I wish he had waited. One second; he looked away from her eyes and back to his drink and smiled. He smiled to himself and didn't mean for her to see. He didn't want her to see, to notice how smitten he was in the first second. But then again, he always told the truth and that smile was the truth. I wish he asked her if she always told the truth.

I wish he asked her if she always told the truth. Two seconds; he went to lift up his drink to his lips. He couldn't possibly look up at those eyes without some liquid courage. But this was his first night drinking since the Prohibition started and he didn't know how much to sip and he was stupid to think that she was worth the sip. Ironic how, in that first encounter, their roles were reversed. That moment was the last. I wish he asked her how much to drink. I wish he heard her answer.

I wish he heard her answer. Three seconds; his throat burned. He was eager. He was eager to get back to those eyes. He was sick of the blistering cold and longed to see the first bloom of spring. He noticed her hand gripped around the sidecar on the bar. 'What a pretty little hand' he thought. He noted the boldness of her red nail polish and how he liked it. I wish he noticed how tightly her hand clung to the drink. I wish he noticed something else besides the color of her nails. I wish he realized.

I wish he realized. Four seconds; he was almost at her eyes. He could sense her watching him. Those eyes could do anything her mind compelled them to. It was strange. He told me how strange it was every time - how one pair of eyes satisfied his nerves. Nerves drawn from the illegality of being surrounded by hoods and hooch. Nerves calmed by the eyes of a redhot herself. But he didn't see her as a redhot then. He didn't want to. He wanted to look into her eyes again but he was timid and she knew it. She preyed on it. She wanted him to look into her eyes. I wish he got up and left right then and there. I wish he thought about why he felt like he couldn't look back into her eyes. Why there was a small but significant part of him that wanted to look away. I wish he looked away.

I wish he looked away. Five seconds; he looked up and her eyes beckoned him to fall in love and he did. Her eyes promised spring, but it never came. Maybe the reason he could never stop looking into her eyes was that he kept waiting for spring. I wish he never looked into her eyes. I wish he stayed in that night or went to a different Speakeasy or didn't choose the seat right next to her at the bar. But he did. He did all of those things and nothing could've been done or helped. I wish he waited more than five seconds.

Five seconds is never enough.

He walked into the bar rubbing his hand. The first time he told me this story I didn't quite get why he was rubbing his hand. I had knocked on plenty of doors in my life and I didn't get why it hurt. But the first time he told me this story I wasn't really listening and he wasn't really telling. Years later, he told me the story again, partially because I was ready to listen but mostly because he was ready to tell it. I understand why. He was embarrassed. Not because he had brought this large pain amongst everyone, the pain being the result of the story, but because he really did love her. And he wished he didn't. Hell, I wish he didn't.

Earlier that night he had practiced the knock obsessively; he was absolutely neurotic about going to a Speakeasy for the first time. He practiced the secret knock relentlessly because he wanted this night to go smoothly. Sometimes, when we wish for something it comes true. But we don't take into account how it could never come true again. He certainly didn't take that into account. The knock was executed perfectly and the back office of a blacksmith's shop opened up to a long rectangular room with 4 velvet sofas aligned along two connecting walls. The bar top, which almost covered the entirety of the third wall, was accompanied by an array of 18th-century wooden stools. An unknown feeling ran from the tip of his fingers to the ends of his hairs as he entered The Blind Pig. The room flooded with people while the floor crowded with Oxfords and T-straps; the atmosphere was relentless. It drew him through the mass of criminals, away from the comfy cushioned sofas, to the uncomfortable wood atop the stools at the bar top.

There was one stool left unaccompanied and so he sat down right beside her. The blacksmith behind the bartop immediately complied to his order and a quilt was slid into his right palm within minutes, warming his body from the harsh winter that terrorized the empty New York City streets far beyond the secret door. These minutes gave him time. Time to survey his surroundings which included the striking woman to his right. She was sitting cross-legged at the bar, making the old stool look like it beckoned to royalty. As she clung to her sidecar with one hand, the other was lifting a gasper to her red lips. He watched her dainty hand, standing still in time, dragging the smoke from the butt of the Dincher and releasing it to the stuffy air of the bar. Her hand was so certain in its placement, which made him question whether effort was real or if he just made it up in his head.

A black bob-style hairdo swung back and forth as she laughed along with the blacksmith who was throwing shameless flirts at her and her two friends at the bar. He noticed her smile as she fixed her hair back into place.

"I don't know why, but I just made a B-line across the room to come and sit next to you." Screw him for never being able to do anything but tell the truth. As upsetting as it was to a young girl hearing the story twenty years later, the truth worked and she smiled down at the orange slice nearly falling off of her glass. "Hell, I'm not sure if that's a good thing, but I trust my gut and that means I trust you."

My father told me he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with my mother five seconds after he first looked into her eyes.

"You know, I always say to trust strangers - I think they make the best conversation." Her eyes made its way from the bartop to face him, lifting upward to meet his. He told me they were the type of eyes that pushed back on the gritty snow to let you know spring was coming.

I wish he waited.