One Year

One year ago today, Chris turned to me and out of the blue, asked “Will you be my girlfriend?”

I was completely caught off guard and it was the last thing I was expecting to come out of his mouth. My first reaction was to laugh. Mostly because I was nervous. I asked him why he wanted me to be his girlfriend and he gave me his usual response of “Why not?” He went on to tell me he realized he didn’t want to be with anyone else and definitely didn’t want me to see other guys. I said yes, of course, and here we are one year later!

I hate to brag, but I think we have a pretty special story and fate really did bring us together. Chris and I first met at FSU. I had just started the Master’s of Accounting program and it was my first afternoon in the teacher’s assistants’ office. I was the only new TA that semester and when I sat down at my desk, Chris asked Brittany, another TA, who the new girl was. She told him to quit being rude and go introduce himself to me. He did and we became friends as we worked together and had classes together over the next 8 months. When I ask him now about those days, he told me he always had a crush on me back then but didn’t want to be a home wrecker since I was dating Joseph at the time. I honestly had no clue. He graduated a semester before me and moved to Atlanta to begin his career at EY.

After graduating from the MAcc program and breaking up with Joseph, I moved up to Atlanta almost a year after Chris and began working for EY, too. Despite seeing Chris at an EY recruiting event on campus and when I interviewed, I had completely forgotten that he lived in Atlanta and worked for the same company. It was my first week in the office when we ran into one another. In our office, we don’t have assigned cubicles and since we had a space shortage on the tax floor, 11, I had reserved a desk on our 10th floor with some other friends who started with me. Chris worked in audit at the time, which is located on the 12th floor of our building. When he worked at EY, he was usually at client sites, but was unassigned that week and was working in the office. For no particular reason, he decided to book a cube on the 10th floor, too. It just so happens that he had booked the cube right next to mine. I remember that morning vividly: I was walking back to my desk and was so surprised to see him in the cube next to mine. I said hello and we spent a few minutes catching up. He asked me if I had gotten married yet and that’s when he found out I was single.

Over the next couple of weeks, Chris was either working in the office or in training at the office, and I found myself finding any excuse to talk to him or ping him on our office’s messaging system. Turns out, he was too! When he was in training, he would sneak me “pocket cookies” from their afternoon snack breaks. And they were oatmeal raisin – both of our favorite! He went on to ask me to play softball with the EY team for a game and since we played on opposing teams, we shared his glove. Then came the day he finally asked me out! It was a Friday night and I played wiffle ball with Kelsey and some other friends from work at her boyfriend’s house. Chris had been texting me all evening and used the excuse for us to hang out that night since his roommate and roommate’s girlfriend were hogging the living room at their house. I saw right through it and decided to meet up with him anyway. He took me to have dessert and coffee at Café Intermezzo. We talked and laughed a lot. When he dropped me off at my apartment, he was a complete gentleman and didn’t try to kiss me or anything. He followed up later with a very sweet text message, telling me how much he enjoyed spending time with me and hoped to do it again.

From then on, we went on more dates and got to know each other better and I found myself really falling for him. That’s when he surprised me and asked me to be his girlfriend. To be honest, I was a little hesitant in the beginning of our relationship, unsure of where things would end up. Now I know there was a higher power working that day we bumped in to each other in the office. He has made me so happy over the past year and I can’t wait to spend many more with him!