Sleeping Daisies

They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. They never say - or at least not when I'm listening - that it's the same for a woman. Or maybe I'm more man than a woman ever should be. Because it all started with a chocolate cookie.

He was - and still is - gorgeous. Stunning green eyes I would lose myself in. Jet black hair that curled at the nape of his neck. His forearm bears a scar from youthful adventures involving water and rocks: jagged, it zig-zags from his wrist to the inside of his elbow, a puckered mountain range rising from the soft plains of the flesh of his forearms. His skin is the colour of lightly toasted bread, belying his exotic origins, and is covered in coarse black hair. I used to watch his hands and fingers move as he picked out notes on his bass guitar; just the sight of the delta of hair that traversed his wrist and nestled in the soft, flesh part between thumb and forefinger would give me a little shiver (still does).

But more than the sums of his parts, he was a lesson in how easy it is to lose your head and your heart into a whole heap of trouble.

A glance. Just a glance as I passed by him on the street. The corner of my eye was the only conscious part of me involved in the first sighting of him. But my subconscious must have registered more than I realised, because when I had to talk my car in for a service there was a jolt of recognition. Where had I seen this man before. Was it in my dreams, because if so, I didn't realise I had such an amazing imagination. When I handed him the car keys, his fingers brushed against mine - it was like the static shocks the car door gives me once in a while.

He turned away, put my keys down and leant over the desk (oh, the beauty of that!) to pick something up. He turned back to me with a plate of double chocolate cookies in his hand.

"Cookie?" he questioned, in that deep, accented voice that gives me tingles and haunts my day dreams. "I made them myself."

And there is was. An innocent offer that involved two of my greatest weaknesses: men and chocolate. As the cookie crumbled in my mouth, so did my resolve. How was I going to get away from this meeting unscathed, unaffected by him.

I still think of that moment, all these years later, as a little hand reaches into the cookie jar. Her Daddy still makes the cookies, once a month as a treat. And when he does, the next night the little person waits at the door in anticipation for his arrival. And when she sees the car at the end of the road, rushes into the kitchen, drags a chair across the floor and climbs up onto the counter to reach a plate and a glass from the cupboard, puts it on the table, then tips out the cookie jar to find the biggest and bestest cookie, placing it carefully in the centre of the plate. Then she dashes to the fridge where she takes out the orange juice and, shaking in her excitement, pours it into the glass (though more goes on the floor than in the glass), and finally dashes to the door, where she grabs her Daddy's hand, drags him into the kitchen, then curls up in his lap, sucking her thumb whilst he eats his cookie and drinks his juice.

And her Mummy? My heart skips a beat as they sit there, the two greatest passions in my life sharing a special moment together.

Because it all started with a chocolate cookie.

Prompt: Sunday Scribblings #99 - Passion