The Thief and his Princess

I thought I would share my husband and I's love story, this is how we met and eventually fell in love :)

I was a naive innocent sixteen year old who had just started her first job at a local grocery store. I started working as a bag sacker/shelf stocker, I was the only girl who worked in the back with the guys. I was (and still am) a tom boy, I loved working with and being one of the guys. My siblings and I were homeschooled and so as I look back I'm sure most of my coworkers thought I was weird and a highly innocent teenager. I didn't cuss (which makes me laugh now for it's hard to go a day without a cuss word) I didn't drink and I wanted to wait til marriage to have sex. I was a very good girl.
I had been working there for a few months when Cody got a job there. I had a boyfriend at the time but that didn't stop him from flirting every chance he got. I didn't not like him but I sure didn't like him. He had probably made some sexual joke or cussed and I took offense, that added to his "manwhore-ness" made him a "jerk". Looking back Cody was always very sweet to me, it was my innocent side that thought he was a rude manwhore.
So in the middle of January of 2006 my boyfriend's little brother calls and breaks up with me for him. (Yeah. That actually happened. Idiot.) So the next day I went to work and told the guys I worked with (including Cody) that they needed to go beat someone up for me. It didn't take Cody long to jump at his chance.
It had only been days since the breakup and I was on my fifteen minute break at work. Cody was sitting across from me in the tiny excuse for a break room. He casually mentions that we should go out to dinner and a movie and apparently I tell him that we should just stay friends. I honestly don't have much memory of this but he remembered the conversation word for word.
Months passed and now it was April, time for prom.
Cody said his girlfriend from a different town couldn't go to prom with him and since I was homeschooled and couldn't go to prom otherwise asked if I would like to go to prom with him, as friends. I accepted.
*Side note: He was dating a fourteen year old, another reason I thought he was a stupid man slut. I later found out he could have taken his girlfriend to prom but he wanted a "date" with me so maybe I'd realize I wanted to date him.*
I remember him coming to my house to meet my parents, I remember him sitting on the couch next to me as he explained to my parents that he would come over at such time and we would go eat at some place and he would bring me home by whatever time. Those details are fuzzy, what I remember clearly is looking over at
him as he is talking to my family and thinking.
"Oh no. Crap... You like him!"
I remembered something just feeling right. Seeing him sitting next to me, in my parents house, surrounded by my family. It felt right.
I walked him to his truck as he was getting ready to leave and we stood there talking for a few minutes, I couldn't tell you a thing we said but I did hug him goodbye.
After returning to my house and my family giving negative comments, warning me not to like him and that "he wasn't good boyfriend material". I talked myself out of my feelings within a couple hours.
Within a week or two he had to call me and tell me he couldn't take me to prom because his girlfriend had gotten upset and didn't want him taking another girl to prom, friend or not. Which I understood so I told him that was fine.

And my teenage rebellion begins.

A local stoner skateboarder came into my life and we started talking. I told him he would have to stop doing drugs if he ever wanted a life with me well he did and so being a stupid-ass seventeen year old I thought it was true love. I remember sitting on break with Cody and him being in a bad mood and going into a rant telling me he didn't go out and party every weekend, he had never touched a drug in his life and that he couldn't understand why I would want to be with someone like that. I was hurt and mad he had gotten upset, I told him some lame excuse that he has changed now or something. A few months prior to this Cody had given me a Papa Roach CD which I loved, well suddenly he wanted it back saying he had let me borrow (I still swear to this day he gave it to me and he still thinks he said "borrow") Well I was still upset he had gotten mad at me and so I must have said something along the lines of okay I will. Yeah I had no plans of giving it back. (Which is actually a good thing cause he went out a bought a new CD, and lost it before finally got together all the while I still have the orginal)
Cody stopped working at the store not too long after this, he didn't keep any harsh feelings over the CD and was still nice to me whenever he saw me. I didn't hardly see Cody for the next two and a half years, he had two sweet little girls during this time.
So Stoner and I were together since I was seventeen, there were signs. So many signs. But after my father kept gently mentioning reasons why I shouldn't be with him and I kept ignoring him he realized I had made up my mind and he had better accept this guy for a son-in-law because I planned on marrying him. We got married in Febuary of 2008 and we will fast forward through all of the shit he put me through, we got pregnant in and had an amazing little boy in July 2009. I was miserable and kept trying to talk to him about our problems but he didn't want to talk about it or change. (when I finally left him he became a fb-whore and told everyone how it was all my fault and I NEVER told him things were so bad HA liar.) How I wish I could be a bitch. I really do! I would love to post on fb and email all the two faced "friends" who only listened to his side and tell them all of the things he really did BUT I just am not that person.
So in January 2010 I left him and had never felt such freedom in my life.

