After college I worked in a fairly large office with both men and women. Most of the people there were older than me but there were a few in my section about my age, and we got along well together. In particular was one girl about two years younger than me that was assigned as my assistant. Cynthia was a strikingly handsome young woman in those days but was in a relationship with a guy that lived with her. They broke up and she immediately began exclusively dating another, older man, but never married. She and I became close friends both at work and after hours, sharing many a beer together and unwinding from the day. We were friends but I think we both felt some passion potential though the only time we ever embraced or kissed was once under the mistletoe right around Christmas one year.
Not long after that season I quit that firm, made some good decisions and some bad ones, and many years later as I entered the last few years before retirement I again found myself alone. With my work being a small fraction of what it was when the economy was better I found myself with plenty of time to browse around the internet in search of news, history, articles of interest, and to look up old acquaintances.
I hadn't thought of Cynthia in several years, losing contact with her after she had left the company we'd worked at together. A search suggested that she had moved a couple of hours away, up near where I had a small hunting cabin in the mountains. I found her old email address from years before and fired off an email just to see what might happen, expecting to never hear anything in return.
Two days later I got a reply, and a most enthusiastic one at that. She indeed had moved up into the mountain area and was living not too far from my little cabin. In my initial email I had suggested that perhaps we might share a beer sometime when I was up in the area, and she wholeheartedly agreed to the suggestion. Oh, and she still went by her old name, apparently never marrying her longtime partner.
A couple of weeks later I had an opportunity to spend a few days at the cabin so I sent a message of my dates up there, and asking if dinner at a pub one evening might be possible. The next day Cynthia replied that it would work, and suggested a pub that was centrally located, and a time to meet.
I was relieved that the time she had suggested was early enough to allow an early meal without being too awkward later in the evening, actually was feeling a bit nervous before setting out for the pub, like a school boy on a first date.
When I got to the pub I saw an expensive sports car already there that I knew was hers by the personalized license tag, which made me a bit nervous about recognizing her after not seeing her in over a decade.
Cynthia was always into fitness whether it was running or working out at the gym. She was fairly tall but very slim, at least when I'd known her earlier, with red hair and green eyes. She was a petite girl with small breasts and a tight ass. Too many hours in the sun and the tanning booth had prematurely wrinkled her skin, but her features always made it easy to overlook the wrinkles, especially her smile.
When I walked into the pub I immediately spied Cynthia in a booth in the front corner of the establishment. She hadn't changed a bit, or so it seemed to me. I knew I'd changed some the last decade or two though I still like to keep my 6-foot frame in pretty good shape. I still manage to lift weights at the gym and do other outdoor work, have most of my hair and almost none of it gray yet. My waist is a tad bigger than when I was a 20-something, but so is my chest, shoulders and arms from work at the gym.
I waved and headed towards the booth, Cynthia's smile radiant as I approached. I caught a waitress before I got to the booth and asked her to bring me one of whatever Cynthia was having, and then walked to Cynthia's side of the booth to greet her.
"Damn, you're still a fine looking hunk, Harley."
"Yeah, and you still need glasses, Cyn. You look even finer than you did thirty-five years ago." From there the conversation flowed around what we'd been doing, where we were in life, what we were doing now, and who we were living with. Turns out both of us were single, and she'd gotten a large sum from the estate of her live-in partner when he'd died a few years ago.
We knocked down a couple of the house brews, had a plate of fish and chips, had laughed easily and often during the conversation, and were having an after dinner drink when Cynthia came right out with something that had been on my mind ever since she'd replied to my initial email.