What I will tell you, is he was sadly very respectful with his hands. I write romance so I would have written this entirely differently. But, what happened that night, with beer staining my Steve Madden platforms, was I danced. And that was it. And then my roommate diligent that she was, tapped me on the shoulder at 12:55. “Come on Cinderella, time to go home.”
And then I waved goodbye to the hot man with the green eyes.
I had no name, I had no school. Who was that hot man? Ships passing in the night.
Fast forward several weeks later to yet another fraternity party.
I know what you’re thinking. That I spent my years at Carnegie Mellon partying it up with fraternity boys. I swear to God I studied.
So there I was in SAE fraternity. I know I know. Remind me to tell you the story about how once my sorority sisters and I painted their lions pink and put lipstick on them. It’s quite the story.
At any rate, once again there was dancing. But this time he came up to me. That’s right. I was dropping it like it was luke warm.
My friends, ever so helpful, all leaned in. “Hey, isn’t that the hot guy?”
My eyes scanned the crowd. And there he was. Hot guy from Delta Upsilon. “Yep, that’s him.
Then began the play it cool game. Where I pretended I didn’t see him. And then he pretended he didn’t see me seeing him. Finally he strolled over.
He was equal parts earnest and sweet. In his head he must have said “Hey, aren’t you that cute girl?” At least that’s what I tell myself.
And we danced again. This time when he had to leave there was a name exchange. And apparently I could no longer find the two and the four because I was so nervous. Hot man, had his hands on my hips. And they were traveling nowhere near my ass. The sheer disappointment was enough to kill me.
But then this time he got the Cinderella tap. But this time, this time, I had a name! Erik.
Erik, as it turned out, did not in fact go to the University of Pittsburgh. He went to Carnegie Mellon. I started seeing him all over campus. (Later he would tell me he managed to sort of figure out my schedule) Stalker much?
And every time I would catch his eye, we would give each other these kind of shy smiles. But neither one of us making a move. Of course I would find the shy guy.
My friends, ever so helpful, pulled out our freshman picture book. Oh yes, they tortured us with a book of photos from when we were in high school before we had changed our looks and become entirely new people. But lucky for me it had photos of every single freshman so you could find out their names.
So, as you do with your girlfriends, we did a little light stalking.
I had his name so I had something to go on. I also found out right away his mother didn’t like him very much. She’d sent the worst possible picture of him.
Terrible haircut, shiny forehead, goofy smile. She clearly didn’t want him getting laid at all.
There were some precollege programs at Carnegie Mellon for students to get to know each other and get to know campus before classes started so I asked a couple of people who’d gone if they knew him.
And as my luck would have it, one of the girls said yes.
And then this other girl. Across the aisle perked up. “Yeah, he’s my suite mate.”
And a plan was born. Some elaborate running into each other at a party of some sort because why keep things simple? The deets were he had no girlfriend so I was in like Flynn!
But the day of the big party intro, I got hit with the mother of all homework assignments. Some organic chemistry shenanigans meant to kill me.
One of the girls arranged a meeting with a chemistry tutor. Except when we got the tutor on the phone, she handed me the homework with notes on the bad assumptions we’d made and waved goodbye. And then she left me to it. On the phone with a stranger. “Hello?”
His voice was low, extra deep. The kind of deep that college boys didn’t quite have yet. But I knew. In that moment I knew exactly who it was.”
It was fraternity boy, Eric. “Hi. Are you the chemistry tutor?”
He laughed. “Nope not a tutor. I think we’ve been set up.”
Oh that wily Angie. On our wedding day, I even thanked her in my speech. Because that afternoon I spent two hours on the phone with this boy I didn’t know. Who as it turned out did not have green eyes. But more of a whiskey brown. And the best smile you could ever imagine.
And, thankfully, he knows how to keep a beat on the twos and the fours. So many thanks to Delta Upsilon, and oddly, SAE. Because without them, I might not have met my husband.
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I love hearing this story. I have been an avid fan of Nana Malone's books for years. After hearing her own road to HEA I can see another reason why her books are always a treat.