The instant Daniel entered his condo; he saw the diary sitting on the foyer table. The big smile that was already in his heart during his short walk from May's Condo to his home finally emerged on his face. He could have let it out sooner when he was riding the elevator up, but he didn't want to risk a chance of looking bipolar in front of the two residents whom he didn't know. He had always thought people looked foolishly silly during those initial moments of love actualization. Not that he had met anyone who had done that in front of him; the images he held of fools in love were all from movies and television he had watched.
Now holding the diary in his hand and smiling to himself in front of the mirror, he believed he would win an Oscar for Best Actor if someone was to make a film of him and captured the way he looked at this exact moment. The best part was he didn't even have to act or pretend. He was totally falling for his Little Beauty and he saw it all over his face.
"You are such a geek!" He said to himself in the mirror.
"Well, it's about time!" The geek responded from the mirror.
By 4:45 pm, Daniel had all his documents ready in his Attaché case and was about to head over to May's home when his cell phone rang. Well, so much for an evening of catching up with his Little Beauty. He sighed as he ended the phone conversation.
Ten minutes later, the doors of a private elevator opened and Daniel stepped out and walked towards an extravagant wooden door. Just when he was about to press the doorbell, someone opened the door and greeted him. He was pleasantly surprised by the most gorgeous cook his eyes had ever seen. Her hair was pulled back into a bun on top of her head. She was wearing a lavender sweater and a pair of black yoga pants. Daniel never cared much for the appeal of women in tight fitting clothes before and thought they looked quite repulsive at times. But when his eyes landed on her chest, he couldn't take them off no matter how hard he tried. He was too enticed by the command on the apron.
"Hi! Welcome to Tessa's home!" May beamed a bright smile at him.
May followed his eyes and gasped. "Oh gosh! I didn't even realize - "
Before she could reach her arms back to undo her apron, Daniel leaned forward and followed through with the command by planting a quick peck on her cheek.
Startled by the soft cool touch of his lips on her cheek, May's anxious heart started to beat faster and harder against her chest. She slowly lifted her heavy eye lids to look into his eyes. As his warm breath came near her lips, she felt the heat rising up to her cheeks. Suddenly, something was creating a wobbling effect on her knees. As if he could sense her legs were about to give way and buckle over, he placed his free arm around her waist for support as the heavy wooden door closed behind her.
When Daniel leaned his body closer and pressed her back against the door, somehow the sudden dimness in the room led May back into time. She recalled how they were physically close like this 18 years ago back when they were in grade 10. Her memories was brought back to the incident which took place after one of the basketball practices when Daniel was pushing a trolley full of basketballs into the gym’s equipment room. No one else was left in the gym and Daniel didn't know May was inside the room stacking some cones in a tight corner. When he was maneuvering his body into the same tight corner to make way for the trolley, he accidentally bumped into some long jump poles. That was when he saw May and hurled forward to block the falling poles from landing on top of her. Well, the poles slid forward but created a nice tent above when the ends were caught by the shelf. Thus, he was the only one who landed on top of her.
Daniel kept his eyes on hers as he aligned his lips with her parted ones. As soon as she closed her eyes, he knew it was time to claim that first kiss he wanted to when he was lying on top of her on the floor of the gym's equipment room 18 years ago. The one memory he was thinking about during lunch when she asked if he remembered their co-ed basketball practices. He never could forget.
And when their lips touched, he could feel his physical needs trying to take over his whole being. But he most certainly didn't want history to repeat itself when his intimate buddy had decided to take a peek when he was on top of her the very first time way back then. He didn't want to scare her off like he did then. He thought he had learned to better control himself when it came to his physical needs, but seeing her again made him realize just how much power she still possessed over him and the image of her in the yoga pants was not helping in that particular department either.
Sensing he was about to reach dangerous ground, he drew apart from the kiss. But he held her still with his free arm and drank in the image of her flushed face. Then he took a step back and touched her rosy cheek. "I love it that I still make you blush!"
