Coffee, Dr. Pepper Or Me

In Like Flynn Mustache

As soon as I walked into my apartment, my phone started ringing.  I was trying to get the kids in the door with all of their belongings.  As soon as I made it to the phone, it stopped ringing.  No sooner had I taken 2 steps away from it then it started ringing again.  I picked it up, and it was Daniel, the cop.  He wanted to know if I was sure that I couldn't get out.  He wanted to meet me somewhere and have some more coffee and dinner.  I told him it was impossible.  He asked me if we could meet somewhere the following night.  I said yes, provided I could get a babysitter for a couple of hours.  I told him to call me the next day to confirm it.

On my way home from work the next day, I spotted a cop car sitting in a service station.  I didn't particularly pay attention to it; I just did a speedometer check to make sure I wasn't speeding.  I wasn't.  I drove on down the road and noticed the cop car was gaining on me.  At the next light, I looked over, and it was Daniel.   He held up a piece of paper that said, "pull over somewhere."  Good grief, I was going to have to change my route.  It was embarrassing.  I knew that I hadn't done anything wrong, but nobody else knew that.

I took the first right turn that came along.  He came walking up to my car with a big smile on his face.  "Are you going to be able to go out?"  I acted like I had forgotten about it.  "Oh, no, I forgot, and you didn't call me to remind me."  He said he wanted an excuse to see me, so he thought he would watch for me to drive by.  And here he was.  He was just so cute, I couldn't tease him long.  "Yes, I can go out for a little while.  I have to take my kids to the sitter on Ferguson Road."  He said that was great and that he would meet me at the Howard Johnson's on Ferguson and Samuels at 7:30.

I showed up a little early, and he was sitting in the squad car waiting on me.  He got out and came over and opened my door.  I was always a little uneasy about climbing out of my car because I was fairly tall and wore 3-inch heels.  Luckily, he was about an inch taller than me.  He asked me if the place was okay; he said he needed to stay close to his area if he got a call.  His area was Fair Park, a horrible area.  This location was close enough.

We went in and sat at a booth.  He asked me what I wanted to eat, and I told him nothing.  There was no way that I would pig out in front of him; it might scare him.  I had him just order me a Dr. Pepper.  "Now you know what I drink."  He said I was the only person that he knew of who didn't drink coffee.  I told him that I didn't like the taste and I didn't like hot drinks.  I watched him inhale his meal like a normal guy.  "Did you chew?"  I embarrassed him; he actually turned red.  He said he was used to eating fast because if he didn't, he might get a call and not eat.  Okay.

He was pretty nice, kind of a quiet type.  He was adopted.  His home was in Bossier City, La.  He chose the Dallas PD to work for as his first choice.  He said he liked to play tennis and asked me if I did.  "Well, yeah, but I'm pretty bad at it."  He said he would go play at 1 or 2 in the morning when he got off-duty to blow off steam.  His "beat" was located in a terrible, high crime area: murders, shootings, knifings, beatings, all part of the routine.  I almost wish he had not told me that.  I told him that I had a radio with a police band on it and that I had listened to it and knew what he was talking about.

He asked me about my kids and my life in general.  He wanted to know where I was from because he thought that I had a Yankee accent.  That was funny to me.  Southerners thought I talked like a Yankee, and northerners thought that I had a Southern accent.  The truth was that I was somewhere in the middle of the two.

I was transfixed by his mustache the entire time he was talking.  It wasn't a normal, floppy mustache like most guys had.  It was very thin and well maintained.  It reminded me of the actor Errol Flynn's mustache  Very attractive.  Oh crap, he asked me what I was looking at.  I told him I was crazy about his upper lip.  Probably not the best thing to say to a guy that you just met.  Now I was embarrassed.

He got a call while we were talking and had to get up and go pretty quickly.  He said he would call me.  He forgot his hat and had to run back in and get it.  He went his way, and I went the opposite way to pick up the boys.

When we got home after I carried a sleeping Jeff in the house, my phone rang again.  I just let it ring until I got Glen and Jeff settled in.  I picked the phone up, and it was France.  He wanted to know where I had been.  That didn't go over real big with me.  He said he had been calling for a couple of hours.  I told him I was out.  "Out where?"  Out!  I told him I needed to get off the phone and make sure that Glen and Jeff were still in bed.  I would see him tomorrow.  Click.

In the morning, when we went out to the car, there was a note on my windshield.  It was from Daniel.  He told me that he had enjoyed getting together with me and just wanted to make sure that I was home safe.  He said he would call AND watch for me on the way home from work.  He would leave me notes on my windshield for the next 5 years to let me know that he was making sure that things were safe where I was.  That was kind of special.  I wish now that I had saved them just because they were nice.

Now I had to go to work and face France and see what his deal was.  I knew that he would be cool about it at work.  And I knew that I would be cool about it whether I was at work or not.  I didn't have any rings on my finger; I was footloose and fancy-free.  And that is how I wanted it.