Him & I & Us

Jacob and I met in December 2004 when I started working at a thrift store for which he was already employed.
(That's a verbose way of saying we met at work.)

He worked in a different department than I did; he usually worked in the furniture department in back and I worked as a cashier up front. Back then, he always seemed so mysterious; now I know that's just because he wants to impress, but not come across as more than intellectual.
I remember finding excuses sometimes to go in the back when he was working. It helped, too, that the employee break room was in the back of the store. But why he decided, randomly and without provocation, to walk all the way to the front of the store just to put his head on my shoulder...I may never know. (He currently doesn't remember doing it.)
I gave him a few rides home; I couldn't bear to see him (anyone, really) walk in the blowing snow. I don't remember what my reason was for giving him a ride home when it was 70 degrees out. Or what it was when I had to wait 30 minutes because our shift-ending times crossed...
Well, five months after I started working there, he was let go. At the time, I wasn't even sure if he liked me, but I knew I liked him. So, being the stupid, persistant girl that he has forced me to become, I looked up his phone number, having only his last name and rough address to go by. I called a couple times, giving up eventually when the phone calls only came from me.
A male friend of his, whom I was lucky enough to befriend, came in one day after he left and told me, after a few minutes of random conversation, that I should just "be a 21st century woman," and that Jake did, in fact, reciprocate my feelings. (That only confused me more as the days went by and there were no phone calls from his number.)
One day that summer, when I arrived at work, one of the older cashiers --bless her; she was always a darling-- pulled me aside and gave me his cell phone number, and told me that he wanted me to call him.

I did. Otherwise the story would end there.

We kept in touch, even after I was let go from the company in August 2005.
My ex got in touch with me when I started working for a new company. He invited me over to his house for a kick back; I brought Jacob along. He was all that was on my brain; I completely missed the signals that my ex wanted to get back with me. (The other times that my ex invited me over --when I went alone-- he would claim to be 'cold' and want to warm up under a blanket.)
Our first kiss happened unexpectedly that following May. I was the DD at a bar for a friend on 18+ night --the friend was 21-- and, out of the blue, I get a text from him that says he's outside. He didn't want to come in (he would have been charged a fee anyway) so I went out to see him. We're just standing there, having a conversation, when he grabs my face and goes for it.
That summer we spent driving around on country backroads, listening to music (he introduced me to Poets of the Fall on one of those trips) and talking.
Finally, that fall, when I was out with the girls --and after a Woodchuck-- my friends encouraged me to call him and call him out on some stuff. I did. The next day, we met for lunch to talk about what was going on between us (it had been over a year of uncertainty) and agreed to "try the dating thing for a while."

I met his family that Thanksgiving (and appeared, quite unexpectedly, in their family photo). That Christmas was the first time I cried in front of him.
It's been nearly four years since then, and we've been through good times and bad times.
I can't wait for the next chapter of our lives to start.