Love at First Bike.
The bartender says we look like Romeo and Juliet though we've only just met.
Hours earlier we unexpectedly crossed paths while he was napping on a bench alongside the Straight River where I was kayaking with a dude I didn't really want to be on a date with, but I decided to forgo folding laundry that afternoon to instead float downstream.
When I see a toned, blonde beautiful man rise from the bench high up on the riverbank, I start back paddling against the current to catch a longer glimpse. We exchange hellos and stares and beaming smiles. He says his name is Ethan. He’s from North Carolina and biking across the country with his brother who is miles ahead of him. It was a gorgeous Minnesota summer day despite the murky river full of farm runoff resembling a glass of chocolate milk and nothing I’d ever want touching my skin.
“Someone should write a story about you,” I said, adding that I’m a writer at the local newspaper.
The man I was on the date with could’ve floated all the way to Canada without me noticing. I was entirely distracted by this shirtless, southern gentleman who asks me where I think he could watch the basketball game later. It was the third match of the NBA Finals and I said not too far north is a small town with a few bars, though I’ve never been there before. Then we said goodbye, giving into the river’s gravity. Ethan stayed there on the bench while I was floating away— or was I falling? I felt a fairytale kind of feeling in a stream of Monsanto wasteland, with some random guy whose name I can’t even remember six years later. I do remember I had an aluminum can of beer sweating between my thighs, wondering how I could see that boy with the bike again.
The thing is, I wasn’t supposed to go on a date that day with the unremarkable guy and his unappealing kayak offer. And when I said to hell with laundry, we ended up going further downstream than originally planned. When he asked if I wanted to keep going by the time we reached his truck, several beers deep and developing a slight buzz and sunburn, I said yes, not because I enjoyed his company, but rather my love of sunshine, alcohol and a body of water, even if non-potable. It wasn’t anything he said or did that drew me into dragging out the afternoon, no emotion compelling the ride to carry on. But for some unknown reason that would soon reveal itself, I said yes, and we cracked another beer to keep the conversation flowing. Around a river bend, that’s when my eyes first saw Ethan.
Midwesterners love their boats, beer, DWIs— annual national polling consistently rank the region No. 1 place to drink and drive— agriculture, and abundance of lakes. Our license plates even underestimate the number of them, 10,000, when it’s nearly 12,000, not to mention 92,000 miles of rivers. But on that afternoon, on that rural stream, Ethan’s cross-county conquest intersected with my aimless afternoon to create an eyes-wide-open fever dream, dare I say fate, and a detour neither of us could expect or come to forget.
The rest of the time on the kayak and drive back, all I thought about was him, how incredible his ambition, cycling coast to coast, and his striking good looks. All muscle, glistening white teeth and the aura of a lovechild between surfer and shaman. After the kayak guy dropped me off at my apartment that I share with a crazy cat lady (who I found on Craigslist in an instant after getting a job at the local shrinking newsroom), I rush upstairs and instantly start making a care package full of fruit, protein bars and toiletries, the kind of swiftness you imagine using to retrieve a few essential items during a house fire. I grab my weed, most importantly, and take off for the small town I suggested he could watch the game. It’s getting darker outside and I’m flying blindly into the night on lust I’m convinced is instinct.
As I’m slowly rounding empty downtown streets, that’s when I see a bike weighted down with an assortment of bags, flags and found objects from the road leaning against an old brick building with neon lights glowing in the windows. My gut does a backflip and I get light-headed as I park, my mind running and heart racing; “What the hell am I doing?”
I walk up to the front door and he’s standing beside the bicycle grabbing his ID out of one of the many bags. I ask if he remembers me, and fireworks ignite in his eyes, or maybe it was the neon lights.
We pull up a neighboring stools at the bar, order a round of Michelob Goldens and watch the game, heads tilted up to the screen. I can’t remember if the Heat won or not but the next thing I know we’re sitting on a nearby bridge smoking. It wasn’t long before our legs were intertwined, a double criss cross applesauce of instant magnetism.
We managed to squeeze his bike into the backseat of my car and take off for my apartment. On the silent drive in the still of night, he laid his head on my lap and released heavy, euphoric sighs, it sounded like comfort, like he was coming home.
Next thing I know it my head is hanging upside down from my bed, now shared with a complete stranger, grasping at the sunkissed skin that caught my eye that afternoon. This is the power of manifestation and hormones. Time or boundaries didn’t exist, but at least I was sensible enough to suggest he shower first.
I ended up innocently kidnapping him for a weeklong romance. I’d get done from work and there would be flowers, a basketball and a pair of shorts resting on the roof of my car with a note saying to meet him at the park. One day, I returned home from the newsroom to him working on a blue bike in the yard. He found it for me, an old Free Spirit with a free sign on the street.



We biked and balled and excelled at pillow talk as an old iPod shuffle played music at random and every song would bring us to tears with the poignancy of narrating the moment and feelings of finding a love like that, a symphony stemming from such an impulsive decision. Lunch breaks were for swooning and making us avocado toast, savoring every second until he eventually needed to meet his brother to continue on his journey. I gifted him the iPod and supplies for his ride. He kept my silver ring of an Indian Chief to wear and wrapped his basketball in my beige floral bag. Anything he needed and whatever would remind him of me was added to his load, and again we squeezed it into the backseat. He laid his head on my lap again.
At a grocery store parking lot where his brother sat in the shade sipping on a cold beverage, unbothered, I dropped him off. I watched white pillowy pollen form a small wind tunnel above the concrete, distracting me from the swelling emotion inside. His brother asked if we wanted a picture together. I’m sure he had plenty of questions, but they had many miles ahead to unpack that detour.
They were off on a grand adventure that, months later, would intersect with my California road trip.


