Damn it! Someone beat me to it (again).

He was the only one that caught my eye last night. Scruffy is one tall drink of yum. Standing strong and lean, his short auburn hair evenly matched the fuzz along his chiseled jawline (hence, the nickname) with smiling eyes I couldn't stop gazing at and lips I could kiss all night. He looked to me like a decent mix of masculine and feminine: his movements were unaffected, easy and relaxed. Nothing like the typical self-conscious bend-and-snap body language most boys in Chelsea have. Nothing pretentiously butch about him, either.

We caught each other's gaze as he stepped outside the garden to join his friends. I saw him hesitate before returning my smile. I blushed at the realization that I had been smiling the whole time I was looking at him. I had to look away.

"Why don't you go talk to him?" my friend, NL, asked. JB nodded in agreement. "Because I suck at approaching people," I said.

"You're so full of it! I've seen you walk up to perfect strangers, do your thing and leave the scene with a brand new cirle of best friends." JB insisted.

"I didn't exactly have a schoolgirl crush on any of them" I retorted. "It's different when I'm interested in someone. I get all self-conscious and I go into my bullshit 'me shy, me retarded, me not so pretty' mode."

"Well I'm going to say hi for you." NL offered.

"NOOOOO! I will fucking die!"

"Let's go back in. You're being so lame."

I turned to look at him again as I followed NL to the bar. He hadn't taken his eyes off me, it seems. "I have no game," I told myself as I closed the door behind me.

"Shit, Nick--I think he thinks we're dating or something. He's followed us inside and he's looking!" Not even 2 minutes after we left the garden, there stood Scruffy across the room pretending he didn't just see NL put his arm around me. He kept his post for another minute and then went back out into the garden.

NL chuckled and put his arm down. "We're saying hi, Carlo."

"Oh hell yeah! I can't have him thinking I'm dating your kind." NL gave me dagger eyes as we followed Scruffy to the garden.

NL managed to charm his way into the triangle Scruffy and his friends had made against the wall. After I almost spilled a whole drink on him, we were finally introduced.

"It's John." Scruffy politely corrected NL after he is introduced to me as Tom. I shot NL a that's-so-your-last-cocktail-and-I-love-you-to-fucking-death-for-this look. He smiled in acknowledgement and proceeded to distract Scruffy's friends who seemed to have the same idea in mind. They totally indulged NL and pretty much ignored me and Scruffy.

Then NL and Scruffy's friends decided they all "need to go use the loo" at the same time. Very smooth, NL. Ugh.

Scruffy and I had a nice conversation despite some intermittent awkwardly silent moments typical of a first meeting. He looked straight into my eyes the whole time. The attraction was totally there and it made me feel so fucking pretty. It's rare that I find the balls to engage a beautiful stranger in conversation and feel like I'm actually making sense to him. It felt great.

We chatted for another hour or so. I forgot about everybody else in the garden.

Then he looked at the clock on his cell phone. The regret on his face permeated into what he was about to say. "I'm supposed to hang out with this guy I'm sort of dating and he's on his way here. He's Filipino, too."

Great. :-(

Yep. Story of my fucking life.