I is for Ian

“Seriously?” Ian asked. “You’re going to hate on mini golf? It’s the classic date. You get to wrap your arms around a girl, help her with her swing.”

“What if she is perfectly competent and doesn’t need help with her swing?”

He gave me a look. “It’s not really about the swing.”

“Ah.” I picked up my cards and looked at them, rearranging them in my hand. “So, I’m going to make my guess that you have wooed your fair share of girls out on the astroturf?”

“Not all that many,” he said. “And not for a while.” I nodded. “How about you?”

“I’ve never wooed a girl out on the astroturf.”

He chuckled. “Not what I meant.”

“I haven’t dated much recently,” I said. I put down a card and drew one from the pile. “Actually, I haven’t dated at all in the last couple of years.”

“Why?”

“I’ve mostly been stuck at work, or I’ve been home and not wanting to go out much. It’s hard to feel particularly frivolous and fun-loving when you work the way I do.”

“But it’s not good for somebody to never do anything fun,” Ian said.

“So, I’m guessing you’re out at the bar all the time?” I asked. He looked at me strangely. “You said you saw doctors drinking at the bar the other night.”

“Oh. Yeah, I did. But I don’t go out all that often. A buddy of mine was having some guys together, so I went,” he said.

I nodded. “Well, my best friend, Amanda, would be inclined to agree with you. Which is why she forced me to go out dancing with her occasionally.”

“Such cruelty,” Ian said flatly.

“I know. It’s unthinkable. And yet, she does it. She thinks one of these days she’s going to get me out to one of those places and I’m going to find the man of my dreams out on the dance floor. Or at least a man I’m willing to go out with.”

“No such luck?”

“I really just go along with it to let off steam. I’m not interested in finding men at a club or a bar.”

We went back to playing cards, and I found myself glancing up at Ian when I didn’t think he would notice me looking at him. Secretly, I wondered if my mind might have been changed if I had ever run into Ian at one of the clubs when I was out dancing.

We spent the rest of the day playing a rotation of card games and attempting to make up our own, all the while exchanging bits and pieces about our lives and our pasts. We were getting to know each other in a condensed way, like taking the first few months of knowing someone and distilling them down into a few focused hours.

We shared stories about our favorite foods growing up as we made dinner and had transitioned over to hilarious holiday stories when the lights suddenly went out around us. Everything went silent, and I sat perfectly still for a couple of seconds. The sudden quiet and dark stunned me, and my heart pounded in my chest.

“What just happened?” I asked.

“The generator must have gone out,” Ian said. I heard movement, and a second later, a bright rectangle of light appeared from the phone in Ian’s hand. “I’m going to text Carl and let him know what’s going on. He told me he was going to have the crew working as hard as they can. Maybe they made more progress.”

I realized I was still holding my fork up in mid-bite and lowered it back to the plate while his fingers clicked over the buttons on his phone. He sent the message and waited a few moments before the phone alerted him to one coming in return. I watched his eyes flicker over it in the light from the screen.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“They’re doing the best they can. They think they might actually get to us by tomorrow.”

I let out a heavy breath. “I was thinking we were going to end up here a lot longer than that, so I guess that’s a good thing.”

“Well, we thought we were going to be here a lot longer than that with a working generator,” he said. “This changes things.”

We went back to playing cards, using flashlights to provide illumination. Deeper night was setting in, and the suite was already getting considerably colder by the time I suggested we just call it a night and go to bed. Ian went around gathering all the blankets he could find and piled them up on the couch and on my bed. I thanked him, wished him good night, and tucked myself under the mound.

I tried to go to sleep, but even after lying there for more than an hour, I was still wide-awake. It was too cold, and I couldn’t get Ian off my mind. Knowing he was right outside the door, stretched out on the couch, was driving me crazy. I couldn’t stop thinking about him and the fun we’d had throughout the day. Now that I knew him better, my thoughts toward him had shifted.