The short version is we met through our friend David. The long version involves chance, kismet, serendipity (whatever you choose to call it) followed by a friendship that turned into a lifelong love. Charlie had recently graduated from his LLM at BU Law and just moved to the North End. Not knowing many people in Boston, he was out for a solo stroll in Charlestown when he randomly ran into an old friend from Missouri who was in town for just a couple days. They got to talking and his friend invited Charlie out to grab a couple of drinks that night with a former coworker - cue David! It just so happens that Dave and I were friends from Tulane, and after college we were part of a small crew that moved to Boston. Most of the time I couldn't quite keep up with all of his antics, but in the Summer of 2019 I came around often enough to meet Charlie on the Legal Harborside roofdeck. Although that's when we met, that's not when our love story started. We wouldn't get to that part until a year later, in the depths of the Covid summer. Charlie finally came back to Boston after spending 3 months in Kansas City and for the first time since meeting, both of us were single. After multiple evenings where Charlie would walk me home from late nights on (you guessed it) David's roofdeck, he finally mustered up the courage to ask if I'd want to grab dinner sometime. I awkwardly said "OK", smiled, and hugged him goodbye. After a few more strategic but not-so-subtle texts from Charlie, we finally came up with a real plan to meet up. Was this two friends just grabbing dinner and drinks? Was this a date?? We both wanted the latter, but god how awkward would that be if the other thought the former!! When we both arrived dressed up, hair done, & make-up on (well... just me for that last part), we took that as a pretty strong indication that this was more than just a friend-thing, but the nervous uncertainty still lingered. Nothing that several glasses of wine and an espresso martini can't fix! After dinner, while we walked through the North End, one of us (and likely due to the aforementioned wine, we currently disagree on who) hesitantly asked ".... so... this was a date, right?" We agreed that it definitely was and shared our first kiss right there in the middle of the street, outside of Regina's Pizza, with not a care in the world who was watching. And the rest is history!