The tea in Work In Progress

The date…..

It’s taken me so long to write about the date!

It was so good, so easy, absolutely no awkwardness.

He met me off the train, and we were both grinning like teenagers. We immediately kissed, and walked back to his Air B and B hand in hand.

Because we live a couple of hours apart, I have V etc, we’d waited about 4/5 weeks to actually get to this date. We can basically talk about anything and everything. We’d talked a lot on the phone and messaged a lot and they’d been fairly steamy messages/conversations at times. We knew we got on as friends, we knew we could talk, nothing has ever been off limits. We’ve spent the last decade being each other’s wing person basically. We had already both pretty much stated that sex was very much on the table on the first date and that actually we basically both wanted to know if it worked on a physical level because we already knew it worked on other levels.

There was a lot of kissing, and talking, and grinning at each other in disbelief that we were kissing and that it wasn’t weird and that it felt really natural and so good. I’d wondered if we might have almost immediately torn each other’s clothes off given how long we’d waited and how much pleasure we’d taken in teasing each other over the previous few weeks, but we ended up on the bed, kissing and talking and taking our time.

Of course it led where we expected and we slept together. As far as first times go with a new partner, when both of you have been through a pretty lengthy dry spell, it felt amazing! I never really doubted it would be any other way, I had absolutely no nerves on the way to meet him, it all just felt very very right and almost inevitable. Took us a long time to realise that there was romantic potential but once we did, it all just felt like a big giant inevitability.

We lay afterwards, just talking quietly, then we shared some wine that he’d brought with him while we were getting ready to go to dinner.

We went to an Italian small plate place, with really good food. Good food is one of the things we’re both into and talk about a lot! We sat up at the bar, had a couple of drinks, shared some food, got a couple of plates free because they’d been cooked by mistake. There was a lot of touching, his arm around the back of my chair, my hand on his leg….. It’s been a very long time since I’ve sat in a restaurant, having a lovely conversation with a guy, who seems really happy to be there with me in that moment. It all felt like it had been touched with a little bit of magic, it’s just still kind of unbelievable that it happened and was so amazing.

After dinner we walked down to the Pier Head in Liverpool, to see the Liver building and stuff. We walked along and up to the Albert Dock, all of the pillars are lit with tiny fairy lights and it’s really beautiful and quite romantic. We stopped for quite a while, he stood behind me with his arms around me and we talked some more and just enjoyed the moment.

We walked back to the Air B and B through Liverpool One, and ended up in bed again. I can’t tell you how nice it felt afterwards, to just be curled up with my head on his shoulder, falling asleep together. It’s been a hella long time since I shared a bed with anyone who wasn’t V, and I just felt so comfortable and relaxed with him. I just felt very safe but in the least boring way possible, because I also felt completely desired by him.

Waking up together was again, really nice. Inevitably, some good morning kissing ended up with us sleeping together again, and I’m not really sure how but a little while later we ended up having a completely unexpected bonus round!

We showered and packed up, and went for breakfast. Our options were a bit limited with it being bank holiday and fairly early, but we found a quiet corner in cafe Nero and had some food and drinks and chatted some more.

We have absolutely no problem talking. We’ve long established that neither of us can actually shut up! Our conversation varies from the silly to the serious to the sexy and we flit between each topic with ease.

It just feels really really good. Natural, easy, unexpected in the best way. We’ve spent more than a decade talking A LOT and it feels like a really solid foundation for things moving forward romantically. He’s patient, supportive, really bloody funny, honest, open, nothing is off limits. I’ve had a few problems with Joey, as is the way, and he’s been nothing but attentive and useful with his advice, and likewise I’ve had a couple of questions about his ex, curiosities that I didn’t know the answers to from conversations we’ve already had and he was happy to answer.

It feels easy, and grown up, and drama free. Even though we live 70 miles apart, he’s more than happy to make the effort to come here, he’s completely understanding of the fact that I have about five spare minutes each week where there isn’t some ridiculous demand on my time, that if we want a night together it’s another night I’m not with V after already being apart three nights for work.

He’s emotionally mature, he’s entirely unafraid of conversations about commitment and the future and it makes me genuinely believe that there could be real potential for something very special here. We’re coming in off the back of knowing everything about each other, we know where each other is at in our lives. He’s been nothing but encouraging with my job application for promotion at work, sat listening to me mumble while I typed my supporting statement, I sent it across to him and we discussed some small changes, it felt so good to have an actual conversation with someone who cares, about something significant in my life.

I’ve never been in a relationship with anyone in recent years who would have taken the time to help me, who is genuinely cheering for me to do well. We’ve talked a lot about how this would take me from nights to mom-fri/9-5 which would be amazing for V, she’s desperate not to have to sleep out three nights a week. It would also make things a lot easier for C and I going forward, I would feel less guilty about V staying out some weekends and eventually if things go as we both expect they might, would make things easier when he’s met V in terms of us being able to spend more than the occasional weekend and 7 hours some random Thursdays together.

It just feels very good, very certain and very solid.