Find Your Mate - Part 1: An Emergency Story
By Donnalouise

A friend of mine called me up one night and asked me to come over for dinner. I said, "Sure, I'll come." I drove over to Mike and Amy's and went to the front door and knocked. Mike answered and told me Amy was in the kitchen on the phone and to come on back. We both went to the kitchen and Mike offered me a Coke while Amy finished her conversation.

We sat at the breakfast bar and Mike and I talked, catching up on the news since we'd last seen each other. We don't get to see each other as much as we'd like; with Mike's job as a chef at an Italian restaurant and Amy as an intensive care nurse at the hospital, we hadn't seen each other since the last holiday. It was nice to catch up about the kids and what they were doing. Mike and Amy have two children, a boy and a girl.

Amy was still on the phone when there was a knock at the door. Mike went to the door just as Amy finished her conversation. "It was work, as usual," she said—there was a problem with a patient Amy had been taking care of earlier that day. Amy fixed herself a glass of iced tea and joined me at the breakfast bar.

I asked Amy who Mike and she wanted me to meet. I told her Mike had said there was this really cute guy—then we heard the knock on the door. I reminded Amy that she should remember I really do not like blind dates. She laughed and told me, "You'll like this one!" Amy said she had met a nice guy at the hospital who was a paramedic for the fire department. She thought I could get information from him that might help with my studies and that he was someone I would like; if it went any further, that would be up to the two of us. Mike came back to the kitchen with a really cute guy and introduced us. "Donna, please meet John Gage." "John, this is Donna. We have known you both for some time now and thought it was about time you met each other," Mike added. John and Mike joined us, and then we went dancing at a nice club not far from my place. We had a couple of drinks and danced until ten o'clock. We left the club and John walked me to my car. I followed him to his apartment and we watched TV and talked more. It was so relaxing; we discovered that we had a lot more in common than we had first thought. I was starting to get sleepy and wondered if I would be able to drive home. John asked if I could drive; I told him I thought so. He asked one more time, "Are you sure? If not, you could stay here." I looked at him and asked, "Where would I sleep?" I told John I wasn't ready for the next step, and he replied, "You could sleep in the guest room. I have a really nice guest room." I told him, "No — I'll be OK. I really need to get home. I'll call you when I get home." He told me goodnight, kissed me, and said he would give me about 30 minutes to get to my apartment. If I had not called him in 30 minutes, he would drive to make sure I got there okay. I told John I would be OK and that he needed to get some sleep too, because I knew he was tired and had to get up early. He was probably more tired than I was because he'd had a big fire run just before his shift ended. I said I would call him as soon as I got home. I gave him a kiss, got into my car, and headed home. I drove with my window down and my radio up, hoping I wouldn't fall asleep. It only took me 15 minutes to drive home. I called John as soon as I got into my apartment. I told him I had a really good time, thanked him, and said we could talk tomorrow. I told him he should get to bed. We said goodnight. I told John that I had really enjoyed the date and couldn't remember when I'd had so much fun. I also told him I was glad I had the next day off so I could sleep. John and I agreed he would call after he got off work and we'd plan when to get together and have dinner at my place. I told John we could ride down with his friends and pull the boat. That was fine with me; he should just let me know what time we were starting so I could be ready and tell Amy, so they'd be ready when we pulled up at their place. We had planned to follow one another down to the lake so that if someone had any car trouble we could stop and help. We talked a little longer and made arrangements to meet tomorrow to go over everything and make sure we hadn't left out any details. I asked John to come over for dinner and said that we would have a quiet evening at my apartment. "We don't have to go out to eat or go dancing — we can just stay here, eat, and watch TV." John came over after he got off work, about seven o'clock. We decided to order pizza and watch an old movie on TV.