Stunned

It’s been a crazy week. I feel like I’ve consumed my body weight in chocolate, cheese and champagne. Also adorable cakes and cookies shaped like Hermes Kelly bags and Alexander McQueen boots at the Berkeley Hotel’s prêt-a-portea.

I hit the gym hard on Friday and Saturday to make up for the three days of previous neglect, but now I’ve got the miserable winter cold/flu-type-thing and so going this morning was out of the question. (Lest you think I’m making excuses, I can barely type without reaching for a tissue, and definitely would have called in sick would it not have been way too suspicious after a two-week holiday. Plus, heaven forbid there is one journalist in our entire magazine who is not mobilized 24:7 on Madam Oops I Did It Again.)

Been out twice more with Bachelor No. 2, and had I written this post yesterday – as I’d intended, and in fact, had started -- this would have been an entirely different (and much gooey-er) post.

BN2 treats me like I am the most gorgeous thing that has ever crossed his line of vision. He seemed so sincere – and so far from his player best friend – that I didn’t think it was all a line.

Until yesterday.

We’re sitting in my favorite local gastropub drinking tea (well, he’s having coffee) and he starts talking about how he wishes he’d met me a few months later. He wants to be free to run around partying with his best friend and shag whomever he feels like.

I can’t really blame him. He’s just out of a 10-year marriage, the last few years of which sound pretty grim (that’s what I’ve inferred – he’s circumspect about the ex and certainly doesn’t use cheap shot descriptives).

But I was stunned. Stunned because of the “hi beautiful” texts, and the phone calls, and the general keen-ness. Stunned because it was only the third time we’d been out. Stunned because I’d been sitting around mildly freaking out about the 10-year marriage and when I might be expected to get over myself and my own fears and meet the product of 10-year marriage (aka, his 18-month-old daughter). Stunned because he’s British and I’ve never met any man – let alone a British one – who’s so direct.

We walked down the road to have dinner. I went to attempt to pay for my half and he said: “I’m assuming we’ll see each other at least one more time.”

Honestly, I’m not so sure.