He looked thoughtful. “I wouldn’t say I never do it,” he replied. “It’s just something I try to be conscientious about, ever since my sister yelled at me once for mansplaining.”
I laughed in delight, already liking his sister. “Mansplaining, huh? She called you out for it?”
Ian had the grace to look a little bit sheepish. “I was explaining something about tattoos to her, and she got mad when I started telling her that needles put the ink in the skin.”
At the mere mention of needles, my stomach flipped, but I did my best to ignore it. “Yeah, that’s pretty much textbook mansplaining.”
He chuckled. “It is. It really, really is. So I’ve tried to be a little more… aware of it since then. That’s something I try to do—own up to mistakes and work to correct them.”
Something warm and comforting flared in my chest, right around my heart. “That’s good, Ian. Really good.”
And at his answering smile, wide and luminous—well, the warmth in my chest only expanded.
* * *
“I swear, Annie, he was just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” I told my best friend over the phone as I pulled out of the diner parking lot. No kissing as Ian and I said goodbye—just a lingering hug, a quick exchange of phone numbers and a promise to talk soon.
In reality, I wanted to kiss him silly after he told me that he tried never to mansplain, but I managed to hold off.
For the moment, anyway.
“He was a great listener, and funny and sweet,” I continued. “Asked me about myself and even told me how much he loves his mom.”
Annie snorted on the other end of the line. “He sounds too good to be true,” she said. “There’s gotta be a catch somewhere. Dead bodies in the crawl space or something.”
I rolled my eyes as I nudged my little car into traffic. “He just seemed so open and confident about himself. I’ve never really met anyone like him. And the knitting class thing? That’s nuts.”
“This cannot be real,” Annie grumbled. “You meet a hot guy in a craft store and he shows up in your knitting class at the senior center? This is some romcom, meet-cute shit.”
I held in my laughter. “Are you jealous?”
“Yes,” she replied emphatically. “Extremely. Does he have any brothers?”
I smirked as I remembered George. “As a matter of fact…yes, he does.”
“Hmm,” was all Annie said in reply, but there was no missing the curiosity and interest in that sound.