dirty one.”

I snap my fingers. “Shucks. I really wanted to know what color of panties you were wearing.”

She shakes her head, ignoring what I just said. “What is one thing that you can’t stand in a relationship?”

“That’s an easy one,” I say, grabbing my water bottle and taking a long sip. “Untruthfulness. Lying. Secrets. All of it. I can’t do it.” I look at her. “No matter what you say about me or what you think about me, I will never lie or keep anything from you. Ever. Even when I would meet girls, they knew going in that even one lie was a game changer for me. I won’t do it to you, so you don’t do it to me.”

“That’s a big, big declaration,” she says, looking down as she sets the paper on the table.

“It is what it is. If there is no trust, there is no relationship,” I say. She just nods, not adding anything else. I reach into the bowl. “Favorite season.”

“That’s easy, winter,” she says, and I raise an eyebrow.

“Me, too,” I reply. “Is it because of hockey?”

“That, and we live in Dallas. There are only so many one hundred degree days I can take.”

She leans over and grabs a paper. “What was your longest relationship?” She folds the paper and looks at me expectantly.

“Seven months,” I answer her. “Five years ago.”

“What?” she gasps. “That is your longest relationship?”

I nod my head. “It was.”

“Seven months?” she repeats. “Seven?” She holds up her fingers.

I nod my head, chewing. “She wasn’t the one. So I wasn’t going to waste her time or mine,” I say, and look at her. “I was also twenty-five, but still.”

“How do you know that after only seven months?” she asks.

“It was just a feeling I got. I wasn’t head over heels for her.” I try to find the words to explain. “My parents have been married for forty-six years,” I say. “They were both eighteen when they got married. From the first day my dad laid eyes on my mother, he knew. She says the same thing. It’s actually really cute when she tells the story. Her eyes light up like it was yesterday. It was a chance meeting, and back then, there were no cell phones and social media to stalk each other.” I smile, and she just laughs. “It was a knock on the door, and can I take you out for ice cream kind of times.”

“Oh my God,” she says, leaning forward with her arms crossed on the table. “That is so fucking cute. Tell me everything.”

I chuckle, taking a sip of my water. “There really isn’t much to tell. They dated for six months before he saved enough money to buy her a ring. It was a tiny thing, and even though he has money now and wants to replace it, she refuses to have it replaced.”

“Do you have a picture of them?” she asks, and her eyes light up. I take out my phone and open my photos and find the one I took of them at Christmas in front of the Christmas tree. Mom’s hugging his waist while his arm is around her shoulders.

“Here they are at Christmas. We had it here since it was easier with my schedule.” I hand her the phone, and she just smiles and looks up at me.

“You look like your dad.” I nod my head. “Can I swipe, or will there be surprise pictures?”

I shake my head and chuckle at her ridiculousness but then nod my head for her to continue. She keeps swiping, looking at all the pictures.

“The two of them have been inseparable since they got married,” I say as she looks at the pictures. “The minute she is sad or upset, he can feel it. If he’s having a bad day, she knows it even before he comes home. They laugh together, and they celebrate together. There were times that she would be cooking, and he would walk up to her just so he could kiss her. I want that.”

“Forgive me for saying this,” she says, putting my phone down, “but you aren’t exactly seeking the kind of woman who wants the white picket fence.”

I chuckle and lean back in my chair. “You got me there.” She takes a drink of her wine. “But that was then, and this is now. I’m thirty years old. It’s time for me to grow up, as my father and mother say. Besides, I want that. I want to have the white fence and to love someone so much that I feel lost without them.”