The story of Ashley and I actually begins without us, about five years before we finally got together. My friend Reid Brannan was walking through a Food Lion parking lot and heard a voice from the distant past coming from a passing car: “Is that Reid?” The voice belonged to Tim Herschel. Reid and Tim and I were best friends in elementary school, but Tim moved away when we were kids and we lost touch with him—it was before the internet made it almost impossible to lose track of anyone. But the universe has a way of bringing people together, and after over a decade, we were reunited by a chance encounter in a Food Lion parking lot. So they made plans to meet up at Tim’s house that weekend, and of course I was invited. We picked up where we left off, as if only a week had passed since the good old days when we would have sleepovers at each other’s houses every weekend. But that first night, there was another chance encounter that would affect my life even more profoundly, although I didn’t know it at the time. Tim had been dating a girl named Lydia for years, and she too had a childhood friend over at the house that night, a beautiful strawberry blonde named Ashley Bartlett.

Both of us were single. We hit it off, flirted all night long, shared drinks and stories together, and even kissed at the end of the night. But that was it. We had both just gotten out of long and difficult relationships, and I think the timing wasn’t right for either of us. I thought about Ashley Bartlett a lot after that, and I like to imagine she was thinking of me too, but it would be about a year or so before we ran into each other again. Again, it was Tim Herschel who brought us together. This time, the three of us met at a bar in Cary next to the train tracks, and we had beer and nachos outside while we talked about who knows what. My mind and heart were electrified (it’s that girl! does she remember me?)—but I tried to play it cool, and so did she. Too cool, I guess, because for the second time we parted ways, and for the second time we had no prospect of seeing each other again. But the universe has a way of bringing people together. A long time passed. Our mutual friend Tim moved away to Charleston, South Carolina, lived there for a few years, then moved to Eugene, Oregon. I saw him from time to time, but never saw Ashley Bartlett. Until, one night when Tim was in Raleigh, he invited me out to a Mexican restaurant where he was having dinner with his friend Ashley. “Is it okay if my friend Josh comes out?” he had asked her. I don’t know if she knew me from the name alone; I certainly didn’t expect her to be there. When I got there, both of our hearts fluttered. (It’s her!) (It’s him!) She was sitting opposite Tim, so I took the opportunity to sit next to her.

We all spent way too long reminiscing and chatting over Mexican food and cheap beers (it was $1 Yuengling night), before migrating to a nearby bar, where we met up with other friends. From there, we decided to head to my house to finish out the night. In the parking lot, Ashley asked Tim to text her the address, but I intervened: “I can text it to you. What’s your phone number?” And so I finally got her number. I thought it was pretty sly at the time, but she saw right through me. We exchanged flirtatious smiles in the parking lot, and headed to my house in our separate cars (and yes, parents, we had designated drivers). Ashley bought some Fireball (a cinnamon whiskey) on the way and brought it over. The group of us partied through the night. At one point, Ashley and I found each other outside, chatting on my front porch. We leaned in to kiss each other, and ended up “clacking” teeth instead, as we like to say. (Maybe we had both had a few too many drinks.) Later, I somehow managed to bang my head on the bathroom sink (again, maybe a few too many drinks), and Ashley nursed my wound with a bag of frozen peas. At the end of the night, sleepy and drunk and happy, I dozed off in the chair in my living room. Ashley and Tim had to get me up to my room, but in my stupor, the only thing that could cause me to move turned out to be Ashley’s voice: she stood at the top of the stairs calling my name, while Tim led me up. Then I slept in my bed and they slept on the couches.

The next day, after sleeping off my hangover, I found that Ashley had left behind her bottle of Fireball. I wasn’t clever enough to realize it at the time, but she later told me that she’d left it on purpose. After a day or two, I sent her a text: “You left your Fireball over here.” After a little banter, I invited her over again to retrieve her Fireball, to which she stipulated that we could only hang out if we could watch the “UNC game.” Um… “You mean the State game?” I said. So the NC State-UNC game was our first date. That’s right, I'm an NC State fan, she’s a UNC fan, and we somehow managed to fall in love anyway. The game went predictably like many State games: State was dominating in the first half, but lost it in the second. Ashley acted coy and courteous about the game until the last few minutes, when UNC took it back—then she showed her true colors (Carolina blue, unfortunately), and really rubbed my nose in it. But it was all in good fun. That night was as if we had known each other a long time but didn’t realize it. On some level, we knew we were meant for each other. Our conversation could be deep or silly, we would exchange heartfelt nods or flirty glances, talk about our lives or banter about the game—as nervous as we were, there was a natural comfort we found in each other that’s rare even between old friends. And when I finally worked up the courage to lean in and kiss her, she actually said “Yes!” aloud (I don’t know if she remembers that; but it puffed up my chest a little). Neither of us would have guessed, on that seemingly innocuous night at Tim’s house so long ago, that our fates would be so intimately intertwined. But the universe has a way of bringing people together. I cannot imagine life without Ashley, or without our son Luke. Ashley is such a beautiful person, such an amazing mother, and such a supportive and loving partner to me. I can’t wait to marry her and find out what else the fates have in store for us and our growing family.