by Tracey Lund

Created on: November 13, 2009   Last Updated: November 30, 2009

I had just received my expensive shirt in the mail. It was dark, satiny red and tailored to fit my measurements perfectly. It was definitely not something I could afford to buy on a regular basis, but this was a special occasion. The workplace Christmas party was quickly approaching. I had anticipated it since the first day I found out about it. I was going to try to win back the guy that I had had a crush on since I had started working there, or at the very least, knock his socks off! We had briefly dated the summer before, if you consider dating hanging out just the two of us with almost no physical contact besides the occasional hug. We went out a few times and we watched movies at my house while my two daughters were fast asleep. We usually ended up talking until the sun came out - something I always paid for the next day when my beautiful girls would wake me up about two hours after I finally fell into bed. I never regretted it, though. I was super tired, but at least it was a warm and mushy tired!

I couldn't help feeling a little unsure, though. We were both really shy and it was hard to tell if we hadn't had any physical affection because of that or if he just wasn't interested in being more than friends. The day came that my insecure, big mouth got me into trouble. I had confessed to one of our mutual friends at work that I wasn't sure how well it was going to work out. What I didn't say was that I was afraid because he still hadn't kissed me and I was scared to death to do it myself. I was too proud to admit that. In a small workplace word gets around fast, and before I knew it I was getting the "Let's just be friends" speech. I put on a brave face, smiled, agreed, but never let him see me cry and never once let on that I still thought about him almost every day.

Two weeks after my knock-him-dead shirt arrived, it was time to go to the Christmas party. My best friend met me there since I was going to introduce her to a recently single coworker that it seemed she had a lot in common with. We had fun laughing with everyone, singing noisy, off-pitch karaoke and moved on to the after party at a dance club. My friend and my coworker seemed to get along beautifully and my crush was taking an interest again. We dragged him out on the dark dance floor where he seemed to enjoy dancing close to me and I definitely enjoyed being close to him! We were the source of a lot of gossip when work resumed the following Monday.

The next weekend we had a double date with

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