It was October of 1999.  I was a senior at Baylor University and Lee and I were an official “item.”  We’d had the obligatory *DTR sometime mid-July and we had finally settled into calling one another boyfriend and girlfriend, although I must admit I giggled every time I called him my boyfriend.  It sounded so silly and trivial for no other reason than I knew I was going to marry this man and “boyfriend” seemed to diminish that.

But whatever – he hadn’t put a ring on it yet so that’s what we were stuck with.  You know what else he hadn’t done yet?

Kissed me.

Ah, he was a noble lad.  He was ever the gentleman and I think he was trying to hold out until he proposed.  But that could take forever for all I knew and, being the little minx that I was, I was doing everything in my power to break his will.

I put on shiny lip gloss.  I bat my eyes repeatedly.  I giggled and grabbed his arm when he made a joke.  When we hugged I layed my head against his chest and lingered as long as he would let me.  And he was weakening, I could tell. 

Then came the crisp Texas October night.  We were standing in the parking lot of my apartment complex saying our long, drawn out good-byes.  It was after midnight and Lee had to get up early the next morning.  I was feeling brazen and had made it some kind of subconcious mission to get him to kiss me.

We were discussing things that only those who are young and in love discuss.  Those discussions that have a sole purpose of giving you extra time to stare into one another’s eyes and dig deeper into the heart of the one you adore.  They are cheesy and innocent and sometimes I miss those conversations.  We still have them but they’re usually laced with fecicious banter and laughter…which is also fun, come to think of it.

“What is your favorite physical trait?” Lee asked. Before I tell you my reply, I’d like to remind you once again that I had a mission to get him to kiss me.  We had been an official item for roughly three months and I was so close to cracking through his gold plated chivalry.

Naughty girl…

“My kissable lips,” I said without missing a beat.  His eyes widened and I grinned mischeviously.  I blinked and gave him my best Come Hither.

“Gotta go,” he said and with a quick hug he hopped into his1992 fire red Pontiac Grand Am and tore out of the parking lot, dust and rocks billowing behind him.  Like James Dean…only not as cool.

Dang! He was good.  I was terrible, but he was good.

He finally kissed me about a week later after we had our first argument. I can’t even remember what we fought about but I do know it resulted in him looking at me and saying, “This not kissing thing is getting hard.” 

We got engaged three weeks later.  He was so close…

Fast forward ten and a half years to Friday when I sat on the couch with the kids watching TV.  A Revlon commercial came on with Jessica Alba prancing around looking all catlike at the camera.  She was advertising lipstick.  When they zoomed in on her lips Sloan, who was nestled in the crook of my arm, shook his head slowly.

“Whoa,” he said. “She’s got beautiful lips.”

My head snapped down and he looked slyly at me from the corner of his eye with a devilish little grin and blushed slightly. Then he shrugged his shoulders all cool and said, “What?  She’s a beautiful girl.”

He comes by it honestly folks…

*Define The Relationship