One year ago, on the eve of the 4th of July, my first on-line crush and I decided to go for it, and meet in person after a week of what he called "circling the airport, and hoping to land." Disobeying rules that Emily Post hasn't even written yet, I went for broke and suggested that we meet on his porch. I didn't even know if he had one or not. Public just seemed too, well, public, for the kind of intimate connection that we had already forged through commonalities and quirks. I drove over at around ten, after pressing his name and address into the palm of my most trusted amie.

I entered his screen porch to the sounds of Miles Davis, and walked toward his open front door and called inside, but no one answered. When I peered in, I caught just a glimpse of him pulling his pants on over his boxers, causing me to jump back onto the porch. He appeared moments later, olive skinned and smooth and beautiful.

The chemistry was undeniable. We settled into his couch on the warmest of romantic summer nights with a bottle of wine borrowed from a friend's cellar. At first, one couch cushion separated us as we exchanged stories of bohemian adventures and long journeys, but by the early hours of the morning, we had gravitated toward each other. We ended up horizontal, and as the earliest of illegal fireworks exploded in the sky as tiny bursts of fire, I imagined that we'd lie there forever.

We didn't, of course. But, as the fireworks exploded this Independence Day, we were horizontal again, lying on the boat, holding on desperately to the summer air, and dreaming of more nights together under the same brightly lit sky.