Lieutenant Brown, Chapter 4...

(To read Chapter 3, click HERE.)

"I have learned not to worry about love,

but to honor its coming with all my heart."

~Alice Walker

We kept emailing and talking and made plans for him to come down the following Sunday, while I diligently tried to figure out something really fun to do with him on a Sunday during the day in Portland. In the city, there are lots of amazing things to do around Christmastime, but most are in the evening, so those were out. I knew I had about 6 hours with him, so I started figuring some things out. On Saturday night, nervous that he might think it was a weird or awkward suggestion, I emailed him and asked him if he'd like to go to church with me while he was in town. Thankfully, he enthusiastically replied he'd love to. :)

Sunday morning finally rolled around and I waited anxiously for him to come. I had made cookies the day before and made pumpkin bread in the morning so my apartment would be warm and smell good. (Unfortunately I thought it would be a good idea to test out that old wives' tale that you can cut yourself on the lid of a can--one very bloody knuckle later, I can attest to it's truth--so that was fun.) I got ready and waited nervously for him to come.

I had talked with April about whether or not she thought I should get him a Christmas present. We agreed that it was a tricky situation, but I probably should get him something kind of benign. I settled on an audio book about the Beatles (his favorite band--I figured he's spending a lot of time in the car, right?) and a comedy DVD. So I wrapped that all up and waited for him.

I will admit I was waaaaaaay more nervous when he showed up for our second date than I was on our first. I think this time my expectations...no, hopes...were quite a bit higher. :) When he arrived at my house, he handed me a gift bag full of red tissue paper and said, "If you don't have one of these already, you need one." (When I opened it later, it was a Gonzaga basketball Christmas ornament--perfect! And he was right, I didn't have one and I did need one!) He came in and met my crazy puppy (thankfully we had already discussed the fact that he loves dogs, and Allee loves EVERYONE, so I know they'd be fine with each other), and we talked for a few minutes. I don't know why I was so nervous! But after a few minutes we realized we needed to head to church, so we left.

It was SO nice to go to church with him! As I sat by him, I had a very sudden realization that I realllllly liked him. And what better place to realize that than church, right? :) After we'd been to church together, I felt sooooo much better and less awkward and nervous about the whole thing. The rest of the day was easy and fun. It wasn't exactly planned, but we ended up having a very fun, very "Portland" day. We went to brunch at this AMAZING restaurant called Papa Haydn's, then headed up to go on the Christmas tour of Pittock Mansion. We had a lot of fun, laughing and joking and gently teasing each other. It was a rainy, awful day, but for once I didn't really care. :)

Earlier in the week he had mentioned something about Voodoo Donuts (a famous, quirky Portland donut shop), but said he'd never been there. Since we still had some time, I made a last minute decision to go there so we headed back downtown. He asked if we were going to Powell's and I told him that wasn't the plan, but that we could go there next if he was interested in going. So that's what we did. :) (See THIS POST for more on that.)

When I asked him a few days before, he said he needed to leave by 6ish, so I was pretty happy when we got back to my apartment at 5:58! :) He walked me in...and said, "I can hang out a little longer, if that's okay." It was definitely okay with me. So we hung out and played with Allee for a little bit...until I looked down and realized that my knuckle was bleeding through the band-aid. Really attractive, right? He noticed it at the same time I did, so I excused myself to go get another bandage and fix it. I came back in and he said, "Is it okay? Let me see." I said, "You don't want to see this! It's totally gross!" He said, "No, let me see it." So he looked at my nasty, bloody hand, and told me he was sorry and that I was right, it was pretty bad. :) I was sooooo embarrassed! He just laughed and said, "It'll be okay." I quickly re-bandaged it and we went back to chatting and playing with Allee. It was quiet for a minute, and then he took a deep breath.

"So...what do you think about all this? About us?" he asked.

To be continued...

(To continue to Chapter 5, click HERE.)