How to talk to a woman after a fairly bizarre New Year's Eve

There's this girl...a really great girl. It was New Year's Eve at Arnie's. From the time I arrived there last night I was wondering how I would possibly make my move for a kiss at midnight. By the time the countdown started, I still hadn't figured out how I was gonna do this.

Complication #1: I volunteered to help out the bartenders pass out champagne in time for midnight. Handing free booze to a group like this was no easy task. As many times as I reminded these poeple to hold onto their champagne for midnight, I ended up handing out refills to at least 25% of the people in the bar. In the end, I walked around with a full bottle and made sure everyone was topped off. I kept the last of the bottle for myself. This whole task kept me away from the table (and the girl) for over 45 minutes.

Midnight came and went, and the only kiss I got was one on the cheek by a this one guy deep in the I-love-you-man stage of drunk and really needed to shave. In an act of mild desperation, I mentioned to the group at the table how sad it was that that was my only kiss. I got a couple more kisses on the cheek by a couple women at the table. Better, but the one I wanted to get a kiss from the one I really wanted one from.

A little past 12:30 I went for broke. I whispered in this woman's ear that I was gonna step outside for a smoke and asked her if she'd like to join me. She said yes. He he he...

I decided to go with honesty. I told her that I've been wanting to ask her for a midnight kiss all night, and I know the moment had past, but was wondering if I could get a belated one. She blushed and said okay.

The initial kiss was brief, leaving us both to look at each other and say at the same time, "We can do better than that." The next kiss was a little more enthusiastic, but we were both convinced that practice makes perfect. The third kiss was...was...beyond description, and led to two or three more. Um, wow.

We tended to break it up as people came out of the bar and waiting for the coast to be clear to go at it again. We decided to stop when a larger group of people left the bar. Then out came the dude that gave me that kiss on the cheek at midnight. He saw me and this girl together, and we were quick to say we were just talking.

Complication #2: A little side note about this guy...Let's call him Other Guy. I see him all the time at the bar, and in the year or so that I've seen him there, I have yet to see him anything close to sober. The trouble is, apparently, he's had a huge crush on this girl for a while, and according to my friends, she's had a crush on me for a while (Cue melodramatic organ music). He seemed a bit upset, but fortunately, it wasn't because of this little triangle. As far as we knew, he didn't suspect a thing.

The rest of the night played out rather drama-free. I talked to this girl off and on until last call. She was planning to go to an after-party at this other girl's apartment, a girl whom I dated briefly a couple years ago and I had no desire of going over there (I've been in her apartment before, at the very least I was risking a staph infection).

At the end of the night (for me at least), we exchanged numbers and she walked me to my car, where we made out some more. After a while, Other Guy came around the corner and saw us kissing. We tried to play it off, but he knew what was going on. Still drunk off his ass, he went back inside and got his keys (telling the person holding on to them that he was just getting something out of his car), and proceeded to peel out of the parking lot and drive off. I should have stopped him. He was waaaay to drunk to drive.

We said our goodbyes and she said she was gonna go to the after-party and see if Other Guy made it there safe. I told her to call me if there was any trouble, or if she wanted to talk, or...just call me regardless because I really didn't want to stop talking to her.

I got home and Candy had already gone to bed. She came out to talk to me and tell me about how bad her evening was. The guy she has half-way been seeing pretty much blew her off, and she was very upset. I'm talking tears here. When she and I were together, I never saw her in tears...not even during the break-up. I consoled her, saying she can do a lot better, all the while amazed at how weird it is that she and I can talk about things like this and have it NOT be weird.

So, I step outside to call the girl and see if everything was okay. I wound up leaving a message. I stayed up a while and surfed the internet, crashing around 4:30.

The girl was working today, and I had told her I'd stop by for a coffee and see her. I ran into my friend Kelly, who works with her and I asked her to help me find a book called "How to talk to a woman after a fairly bizarre New Year's Eve"...I can't recall the author.

She said the girl's been waiting fo me all afternoon, and had borrowed some hair products to look pretty for me (damn, she knows how to flatter me). She was running inventory in the DVD section and didn't see me looking at the new releases. I approached her and grabbed the closest DVD I could find by her and opened the conversation with "Oooh, the Elvis comeback special!"

We talked for a few minutes, mostly shuffling our feet and blushing. She found Other Guy and he was being a bit of a dick about the situation, telling her that maybe they shouldn't even try to be friends. I'm so not looking forward to the et-tu-brute shit I'm thinking he's gonna try to pull next time he sees me.

We ended the conversation so she could get back to work, but she told me to call her later tonight. She get's off at ten, which means I have three hours and 52 minutes to go. He he he...