2015

I'd been skinny dipping in Croatia, seen the Northern Lights and danced under the rain in Spain (pissed outside of a club in Ibiza, mind), but I was about to do something more heart racing than anything I'd ever experienced in my life. I was about to tell a man that I wanted to start a relationship with him.

The light Tuesday evening sky was clear and the air humid as I sat cross-legged on a picnic blanket in the Domain, watching him walk towards me.

'Can I interest you in a slice of brie?' I flung my arm over the array of cheeses, breads and dips I'd laid out on the blanket.

He sat down and gave me a kiss. 'What did I do to deserve all this?'

I rested an elbow on my leg, put my cheek against the palm of my hand and looked at him thoughtfully.

'What?' His mouth was full of cheese and cracker.

'Nothing.' I smiled. 'How did the rest of your weekend with Mia go?'

He nodded and swallowed. 'Good. She only snapped at me one more time when I'd told her to put sunscreen. And she thinks you're cool and also a little bit crazy.'

'She could be right.'

'I think her exact words were 'crazy in a good way dad.''

'I'll take that.' Relieved, I reached for a chunk of French bread. I was about to use it to scoop some hummus when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that an Ibis bird had wandered uncomfortably close, his long beak hovering above my hand.

'Aaargh!' I dropped the bread and scrambled sideways like a crab, one of my hands upturning the beetroot dip.

'Sammy, it's just a bird.' Colin sounded amused.

The Ibis paused for a moment as if plotting how it would get me before venturing further towards the centre of the blanket.

'Go away,' I urged it, panicked. This time, my legs kicked the cheddar away and several crackers went flying in the air as I clambered backwards into Colin. I pressed my forehead into his arm. 'I hate birds, especially those ones!'

He laughed and hoisted himself up. I put my hand over my eyes and watched through my splayed fingers as he calmly took a few long strides towards the bird. The bird retreated and went off to annoy a family of picnickers nearby.

'I wish I could say I feel silly, but I really do hate those birds.' I told him. 'As you can clearly see, I'm not as fearless as you think I am.'

He sat down and the creases in the corners of his eyes deepened as he laughed. 'I don't mind protecting you from Ibis birds. What else have you got to tell me?'

I cocked my head to the side in thought and started counting on my fingers. 'Let's see. I'm scared of spiders, snakes, cockroaches, open flames and lots of other things .... ' My voice trailed off as I reached my pinkie finger.

'You seem nervous,' Colin noted. 'Should I be nervous?'

'No.' I looked down at the blanket. 'It's just that I like you and you're going to find out all the stuff I'm scared of at some point and, as you can see from my encounter with that bird, some of it isn't pretty.'

Colin lowered his face beneath mine and smiled up at me. I giggled and wiped a crumb from the corner of his mouth. He quickly moved his head up to kiss my lips. I kissed him back then sat up straight, brushing my hair out of my face.

'Okay Colin, here goes. I was called Sammy-two-rounds-of-sandwiches in high school and I didn't have a date for the formal and I do get nervous before meetings.'

'Sammy, in high school I only had one friend and I once gave myself an ink tattoo. I'm a divorcee and I suck at mini-golf.' He turned his palms up and hunched his shoulders. 'I'm not perfect either.'

'There's one more thing you should know about me,' I warned.

'Unless you tell me you're married, I don't see what could be so bad,' he said matter-of-factly. He broke off a piece of bread and surveyed the blanket for a dip that wasn't lying upside down. I nudged the spinach and cashew dip in his direction.

'It's not that bad,' I said. 'It's just that I'm going to quit my job and -.'

'Are you doing that because of us?' His hand flew up to his mouth to cover his chewing. 'Because you don't have to, you-'

'No, it's not because of us,' I insisted, waving my hands in front of me. 'It's because I'm going to find something part time so I can pursue acting.'

'Acting?' His eyebrows shot up.

'Yeah.' I nodded. 'I don't know if you've noticed, but marketing's not exactly my passion. Acting is. And I want to give that whole 'doing what I love for a living' thing a go.'

He looked sideways at me, a half-smile playing on his lips.

'I'm not like one of those deluded people you see on X Factor or anything,' I added quickly. 'I can act. Or at least I think I can. I'll take lessons.'

'You want to know what I have to say about that?' he asked.

'I guess?' Waiting for his answer made me feel almost as uneasy as the Ibis bird invasion.

'I say what are you waiting for? I say go for it. I say seize the day.' As he talked, he inched closer towards me until his lips were on mine. My skin tingled as his hand travelled behind my neck, as he pulled me even closer to him, as we took each other in, as I knew that from now on, there was no looking back.

