(I have been busy attempting to write a romance novel. It has turned out to be pretty hard. After three long months, here’s what I have.)

They kissed. A really good kiss. A soap opera kiss.

He broke away. He needed to go to work. Before he left, he turned swiftly and put his breakfast bowl in the sink, his comb-over dancing in the breeze of his movement. He grabbed his lunch and as he went out the door declared triumphantly “love ya dear.”

He was gone. But she knew it was not the last time she would hear from him. He would call at lunch. He called and asked how things were “going.” She replied “fine.” And he said, “you’re the one that’s fine.”

“Oh, honey. What if someone overheard you?” she gasped. But secretly she didn’t care. In fact she inwardly hoped that somehow their call was being picked up faintly by the neighbors.

He had a similar thought. He blushed. But she did not know that. He kept his blushings to himself. He knew that he was the “Meatloaf King” in her eyes. “When I get home, I’m going to give you a kiss. Right on the mouth.” With that he hung up.

She held the phone and blushed.

When he arrived home, she was there. “Hi ya,” he said as he came through the door.

“Hi ya,” she replied.

He jumped. “I’m sorry. I thought you said ‘hi-ya,’ like a ninja says when it is striking.”

“Oh, you get spooked by that every day,” she replied coyly.

Then he kissed her. And this was no normal kiss. It was a kiss right on the mouth. She passed out in his arms.

He carried her to the couch and propped her up with the laundry resting on her lap so that when she awoke she could get right back into the swing of things.

That night he read the paper in bed, as she said something sweet, like “good night sweetie.”

“Good night dear,” he replied from behind the paper.

His nice reply was too much for her fragile body and she again passed out. This time until breakfast. She awoke to find herself propped up by the toaster with two pieces of bread balanced on her forearm.

“If this isn’t love,” she said, “then I don’t want to know what romance is.”

And so she never found out.