May regained her senses and grounded herself back to earth. She lifted her arms and placed her hands on both cheeks, basically to shield herself from his touch. She was well aware of the many special moments they shared today since the luncheon this afternoon. From the moment she found out he was single to the train ride and the walk home with him, she had been fighting the feelings that were stirring in her guts. However, she had also been telling herself for the last two hours that Daniel would never take her as a girlfriend. Just like when they were in high school, she believed he was never interested in having a Chinese girlfriend. However, that never stopped many of her Chinese female classmates from having crushes on him, especially when they found out he could speak the language and was a quarter Chinese from his paternal grandmother.
And when Daniel took her hand and gave her fingers a gentle kiss, her spirit returned to the present and took in what he just said. Still blushing, she responded. "I think you've been given the gift for making any girl blush!"
Daniel started to move away slowly and shook his head. "No, only you. I have never made anyone else blush."
"Oh I'm sure you have." May stepped off Cloud 9 and regained her composure. "You just weren't paying attention."
"Oh yeah? Like who?" Daniel followed her to the coat room where she stood waiting for him to take his jacket off.
"Like who?!" May gave him an 'are-you-seriously-that-innocent look’ as she took the jacket from him. "Right, like you didn't know all those girls in high school who were ogling at you!"
He knew he couldn't deny his popularity as a senior in high school, but he never took advantage of any of his female classmates. He had found no use for his popularity back then because it had never earned him the attention from his Little Beauty. She seemed to have never gotten the hints he tried to send her way.
Daniel chuckled at her choice of words. "First of all, I don't believe girls ogle. Secondly, if they do, I don't think they would be the blushing type!"
"Oh don't be mistaken! Girls also ogle after men, just in a very different way!" May threw him a grin over her shoulder as she hung his jacket up. She thought of her back then best friend in high school who had such a crush on him during the first three years of high school. May turned to face Daniel and looked into his eyes. "You wouldn't even know they were ogling."
"Does that mean you also used to ogle after me as well?" He threw her a teasing grin.
She did but she would not admit this that to him at this moment. However, she knew she had to come back with a convincing respond. "Didn't you just say girls who blush don't ogle?"
May chirped a grin and saw how willing Daniel was to swallow his own words. She grabbed his arm and led him to the study. "Come on! The fax machine is this way!"
For the next hour, Daniel had faxed his documents and replaced the flat tire of May's Volkswagen Tiguan Hybrid with the spare one. Just when he was placing the flat one into the now empty spare tire compartment, he heard a ding from the elevator lobby. When he lifted his head, he saw May strolling towards him with Tessa in her arms. As soon as the baby girl saw him, she got all excited and started kicking her legs as if to tell her sister she was ready to run. When they approached, he noticed the baby’s name on her pink shoes.
Daniel was about to ask May who gave the name Tessa to the baby but changed his mind when his soon-to-be sister-in-law and his brother appeared from elevator lobby.
He found out from May while faxing his documents how Emily had extended an invitation to him for dinner at May’s home tonight. It happened when May received a call from Emily while she was in the middle of preparing dinner for Tessa. Emily had called to ask her to join her and Ethan for a night out, but May told her she couldn't because she had given her nanny an extra day off to compensate for her upcoming busy schedules due to the upcoming wedding. That was when Emily came up with the brilliant idea of a dinner gathering at May’s home instead. Then she conveniently asked to invite Daniel along since he got no plans and most likely 'no life' at the moment. May had to emphasize those were Emily's exact words. And of course, May didn’t let on that they had plans to meet up for dinner and Daniel got his second best actor award when he received the call from Emily telling him that May had invited him to join them for dinner tonight. When they both replayed the phone conversations to each other, May and Daniel were glad their plan to meet up wasn’t revealed to Emily.
However, Daniel didn’t expect Emily and his brother to show up an hour and a half earlier than expected. Now he really had to toss out his plans to catch up with his Little Beauty. He was secretly hoping for another chance to kiss the chef before dinner.
As they rode the elevator up to the Penthouse, Emily's curiosity struck again. But instead of being direct about it, she asked Daniel how long it took him to change the flat tire.
Daniel looked at his watch and answered without thinking. It was a fair question under any circumstances. He never thought it could be a trap. "About 45 minutes!"
"Really?" Emily pretended to be impressed and maneuvered herself to stand next to Daniel and nudged him with her elbow. "So you must have reached here soon after I called! Around five o’clock?”
Daniel nodded innocently and Emily went straight for the trap. “Why did you come over so early? We told you dinner was at seven-thirty!"