****

2016

Okay, so I may have told myself that there was no looking back, but that didn't mean I couldn't go to another 'Old Skool' 90s party, right?

In front of me, Penny - aka the pink Power Ranger - did the robot to Daft Punk's 'Around the World.' I experimented with my moves to see if the dance routine to 'Thriller' fit the music. It kind of did. Bec and Ryan, who'd left their kids with a sitter for the night to come dressed as Uma Thurman and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, chanted the repetitive lyrics slightly out of time to the music.

'Hey Blossom!' I hollered as the song segued into Kylie's 'Step Back in Time.' 'This song's for you!'

Thora spun around and ran over. I marvelled at the sheer enormity of the fake sunflower on her Blossom hat.

'I wanna funk, I wanna funk, I wanna f-f-u f-u-n-k', we yelled at each other before launching into a running man dance off. I was clearly winning, so she slowed down and reached behind my head to stroke my Madonna ponytail.

'The 90s really were the best,' she slurred drunkenly and happily before shouting the lyrics in my ear, 'Step back in time!'

'You already made me bloody do that!' I laughed.

Giggling and still holding my Blonde Ambition ponytail, she danced in front of me so my long synthetic hair stretched between us. Penny the pink Power Ranger limbo-ed under it.

'That's gotta be one of the weirdest images I've ever seen,' Thora shrieked. Somehow I didn't quite believe her.

A vodka soda appeared in front of my eyes and I gave the man who handed it to me a sloppy snog.

'I never knew you were so attracted to Steve Urkel,' Colin grinned. Was this guy wearing his trousers up around his chest really the same guy that half of Smith Bank's marketing department desperately tried to impress? I snatched the huge glasses off his face, put them on and reached out to snap one of his bright yellow suspenders.

'Did I do that?' I whined, doing my best Urkel impression.

Colin nodded absentmindedly, his gaze on my chest.

'Oi, buddy! My eyes are up here.' I jabbed a finger at my bespectacled eyes.

'Sorry, that cone bra's distracting me.'

I looked down at the two sequinned pyramids jutting out from my chest. It was amazing what two bits of cardboard stapled onto a bra could do. The bouncer had called my chest a 'hazard' when I'd walked into the club doing vogue moves.

I placed the Urkel glasses on top of my head and smiled at Bec and Ryan, who danced up to us as the Friends theme song started. Bec looped an arm around my waist.

'So Sammy, how's the acting going?' shouted Ryan.

'Good!' I jumped up and down on the spot to the familiar guitar riff. 'Next week I'm doing a sofa commercial.'

'Oh, that's great!' Bec gave me a kiss on the cheek.

'I've been practicing flopping down glamorously on the couch at home,' I said. 'I think I've nailed it.'

'She's got an audition for a new TV show coming up,' said Colin. 'I can't wait to be her date at the Logies.'

'Hey!' I shook my hands excitedly. 'We haven't had a selfie yet. Bec, get Penny.'

Bec tapped Penny on the shoulder. Penny took off her pink framed sunglasses and beamed at the phone I held up in the air.

'I'm tagging Mei-Ling in this.' I uploaded the image of our cheesy grins and red eyes to Instagram, not bothering with a filter.

'Oh, Mei-Ling should be here!' Bec peered over my shoulder in an attempt to check she didn't have a double chin in the photo.

The three of us held hands in a circle and warbled 'I'll be there for you, 'cause you're there for me too' at each other.

'Ah, Mei-Ling wishes she could be here.' I read out her instant comment on our photo. 'I guess she's just having too much fun being a fabulous interior designer with her fabulous husband in fabulous London.'

I looked up at two of my oldest friends and our eyes widened as the unmistakeable intro to 'Wannabe' by the Spice Girls came on.

I grabbed Colin's hand and brought him into our circle. Ryan shimmied into the centre, moving his fingers in front of his eyes. Bec swayed her hips and swung her hands from side to side. Thora materialised from nowhere (I was convinced she had magic powers) and did her own crazy version of the electric slide. Penny joined her, sticking to her robot moves as we cheered her on.

'Slam your body down and ziga-zig-ah.' I clapped my hands and kept chanted the lyrics I knew I'd remember forever, even though I couldn't remember what I'd done yesterday.

Then to my delight, Colin stepped forward and did a hip pop and spin to rival Justin Timberlake. The man could move.

'If you wanna be my lover!' As I shouted the words, I shot my arm up, cocked my hip, threw my head back and gazed at the neon strobe lights above.

It was the perfect finish.

****

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