Part 2 - How hubby and I almost never were

How I met Hubby:  

• I worked with hubby, I was his manager, he was quiet and reserved having lost his father on a few months before.  I worried that I wouldn't be able to reach him as he seemed very withdrawn.
• I distinctly remember how he would approach me with a problem to ask advice but he would never let me do the work because he wanted to know how to tackle whatever issue it was if it came up again.
• He used to go to the coffee machine in the corridor; what I didn't know was that he smoked.  I only found that out after he had quit and we started dating.  How observant am I as a manager?!
• During appraisals he started to open up to me on a 1-1 basis about his dad, how he had received a diagnosis and died 3 months later; how he had nursed his dad for the last 3 months of his life and how he no longer could look at photographs of his dad because all he saw was how he looked just before he passed away. 
• I vividly remember feeling honoured that he had opened up to me as he was such a private person and I vividly remember him leaving the office one day and how I remained there crying having imagined what he had and was going through.
• During this time I was still a Jehovah's Witness and married to my second husband.  I was very controlled at home and having studied and been baptised as one I had learnt to supress my natural nuttiness and vibrancy for life.  I thought Hubby had opened up to me because I was so quiet and reserved and therefore "safe".  Maybe we were drawn to each other then and just didn't realise it.
• I went to work on the project side of the team and hubby and I continued to email each other and our working relationship grew into a friendship.  I remember an email discussion when hubby said he had a cold and my automatic response was "well that explains the green shirt - hides all sorts of cold nastiness."  - Hubby says he recalls this conversation as one of the first where he had a conscioius realisation that he liked my personality.
• The team used to go to the pub every Friday lunch and we all used to laugh and joke.  I distincty remember going there one lunchtime and tossing a box of tissues at Hubby and saying that I had come prepared for his cold so his green shirt wouldn't suffer.
• Many of us used to continue to drink and be merry after work in a nearby pub on a Friday and hubby and I got to know each other as our friendship grew.  Still, if anyone had said we would have got together we would have laughed at how ridiculous it was - after all, we worked together and that sort of thing was out of bounds and therefore never considered.
• Hubby once expressed his concern at how I was being treated by a man I was dating - I told him not to worry as the man was struggling to cope with the realisation that a woman could play his game better than he could.  That was the first time Hubby "noticed" me and he remembers the clothes I wore that night.
• The goodbye lunch time celebrations when I was successful in obtaining a finance role went on all lunch and after work hubby and I went to the pub to continue the celebrations.  We put the world to rights that evening and we learnt more about each others backgrounds. 
• At 8pm I figured it was time to go home and rescue mum and dad from Beautiful B.  I invited him along and we took pizza home.  Beautiful B interrogated hubby and extracted his life story.  As he said goodbye and pecked me on the cheek before leaving, Beautiful B's parting shot when I shut the door was "He is nice but there is no way he is only 32 if his mum is 70" - 11 year old logic because her nanny was 55.
• The next day the team joined me in an evening of celebrations in the nearby pub; the celebratiosn continued until the early hours of the morning.  In the pub I received a text from Hubby telling me he couldn't hug me in the pub but would later; I thought was shocked and though he was already drunk.
• Reading this back, it seemed evident that we were getting closer and closer that last week before I left the team.  All of this went "whoosh" as it sailed so far over my head.
• I was hugged later that night and the rest, as they say, is history.

Part 3 soon.