Bowling, Our First Date, and Courtship

The first weekend of every month, a group of us would go bowling so I invited Clayton to come to our outing in October. He agreed. Usually a couple of us would go over early to get our names on the list for open bowling as soon as we could. Since I had offered Clayton a ride and it was my and Bridgette's turn to reserve the lanes, we were going to head out a little early. The Thursday night before bowling, he asked if Bridgette and I were going to get something to eat. Nope. Did I want to grab something before going. Sure. (WOOHOO) Did I want to invite Bridgette. NO! Bridgette is my bestest friend, but I wanted some alone time with Clayton. And she was not offended when I told her the plan.

The night of bowling came and Clayton took me to dinner at Charleston's. I was so stinking nervous. Clayton was super cute and really nice. It didn't help that his plate came with half the food mine did. Talk about making me look like a..well...You know. We laughed about it and still do sometimes. We picked up Bridgette and went to the bowling alley. After everyone got there and we started bowling, I made the mother of all foot-in-mouth statements. Clayton was wearing a pair of cargo shorts. The pockets had zippers and velcro. I went to flip the velcro open, but it was stuck and wouldn't pull easily. I innocently said, "I guess I should have gone for your zipper." I immediately realize what I'd said and turned purple with embarassment and started laughing. Clayton didn't get what was so funny...until later. As he was preparing to bowl a frame, it occurred to him what I had said. I just knew after that incident, I'd scared him off for good.

But to my delight, I was wrong. He asked me out to dinner the next Wednesday, three days before I was leaving for Idaho for a week. We went to Carrabba's and had a nice dinner. Then we got back to my house and sat in the car talking. He got brave and reached for my hand. We decided to go inside and chat and after a while... our first kiss.

It was hard for me to leave for Idaho. I wanted to do something nice for Clayton since I was leaving over midterms. I made him up a little goodie bag and left it on his door. We talked over the week and were so glad to see each other. Things quickly got serious between us. I think we both somewhere deep down realize that what we had wasn't run of the mill romance. It was hard for me because he was finishing his last semester at ASU so was often busy with school projects and studying. I took whatever time he could make for me. Meeting his family was a little intimidating, but they were all nice and seemed to accept me right away. I knew by the beginning of November that Clayton was the man I wanted to marry. It took him a little longer to decide. He told his mom right around graduation from ASU in December that I was the one. Now came the longest wait of my life....