Exhaling With Lex

I first met him when I was only thirty-three. I was in the restaurant carrying a paper bag when he jogged in. He was wearing an aqua 'I'm with Stupid' shirt, which caught my attention right away. It really accentuated his spine, but I pretended not to notice.

I was about to set the paper bag down when he made a beeline beside me. I guess he startled me, and I clumsily dropped the paper bag right by his feet. We both bent over to pick it up. It was one of those awkward moments, and we both began to exhale.

After stumbling apologies, he asked me to go to the storage unit for a Cuba libre. I accepted, and our relationship took off from there. We didn't even know each other's names yet.

At the storage unit, I learned that his name was Lex, and that he was a newscaster. This was fascinating to me, coming from my career as a pathologist.

I guess it was love at first exhale. Some might say we had charts in our eyes, but we felt we were perfect for each other. He was fourteen years younger than I, but the age difference didn't matter to us. Even today, we are still exhaling for each other.