"So, Ethan," I said, and pretended that someone, anyone once found me sexy, "here we are again."

Ethan couldn't even look at me.

I'm not a model. I know this. But I'm probably a solid seven out of ten. I'm something of a butterface, but I'm not a complete butterface. I've got a little of that 'fetal alcohol syndrome' look, but it's not a severe case.

And even if it were a severe case, and I were a complete butterface, that just isn't the way you treat a person. You look at them when they are talking to you.

"She's beautiful, isn't she," Ethan sighed. "Ethereally, awesomely beautiful."

The car cover in his hands trembled and he dropped it to the cement floor. The dry heat of the garage struck me, and immediately I was confused. We were in a garage. The damn thing was parked in a garage. Why did it need a cover?

"Just look at these sweet doors," Ethan smoothed his square fingers along its stainless steel body.

It hadn't struck me as weird until last week.

Sometimes you'd see people act this way about a Maserati. Ethan could afford one, too. Podiatrists make a decent salary, and he hadn't an ex-wife or any kids to support. That wasn't why I was so desperately attracted to him. I'm not a gold digger, though sometimes I felt like it. I'm not sure what else people would find conventionally appealing about the man. He was short and chunky, with a baby face and ruddy skin. I'm not sure what it was that I found so appealing about him, either, but I couldn't shake it. Maybe it was his completely placid professional demeanor. I had met him in March, when I still struggled to confront the vacuum of post-grad life: the structure of college now fallen away, the staccato chaos of acute grief, the political uncertainty that day-by-day became less a horror show than a farce.

It was at the end of January that I had watched a self-help video from some professor of clinical psychology on YouTube. He told me, in a thick Minnesotan accent, that I must slay the little dragons of my life before I could even dream of vanquishing the big ones.

So I scheduled a cleaning at the dentist and an appointment at the podiatrist, to do something about my plantar warts.

I saw Ethan bi-weekly. His office was an oasis of stability. Nobody died at the podiatrist. He moved slowly, talked softly, and looked young for his age. I thought I was crazy for wondering if he were single. When Abby found his Facebook and determined without a doubt that he was, I first thought I was insanely lucky. Then, I began to think I was just plain insane for wondering if he'd disregard all ethical standards and date me.

My opportunity to get to know Ethan personally arose on a late April Thursday, while he applied liquid nitrogen to the soles of my feet. He was talking in his calming, soft voice about the weather, I think, and I was too busy admiring his shoulders and his lavender dress shirt to pay attention to what exactly he was saying. My gaze fell to his tie, and then the pin stuck neatly in the middle of it.

"Great Scott," I had said, in a way that I thought would be cute, "is that a DeLorean?"

I had never caught a guy's attention so quickly.

Now, however, in Ethan's garage, I was starting to wish I hadn't ever bothered.

"I'd like to take this baby back to 1985," Ethan drooled.

"Yeah," I said, "it's not actually a time machine, though."

"Not yet," Ethan opened the gull-wing doors, and sank into the driver's seat. "I'm still working on the flux capacitor-"

"Replica." I said.

"What?" And for the first time since we had entered his garage, his eyes- his beautiful, light brown, sexy eyes- met mine.

"Replica," I repeated myself. "The flux capacitor's a replica."

"Oh yeah," and he was checking out the steering wheel, "made precisely according to Doc Brown's blue prints, which I have by the way. I got them at this year's Profiles in History Auction, can ya believe it?"

"I can believe it." I said, and silently scolded myself for not specifying replica prop. As in, it's not real. Ethan had to have known that. He was a scientist. More of a scientist than I was, even. And yet, somehow, I wasn't convinced that he did.

"Yes sir, yes sir," Ethan said, "I can sit here all day."

That was not an idle threat. He really could. He had done it before.

I thought I was the sexiest woman to have ever endured plantar warts the day Ethan asked for my email address. It was right after my last treatment. It seemed like a logical jumping point from which an unethical romantic relationship could spring forth. Sure, he was only going to send me the link to his blog about the DeLorean he was building. I didn't care. I thought it was cool. Back to the Future happened to be my favorite 80s movie franchise. It was his as well. His dedication to the project was mind-blowing. I had never been so dedicated to anything in my life. He had sourced every single part of the DeLorean. His goal was to obtain all of them over the course of his build, so that even the seat belt buckles would be screen accurate.

