Tim had gotten a new job and was leaving the Astros. I was sitting at home watching Dawson’s Creek after I went running, when he called me out of nowhere. He says there’s this job, where I would sit in the control room and watch the games on a monitor and log highlights. He can get it for me before he leaves. Would I be interested? I say yes, but I do have this other job that could get in the way.

 

“You don’t have to answer right away,” he says. “Hey, I’m starving. Do you want to go grab some food somewhere? We could talk about the job some more. Or whatever.” Hmm. Okay. “How about 8?” he says. “Will that give you enough time? … And I won’t show off anything this time.” 

 

So. We meet for dinner. He talks about how he has sworn off drinking for a month, because first of all he wanted to be more healthy, and then also because now he has a bet on it. His betting partner said there was no way he’d be able to stay away from alcohol for a month. But he says the hardest part was the first week, when he was at Spring Training, and now that he’s back it doesn’t even matter. And then he said it was part of remaking Tim as a person, because he used to be naïve innocent Tim and he wanted to get back there. This is because he met a girl, one that he really liked, thought he could hit it off with, but she didn’t want to get together because of his past. (I’m thinking “naïve innocent Tim"? You’ve got to be kidding.)

 

Then he says he felt bad about his little exhibitionist act after the Super Bowl. Says he was sitting around afterward, drinking, and felt bad because he didn’t know me all that well, and he just whipped it out there. I tell him I thought it was funny, but for some reason I wasn’t expecting it, and it just caught me off guard. I don’t know why it caught me off guard; we were joking about it all night long, and then he went to show me the garage. Hello? But I wasn’t expecting it, really, and I was just a little bit shocked. 

 

Then he says he really rather likes the whole exhibitionist idea; that’s how he ended up on his balcony in [home city] naked when he went home for the holidays. “How do you think my arms got so strong?” he says. This starts a nice little discussion about masturbation. He thinks it’s easier for girls, because he’s known some girls who can do it at work and he can’t. I disagree, because guys, all they need is their hand, and for girls, it’s a lot easier with outside stimulation. “Like a picture or physical?” he asks. (Somehow it’s not all that weird to be discussing this with him. Which in itself is weird.) Then he says that he has this friend, a girl, and they have a great relationship; they can have sex if they’re not seeing anyone else, no strings attached, and she made a videotape of him spanking the monkey. (I asked if he was on the balcony at the time. He said no.) But then she started dating someone and so she gave it back. 

 

Then we finish dinner and he says, “So. Where do you want to go now?” Uhh. “We could go back to my place,” he says. “Or Little Woodrow’s, but since neither of us really drinks… Let’s go back to my place; we can park there and go to the bar after that.” Well, I’m not all that keen on going back to his place, not that he seems to want anything, but still, it just doesn’t seem like that great of an idea. But we get to his place; he gives me the tour, says he wants to change. He does, and then I’m sitting on the couch, and he says, “You know, we can just hang out here.”

 

So we hang out, watch TV; he shows me his photo album, starting from when Tim was a baby. Then we re-visit the conversation we had after the Super Bowl, because I can’t get past it. “Yeah,” he says. “I was just walking with [coworker] one day, and saw you and I did a double-take and went, whoa, I don’t think she’s wearing a bra. I went, ‘[Coworker], did you see that?’ And he went, ‘What? Molly?’ So I don’t think he noticed. There’s a lot he doesn’t know. But after that I made it part of my daily routine to check on that. I mean, I didn’t go out of my way, but every time I saw you… Did you notice that?” I said maybe once or twice I realized he was looking at my chest; really, I didn’t pay all that much attention – I had no idea it looked like I maybe wasn’t wearing a bra. “I mean, like today, you’re fine,” he says. “You’re all covered, and so I know you’re wearing one. But it was summer.” 

 

That was it. Watched TV for a while, finally said I had to leave. He said, “Yeah, well think about the job and give me a call.”   

 

Much later, I told NSG guy about this encounter (and the Super Bowl exhibition) and he was flabbergasted that nothing had happened. I don't know. Like I said, it was a weird vibe. Soon after this Tim started dating [future wife] so I don't know if maybe he actually was talking about her? Or if it was just a fishing expedition? Missed opportunity?