Prelude To A Kiss

TeeBee & GermanChocolateGirl, if you lovely ladies ever make it to Chi-town and want to hang out with me, I have the perfect sushi place in the city to take you. It's called House of Sushi and Noodles. I guess they have noodles too but the sushi is to die for. Huey and I went there Saturday afternoon. They have an all you can eat sushi buffet (which they freshly make for you once you order a couple selections) for $12.95. They have a few rules you have to follow such as a minimum of two people must be in the party to do the buffet and a $5 charge per person will be added to the bill if any sushi is leftover in your plate. But the sushi is so worth it and you'd be hard pressed to leave any of it.

Okay back to the program.

As you can see, I'm giving my speaking voice a rest for today. It'll be back someday.

As promised this entry will focus on my date with Chad. A few more things happened then what I spoke about on my audio. Originally he suggested having the date on Saturday. He then changed the date to Friday due to a friend he wanted to hang out with only being available. (A little more background on that later.)

So Chad was incredibly moody all week. It showed in our conversations. I was actually amazed that he called me every night last week. He seemed to really have a chip on his shoulders. He was mainly pissed at Stringy and was basically ignoring him on the job.

He was doing the shutting people out thing again. He mentioned his best friend calling him and he not returning her calls. When she would get him and ask him what's wrong, he told her nothing and basically rebuffed any of her attempts to hang out. His excuse...he didn't feel like being bothered.

I didn't want to antagonize him any further so I just did my best to calm him down. I fished for more information about Stringy and his relationship on the job. Basically he explained how they first met and how they eventually befriended one another. One day Stringy confessed to liking Chad and some time later Chad confessed to liking Stringy. They did hang out once or twice outside of work but Stringy made it a point not to go to Chad's place because of what might happen. (Actually I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.)

Where it gets crazy is all the monkey business that's happened recently. The "can I see your dick", "let me feel your booty" talk. For someone that didn't want to put himself in a compromising position (meaning Stringy), he sure was acting stupid around Chad. Then Stringy would invite Chad to hang out for drinks early in the day and later change his mind.

Chad admits to having feelings for Stringy, which made all the things Stringy was doing that much harder to bare. I've been there on some level, though it's thankfully never been with anyone I've worked with.

So I was actually surprised aside from the date moving up a day, that he decided to keep it. Eugene and I were making bets over whether he'd cancel or not. Since he did keep the date, I won the bet (I had to take an opposing view from Eugene...*LOL*).

Chad did move the time of the date to 8PM, which again was fine since it gave me time to freshen up. I went to pick him up at his apartment. Once there, we decided on TGIF's, which was about fifteen minutes from his place.

We were listening appropriately enough to Mya's Moodring album. I particularly honed in on Whatever B!tch, which I thought would cheer him up. It didn't do much in that department, though he got a bit of a chuckle seeing me jam to the song. My favorite song on the LP, though is Sophisticated Lady, which samples Rick James Cold Blooded.

The conversation actually flowed pretty good and I found myself a bit more socially relaxed than I typically am. It extended even beyond Chad and I. For example, I chatted with this dude in the bathroom about folks that don't wash their hands after using the bathroom. I noticed he was trying to catch the door with his foot as another patron was leaving. I instantly knew why he was doing that and we basically chatted briefly about it. Since I did that, he decided to pull a paper towel and use it on the handle, which I do all the time.

Hemingway the experience at TGIF's was cool. The potato skins were actually hot. The rest of the food ordered tasted great. The drinks weren't, ummm, as watered down...*LOL*. I even won a bet against him for free dinner since the waitress didn't bring back change like he thought she would. (The extra money was indeed her tip.)

After the dinner, I asked if he was up to seeing my place. He was feeling tired and didn't hesitate to let me know. I offered a raincheck but he insisted on taking him to check my house out. So we did.

While there, he wanted to show me a picture of Stringy. Remember in my last post mentioning Chad how he compared Stringy to the current Todd from One Life To Live? I'm not the biggest Todd fan (not that I watch the soap regularly...okay I did, but that was in the 80's...*LOL*) and the actor does nothing for me, but after seeing a picture of Stringy, I felt like Chad insulted Todd (or whoever the actor is...I'm too lazy to look it up...*LOL*). I didn't call him Stringy for nothing. Chad assured me that he did gain some weight recently. Okay I'll stop!

Hemingway after seeing my place, Chad was ready to go home. Literally within minutes of arriving. I was put off but he did mention he was tired so I put aside my feelings and did as he asked. Incidentally I felt the urge to give him a kiss at that point but decided not to do so.

He did sense I seemed disappointed (I have the worst poker face...*LOL*). I told him I was cool. I drove him back to his apartment and before he got out of the car, he planted me a quick kiss. It was really nice but I had this deer in the headlights look afterwards (sucky poker face...remember?). It was stupid but I was worried that somebody could've saw us. He told me that it wasn't like anybody was outside that time of night. I told him it was cool and to hurry on and leave. I don't know why I said that. I think it pissed him off but he told me to call him to let him know I made it safely home. As soon as he left the car, I took off.

I called him and left a voicemail. And I haven't heard from him since, even after leaving a text message and voicemail on Sunday.

I wonder if the chase is still on. The ball's in his court. Again.