It had seemed to me, at the time, that he had this quiet ability to bring life to his personal vision of beauty and order in the fireball of turbulence the world around us had become. So be it that his personal vision of beauty and order was a replica time machine.

I was completely in awe.

I had broached the topic of meeting up in person extremely carefully. I framed it as that I wanted someday to see the car, what a cool project, such devotion and creativity etc. Imagine my great joy and surprise when he warmly invited me to "come over and see it whatever day [I] wanted" (given, of course, that he had off.)

That day was two weeks ago. I had spent hours picking out my clothing. What would make me look sexy, but not slutty. What would make me look like I wanted to date him, but not too much like I thought this meet-up constituted a date. I wore lipstick, but not red lipstick.

That first day, we hung out in his garage for an hour and a half. He explained every single detail of the build. I was in heaven. Some of what he talked about required more technical knowledge to truly appreciate than what I had. I didn't mind. He had invited me to his house and I loved listening to him speak.

He offered me a Powerade afterwards. I didn't want to overstay my welcome, so I made up something about having to take Abby to the shop to pick up her Jeep after its oil change. He said if I wanted to hang out some more, he'd be free again the next week.

And I took him up on it.

That next Thursday, we hung out for another hour, again in his garage. It was less charming the second time. I wore red lipstick. He spent the date mostly on a mechanic's creeper, beneath the DeLorean's chassis, humming "The Power Of Love," Huey Lewis's companion song to the original 1985 movie. No Powerade was offered. Instead, he cut the date short at the fifty minute mark, when he rolled out from under his car, stood up and announced that he needed to go to the auto part store and get a "higher precision drive torque wrench." He didn't ask me to tag along.

I would have taken the hint, had he not emailed me when I got back from the mall yesterday, and asked if I wanted to hang out for a little. I thought maybe the last meet up was a one-off. I had HOPED that the last meet up was a one-off.

When he led me back to his garage this afternoon, I felt my stomach drop.

"Okay," I said, as Ethan continued to play with his steering wheel. "You know I was thinking, maybe we could, I dunno, watch Back To The Future, like together."

He seemed to consider this suggestion. And then he shook his head.

"Nahh," Ethan climbed out of the DeLorean and set down the doors. "I just watched it this morning. I don't think I wanna see it three times in a twenty-four hour period."

"Let me get this straight. In the last 24 hours you watched the same movie, by yourself, twice?" I watched Ethan pace around his DeLorean, like a pagan circling a sacred altar.

"Nah," Ethan again shook his head, but didn't take his eyes off his car, "my dog was there."

Before I could respond, this happened:

"I've been meaning to marathon all three movies with my baby though," he lit up at this thought.

"Your baby?" And it all made sense. I had been friend-zoned. He had a secret girlfriend. One not on Facebook. Probably a more attractive girl than me, probably smarter. He was so friendly because he had no intention of breaching ethics laws for me. It probably hadn't ever crossed his sweet little mind.

"Yup," Ethan looked around his garage's ceiling, "I wonder if I could hang a television in here. Can't drive her into the living room."

Oh God.

"You're kidding, right?" I asked. I don't know what I was expecting. I don't think he heard me.

"Would you look at that ass," he marveled at the DeLorean's rear bumper.

"Ethan," I said. There must have been some change in my tone, because his gaze met my eyes.

"Ethan," I repeated. I had enough. This was do or die. "Do you want to make out?"

His ruddy baby face flushed and he looked down at his feet. I still would have thought it was cute had I not thought I saw a trace of disgust cross over his face.

"Jeeeze, Leela, I know you like to watch, but," he shook his head, "we're not gonna do that while you're here."

***

I sat in my car, in my driveway, for a good fifteen minutes, just staring at my phone. Abby had sent me a text message.

            How did it go?

I didn't know what to say.

I had been rejected for a DMC-12 DeLorean. What can a person say about that?

I ended up typing the first thing that came to my mind.

            Ok. I give up. I'll ask Buzzfeed.

***

A/N: Too much? Tell me if it's too much.