247. Good Morning

"Hey, you guys aren't having sex right now, are you?"

Cayden and I froze mid-thrust when we heard Rae's voice just outside our door. We were, in fact, having sex. It was Saturday morning, and Cayden and I both have a tendency of waking up horny.

"Shhh... don't move," I whispered over my shoulder to Cayden. The angle was just right, and I was afraid if he moved even an inch we'd lose it. Our momentum was already shot.

"Oh... uhh... wow, I was just kidding, but you totally are having sex," Rae realized. "Awkward. Sorry!"

Cayden and I laughed from our frozen position, me on my knees and forearms, him on his knees behind me.

"No worries!" I said.

"Well, I know you're busy, but we're all going to run out to get coffee. Do you guys want anything?" I could tell she was blushing on the other side of the door.

"Umm, I'll take a latte. Skim milk. Two Splenda!" I found it rather amusing that I was giving my coffee order while Cayden was in between my legs.

"Black coffee for me, please!" Cayden called out, holding onto my hips for balance.

"Got it!" Rae said.

As soon as we heard the voices fade and the front door slam shut, we picked up where we left off, only the mood had changed. What started as passionate, aggressive morning sex had turned into playful, humorous morning sex, where neither of us could stop laughing. We were so busted.

"That was priceless," Cayden said afterward, lying on his back, both panting and laughing.

"Priceless and impressive! You froze like a statue. A very pornographic statue, might I add." I tried to imagine what it would have looked like if Rae had walked in on us. I don't think we would have been able to look each other in the eye the rest of the weekend. I was proud to say that I was 26 and had never been caught in the act before.

"Get over here," he said, pulling me on top of him. For a second I thought he was ready for round two, which would have been amusing because my legs were still shaking from round one. But instead he just cupped my face in his hands and looked down at me.

"You're so beautiful," he said.

You know you found a keeper when he thinks you're beautiful first thing in the morning.

----

They didn't come back with my latte. Instead they brought back something called an Iced Turbo from Jo's Coffee, the walk-up cafe around the corner from our rental house. It was the second best part of my morning, just behind the wake-up sex. It was the most delicious coffee I'd ever tasted. If I could wake up to Cayden and an Iced Turbo every every day, my life would be complete. Well, I guess just Cayden would do.

We spent the afternoon walking up and down South Congress, stopping in vintage shops, over-priced clothing stores and a costume shop with the biggest variety of wigs and top hats I'd ever seen. When we walked into Uncommon Objects, I knew I was in trouble. I could spend days going through other people's junk drawers. I remembered my younger sister saying Uncommon Objects was like "going through Grandma's attic." She was right. There were stacks of old black and white photos of various families, vintage spoons, miniature tea sets, costumes that looked like they were from the Revolutionary War, dolls with no hair, old typewriters, pretty much anything you can think of.

"I don't get it," Cayden said, picking up different font faces for a letterpress. "I don't understand stores like these. What is all this stuff?"

"Ah, I love it," I said, running my finger along a shelf of oddly shaped shot glasses. "Sure, it looks like 'stuff,' but all of this came from somewhere, from someone. Doesn't it make you curious?"

"Not really."

Agree to disagree. I don't know why I was so intrigued by such random items, but I wanted to know their story, where they came from. When my grandmother passed away, my mom cleaned out their house and brought back a huge box of old letters my grandfather had written to his mom when he was in WWII. I sat on the couch one night and read a huge stack of them, carefully opening each one as if the fragile paper would crumble in my hands. His cursive handwriting was so beautiful, yet hard to read. I made me sad to realize my grandkids would never see my handwriting. I don't even remember what it looks like anymore.

"I won't be offended if you want to move on to the next shop," I said. "I'll catch up."

Cayden joined the other guys outside while Joyce, Rae and I inspected old cowboy boots, piano keys and costume jewelry. I felt like I was on a clean version of Hoarders.

"Look," I said, pointing down at our feet when we were back outside with the boys. "Only Chaz looks like a tourist."

We looked down and saw that all of us were wearing Toms except Chaz. We were a walking Toms ad.

Mitch and Vanessa met up with the six of us at Big Top Candy Shop, where I may or may not have spent too much money on saltwater taffy. It was safe to say that if a nuclear bomb would have gone off right then, the six of us could have survived on beef jerky and taffy for at least a week.

"So what's the plan for tonight?" Mitch asked while we stood in line at Hopdoddy's.

"Well, we'd like to see the bats," Joyce said.

"And then we're cooking ribs at our place," I said.

"And then you and Vanessa are taking us out because we don't know where to go around here," Rae said.

"We're too old for the Dirty Sixth, " I said. Sixth Street was a popular street in downtown Austin lined with bars on both sides. I'd had many a drunken nights there, and my 26-year-old liver quivered at the thought of going back. We definitely weren't in college anymore.

"We'll take you to West Sixth," Vanessa said. "It's a lot cleaner and more of an older scene."

Older scene = fewer drunk college boys dry humping our legs. Bring it on.