He never could have been a permanent fixture in my life.  It was naive of me to think so.  But, despite feeling foolish at the end, he’d been good for me.

So I took that and ran with it.

We’d been good for each other.  That was a fact.  Regardless of what that bitter girl had said to me, something profound had happened between Heath and me.

I helped him heal, and he helped me move on.  The end of the thing didn’t negate the purpose of it.

His name was Kevin.  He was calm as still water and had the second most fascinating pair of eyes I’d ever seen.

They were a deep blue flecked with little bits of green, but that wasn’t what made them so unique.

First of all, he was an amiable guy, very go with the flow from our very first encounter, which happened to be a fender bender.

It was his fault.  I’d hit a red light in heavy traffic, which in Vegas could easily be mistaken for a yellow (we’re all color blind drivers in this town), and I’d had a brief moment of indecision, deciding whether to speed up or halt, when I’d stopped suddenly, and he rammed into my back fender.  It wasn’t a hard hit, but it was jarring.

It should have been an upsetting occurrence, but the way he handled the whole thing impressed me enough to actually cause me to give him my real number when he asked for it.

He was just so unfazed.  I was still catching my breath when I saw a lean figure emerge from the black Camry currently attached to the rear end of my Tesla.

He made a handsome picture, wearing a nice suit and dark shades.

I rolled my window down when he stood in front of it, looking at him, wondering how he’d react to the accident.

Men usually had two reactions when they were at fault.  One, which was how my ex-husband would have reacted, was to blame the other party, regardless of the facts.  Two was to apologize and talk about how best to proceed.

Kevin chose an extreme version of the latter.

He crouched down at my window, not close enough to be in my personal space, but making a point of not looming over me.

“My God.  I can’t believe I did that.”  His voice was soft and cultured and profusely apologetic.  “I’m terribly sorry.  I looked down for a second and didn’t realize I was right on top of you.  Are you okay?”

His cajoling, sincere tone had me at ease instantly.

I nodded, attempting to smile it off.  “I’m just fine.  Accidents happen.”

He took off his shades, giving me my first glimpse of his compelling eyes.

They were ice cold.  The rest of his face moved frantically into a smile meant to put me at ease, but the eyes, they were wrong, broken.

I was caught fast.

That incongruity, with him being so kind, but having those cruel eyes.

I found myself drawn him.

Of course I was.  His very expression was at odds with itself.

And needless to say, I’m a sucker for a complicated man.

At the time, particularly that first, bemusing meeting, I didn’t connect the dots of just whom he reminded me of that made him so attractive, but it was right there all along.

In many ways, though, he was the opposite of Heath, which was also a draw.

Where Heath struggled to express himself, Kevin over-expressed.

He smiled at me, a warm smile, to belie the cold eyes.  He was a tall man, but lean with an attractive, angular face.  He was dark in the way that I was dark, where you couldn’t have placed his race if you tried, a good mix of something Latin, I assumed.  With the exception of Heath, I’d always been drawn to the tall, dark, and handsome type.

With every contact, I found myself comparing them.  It was hard not to.  So much about them was either identical, or opposite.

In spite of myself, I was working up a tally with two columns.

Identical/Opposite.

Heath/Kevin.

One clearly meant for the opposite column:  He stated from our first date that what he wanted was a serious relationship.

Another opposite: He didn’t want to rush into anything physical.  He was content instead to take things very slow, letting the anticipation build in its proper time, he said.

“I’m an old-fashioned kind of gal,” I told him with a smile, “so I’m okay with that.”  I was more than okay with it.  It was, in fact, one of the reasons we got on so well so quickly.  It made me feel comfortable with him, knowing he wasn’t expecting to get physical right away.  I wasn’t ready for it.  Not by a long shot.  Heath had been an anomaly for me in that respect, to be sure.

He was an accountant (one for the opposite of Heath column) and his schedule was as consistent as clockwork (another opposite).

“Tell me something about yourself,” he’d say often, his tone imploring and endearing enough that I always obliged.

“Like what?” I asked on our very first date.  He’d surprised me by taking me to one of the best French restaurants in town.  There was no way he could have known that was my favorite, so I chalked it up to the two of us having preferences in common.  How lucky was that?

“Anything, to start.  I want to know it all.”

I found that sweet.  And refreshing.  So I gave him something good.  “I have slutty feet,” I told him playfully.  Yes, I was flirting, quite shamelessly.

He looked more than intrigued.  He was delighted.  “It just so happens, foot rubs are a specialty of mine.  See how perfect we are for each other?”

That first date, he didn’t try to steal a kiss.  I was learning fast that he was a true gentleman in that way (opposite column).

But he did come back to my house, shared a glass of wine with me, and rubbed the hell out of my feet.

He was good with his hands (identical column).

I went to bed smiling.

If I was brutally honest with myself, Kevin was, more than anything, a tremendous stroke to my ego.  He pursued me relentlessly, not leaving me guessing about anything, not his feelings or his intentions.  It was just what I thought I needed.    

We’d been seeing each other pretty regularly for a few weeks when Kevin said out of the blue, “I’d love to meet your boys.”

That made me uncomfortable, but I leveled with him as best as I could.  “I’d rather hold off on that.  Give it some time.  I doubt they’re ready to meet someone I’m dating just yet.”

Of course I hadn’t told him about Heath, but he did know about my messy divorce, and the fact that my boys were overprotective to a fault.

He looked briefly annoyed, but his face smoothed of the expression so fast that I almost thought I’d imagined it.  I’d never seen him show so much as a hint of annoyance before, so it threw me for a brief moment, and I stared at him.

“That makes perfect sense, of course,” he finally said.  “Whenever you’re comfortable with it.”

This was more the response I’d expected from him, so I took it in stride and didn’t give the incongruous expression that he’d first shown another thought.

I found out on our fourth date that he wouldn’t even consider letting me photograph him (identical column).  Not for any reason.  He was adamant about it, which surprised me.  It was such an innocent request.  What did he have to hide?

But of course he had nothing to hide, I told myself.  That was Heath baggage, clearly.

A quality of Kevin’s that I was pretty shocked went into the identical column hit me on our fifth date.

He was unreasonably enraged by phone calls from my ex-husband.

Kevin didn’t even get a true preview of how unpleasant our actual conversations were, but he reacted nonetheless.

My phone rang, I checked the screen, and shoved it back into my bag.