A few months later Cody randomly found me online and we started talking. I had heard the rumor that he had left his Ex to raise the two girls by herself. So I was not a kind person to him. I had been through so much crap and sugar coating that I was done, I told him exactly how I felt. I was rude and to the point, I hated what he had done and let him know about it. Only to be told the truth...
Yes he had left her but no one knew he was trying to see his girls as much as he could and was paying child support. I stopped being rude to him but the bluntness continued. I was tired of hiding who I was, he was either going to keep talking to me or I was going to piss him off and he wouldn't. I just didn't care anymore. Cody flirted like he had when we were sixteen, that hadn't changed. It was the most intense emotion to have someone think you're beautiful after being ignored for almost four years. I didn't know how to react.
During the painfully stressful divorce process and the ex's rants and phone calls I came home from working all day and after my son went to sleep I sat at the computer with my six-pack of Green Apple Smirnoff.
Cody got online and we began our usual nonstop talking and flirting and somewhere in the middle of this conversation I let it slip that I was drinking and rather tipsy. Well Cody announced he was coming to my house, I told him he didn't know where I lived.
He told me exactly where I lived.
I live near my parents and was terrified of someone finding out for some reason. I didn't tell him he could but I didn't tell him he couldn't.
I turned on Fired Up and sat in front of the television having a heart attack when he showed up about thirty minutes later.
I remember opening the door and looking at his goofy self, he thought he was so cool.
Mental note of not coolness
I hadn't seen him since we were seventeen but he looked the same, tall, dark hair and eyes and a no teeth grin. He laid on the cool guy act rather thick, I remember thinking how lame he was and how crazy I was for letting him come over.
I was sitting on the couch talking to him but looking at the TV when I turned back to him his face was close and he just looked into my face for a moment. He must have been mid-sentence because he stopped and said-
"Wow, you have beautiful eyes."
Yeah.. That may sound lame now but go two years thinking you're an ugly pile of dirt and it was like an electric shock straight to my chest. I realized we were too close so I sat down on the floor. Why? I was drunk and I like the floor when I'm drunk. I started talking animatedly to the TV or about the movie? I don't remember exactly, I was nervous.
The next thing I remember is he sat down on the floor next to me and pulled me over so I was leaning against him, he brushed my hair out of my face and just stared at me. He gently caressed my cheek with his fingers and... Thats All..
He didn't try and kiss me or touch me in any other way than caress my cheek. I had never been touched so softly or with such care, it melted away every wall I had put up and our love story truly began.
Cody began coming over almost every evening and we would stay up for hours just talking, I had never talked so much in my life or so honestly. I didn't edit my feelings for fear of what he would think or what he wanted to hear, I told him exactly what I felt and thought.
I have never felt so comfortable around another person, I don't hide any of my silliness or randomness (and believe me it gets pretty scary) for fear that he will tell me I'm stupid. I am 100% myself around him and I love that. Cody is my best friend and I really do belive I didn't truly know love until he stole me away.
We knew we wanted to get married but had planned on waiting a year or so but after a few months we had a little surprise and decided we wanted to be married before our little bundle of joy got here. So we ran away and got married and now it's been a year later we are still just as happy :)