Riley and her best friend, Hannah, were part of a larger runners’ group that had signed up for the race, and after crossing the finish line, they’d steered their way over to the white beer tent nestled among the row of environmental booths. Dotting the way were kiosks highlighting the merits of solar panels and wind energy. An Adopt-a-Turtle tent and companies promoting environmentally conscious products, like reusable silicone straws and socks made from recycled plastic. At another tent you could sign a petition protesting elephant poaching and alligator skinning. There were gorgeous, luxuriously soft blankets fashioned from bamboo.
Riley was probably a little bit drunk by the time Tom bumped into her. A race number was safety-pinned to the back of his T-shirt, and when he spun around in Riley’s direction, his entire cup of beer splashed over her front. He’d been ridiculously apologetic as he tried to mop up the mess with napkins, which had required a fair amount of dabbing at her boobs. Riley tried not to laugh at his earnest efforts. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m such an idiot. I didn’t even see you there,” he said.
After a few minutes of casual chitchat, Hannah pulled Riley aside and said, “If you leave here without that guy’s number, I will never forgive you.” Duly warned, she’d marched back in and found Tom, who’d just returned with fresh beers for them both. She asked for his number.
“Why do you need my number? Are you going to make me reimburse you for that shirt?” he said jokingly while Riley tapped the digits into her phone and Hannah excused herself to go investigate other booths. While they talked, Riley discovered that they both lived in Cambridge (convenient). A Boston College grad, Tom worked in a homeless shelter downtown (i.e., he had scruples) and had grown up around Boston. She teased him about his accent.
“He’s hot,” Hannah said later on the subway ride home. “You know, in a Hugh Grant kind of way with that floppy hair and toothy grin and comical eyes.” And Riley had burst out laughing because what did Hannah mean by comical eyes, exactly? But on some level, subconsciously perhaps, she understood what her friend was driving at—and Tom did have nice hazel eyes, framed by thick, dark lashes. If they weren’t comical exactly, they were mischievous. Riley wanted to learn more about those eyes—and everything behind them.
The very next day, he’d called (she’d given him her number as well) and asked if she wanted to grab a bite to eat. The chance to redeem herself, to see him when her body wasn’t drenched in sweat, when she was wearing a little makeup even, was tempting. That he’d still called after having glimpsed her at her most unattractive seemed promising. She assumed things could only go up.
He was waiting for her in front of the Border Cafe, and even though Riley was five minutes early, Tom was earlier. A case of nerves suddenly seized her. Maybe this was all a huge mistake. Why hadn’t she suggested a double date, something where the stakes weren’t quite so high? They’d both consumed a lot of beer yesterday (a disastrous decision for work the next day), and it was possible, even likely, that her radar had been off. By this point, she’d gone on enough online matchups to know that the person you thought you were meeting was usually a few steps removed from the actual guy, a rough facsimile.
But Tom had broken the three-day rule and texted her the day after the run, which she took as a good sign. By the time she’d walked down the block to the Border, she’d convinced herself there was no harm in sharing dinner with him.
“Hey, there. Look at you. You’re even prettier when you’re showered,” he said, and she laughed, the earlier tension draining from her body as swiftly as water down a drain. The rest of the night turned out to be the most fun Riley had had in months. They devoured way too many enchiladas, drank three margaritas each. Tom told her about his work at the shelter, which involved checking men in and ensuring they had a cot and a freshly laundered blanket for the night. Somehow she’d assumed he was on the administrative side of things. That his work was hands-on helping impressed her.
Unlike so many other guys she’d met, Tom didn’t seem obsessed with making boatloads of money, a fact that Hannah later pointed out (correctly) probably meant his family was loaded. But that didn’t render his work any less noble in Riley’s eyes. Tom loved that she grew up in Michigan and quizzed her on things like whether she’d ever tipped a cow (no) and if she was a Wolverines fan (of course). Each question she considered seriously, lobbing her answers thoughtfully across the table like a well-aimed Ping-Pong ball.
Much later, when he asked if he could walk her back to her apartment, Riley felt a drunken swell of infatuation. Since Tom lived entirely in the other direction, Porter Square would be a trek. But she’d said yes only too gladly. If she’d been expecting him to spend the night, however, it soon became apparent that his intentions were different. Up the stairs, he helped her to her attic apartment, looked the other way when she changed into her sweats and brushed her teeth, and tucked her into bed.
All she got was a cool kiss on the forehead.
That night she dreamed of Tom strolling into her flower shop and handing her a dozen pink peonies. The following morning, a cup of coffee in hand, she’d called her father in Michigan. “So, Daddy, I’m pretty sure I met the man I’m going to marry.”
That she’d met Tom at a time when she’d been considering a move back to Michigan was slightly ironic. With her mom gone, she sometimes worried that her dad sounded lonely when she called. It seemed he might benefit from some company, especially since Riley didn’t have any particularly compelling reason to stay in Boston, aside from her job and Hannah, who kept threatening to move back to Michigan, anyway. And there were dozens of floral shops in Lansing where Riley could land.
But Tom was an unexpected, welcome road bump. A genuinely good guy. He read voraciously, titles like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, worldly, sophisticated books. On occasion, he’d walk over to her and say “Stop whatever you’re doing because you have to listen to this.” And he’d read aloud whatever passage it was he’d stumbled across. At night, he cleared away the dinner plates and rubbed her back. When she asked for the remote, he’d hand it over willingly so she could switch from the sports channel to a cooking show. When he knew she’d had a long day, he’d stop off at the corner store on the way home from work and grab a bottle of Kendall-Jackson.
Hannah fretted that maybe Tom was too good to be true. “I bet he’s a vegan, right?” she asked, eager to pronounce him a fraud.
But Riley had laughed and said “No, actually, he loves nothing better than a big, fat juicy steak.”
To which Hannah replied, “Oh, well, I guess he does have a few flaws, then. I was worried for a minute. I guess that makes him all right, you know, if you’re thinking of marrying him.”
To which Riley had screamed “Stop it! First he has to propose!” But she’d been secretly thrilled by her best friend’s stamp of approval. She and Tom had only been together for three months at that point.