Charming, but single

Sunday morning, er, early afternoon, after being up much, much too late with The Nurse on Saturday night, we finally managed to pry ourselves from sleep, only to hear the rain coming down hard against the window in my room.

A rainy Sunday. The best kind.

He suggested that we watch a movie and we decided on "Rent," which amused me, since most guys I've dated would rather die than watch a musical. We propped up against the pillows and watched and I tried not to sing along too much, seeing as I know all of the songs from the movie version.

I love "Rent." It is one of those movies that I imagine will always make me cry, like "Steel Magnolias" when Sally Field is in the cemetery and she starts screaming, "I could run from here to Texas and back. But my daughter can't! She NEVER COULD." Or when Maggie reads that ee cummings poem in "In Her Shoes." Or when Carrie and Aidan break up at Charlotte's wedding in Season Three of "Sex and the City."

I'm girlie girl and a sucker for a good tear-jerkin' plotline and when Angel dies in "Rent" and Maureen gets to the part about them being the lucky ones and then Collins sings the reprise of "I'll Cover You," well, I turn into a tear factory.

I am aware of this on Sunday morning and I'm trying to keep it all in check, but of course I feel the tears coming on. And I'm trying not to sniffle, because I feel like it is a bit too early in my nonrelationship for blatant displays of emotion and that I've recently dumped a guy for crying during a movie – although that was arguably different. I tried to slyly wipe my eye.

The Nurse noticed and stretched out an arm around me.

"Come here," he said, and he pulled me into the crook of his body and my head rested on his chest. And I tried not to cry too hard for poor Angel and the Rent family, which of course, is impossible as Collins booms in his deep voice the song that just months before spoke to his and Angel's blossoming love.

It felt nice, like I could stay bundled up in his arms all day. Like something a couple would do. Like what I' ve been wanting. Like maybe I've been overreacting to the things he does that annoy me, like his tendency to not plan in advance.

After the movie, we decided to eat lunch and then he headed back to my bed. It was still raining and I was feeling like putting the afternoon to good use, so I crawled on top of him and tried to take away the remote.

"Oh! Rambo is on!" he said, glimpsing around my head.

"What?" I leaned in closer to him.

"Rambo."

I stared at him blankly and attempted to wrangle the remote from his grasp.

"You can't honestly want to watch 'Rambo' right now," I said, pressing his wrist against the pillows and heading for his neck.

"Hey, seriously, 'Rambo' is on," he said, and in one swift motion he grabbed me by the hips and set me beside him on the bed.

At that moment, I hated and Sylvester Stallone and Brian Dennehy and Green Berets and the Vietnam War and trees and Rocky (just for good measure) and testosterone and boxing and guns and helicopters and dirt and rocks and remote controls and anything and everything even loosely associated with "Rambo" for ruining my perfect Rainy Sunday. I fumed silently and eventually took a nap, telling The Nurse grumpily to "wake me up when Rambo dies." And he laughed, because apparently, Rambo survives to make a sequel. (But not because anyone asked me for my opinion as to what should happen to him.)

As I drifted back to sleep next to The Nurse, who was enthralled with the movie, I started to get a feeling in my stomach – if he's stealing the remote and passing on afternoon lovin', then maybe we are becoming a couple.