Antwan Phillips hadn't planned on showing off his muscles when he went out on a weekend in 2007, but he did it. Taneesha Fields took note -- and not in a good way.
Antwan had met Taneesha the week before, at the end of a karaoke competition at Stickyz in Little Rock. Antwan, who says he is a terrible singer, recalls shaking her hand. Taneesha doesn't remember that meeting.
"I didn't have any drinks or anything that night, but I just don't remember meeting him," she says.
A week later, he went to Deep Ultra Lounge.
"When I get there, there's a circle of women around this guy who's in the middle of Deep with his shirt off, showing off his muscles," says Antwan, who was fresh out of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he was captain of the basketball team. "I graduated in 2006 and this was summer of 2007 and I was still in basketball shape."
Antwan's confidence took hold.
"I inserted myself into the circle and I looked at the guy and I took my shirt off," he says.
He was busy flexing his muscles and didn't notice Taneesha in the crowd as she snapped a few shots with her digital camera.
"My friends were taking pictures of this really hot guy," she says. "Antwan, he really didn't compare. This other guy was a body builder. He had muscles in places where I didn't even know there were muscles."
Antwan was there to hang out with friends.
"He didn't have any lotion on so he was ashy," Taneesha says.
When the impromptu competition ended, Antwan wandered away to find his friends and Taneesha did the same.
A week after that, Antwan and Taneesha had a third encounter, this time outside a downtown office building.
"I was completing my paperwork for a clerkship for a law firm and as I was leaving the building and walking to my car I bumped into her -- and I use that word literally," he says.
Taneesha was walking past the building with her co-worker on a lunch break.
"All of a sudden we heard really heavy, loud steps, and they just felt like they were getting closer and closer," she says. "Antwan brushed past me, and he hit me with his elbow and shoulder. I said, 'Hey, excuse me ...' He turned around and I said, 'Oh, you're the ashy guy who took off his clothes at the club last weekend.'"
Antwan noted that he did make an impression on her -- she did, after all, remember him. It also registered with him that he had met her before that at Stickyz.
He protested her insult about his being "ashy," though, and after some verbal sparring she offered to send him the photo she took.
He responded that if she wanted to date him she didn't need to pretend to send him a message.
"I just wanted to embarrass him," she insists. "I didn't want to date him."
She did send the photo, however, and Antwan conceded that he did need lotion. He -- a little tongue-in-cheekily -- thanked her for letting him know.
"I said, 'Since you sent me this picture, the least I can do is buy you lunch,'" he says. "I first asked her to accompany me to the Shell station on Broadway to get some fried gizzards."
That garnered a firm "no."
"I was like, 'Who does this guy think he is, inviting me on a date to the gas station,'" says Taneesha, adding that as a California girl, she had never had a gizzard and had no intention of changing that.
He suggested Vermillion restaurant instead and she said yes.
Antwan, Taneesha says, was different from the guys she usually fell for.
"I saw how amazing and genuine and friendly and just a beautiful person he is and the more time I spent with him I just fell more and more in love," she says. "He's so funny. He keeps me laughing and that's what I liked about him the most."
In October 2009, Antwan had a card delivered to Taneesha at her office. He asked her to go to the place where they met -- the Simmons Tower in downtown Little Rock, since she didn't remember meeting him at Stickyz and he didn't see her when they were at Deep Ultra Lounge. There were roses waiting for her in the lobby. She assumed he was just being thoughtful, but there was a clue there that led her to another place, where she found a clue to go somewhere else.
Her scavenger hunt concluded when she found Antwan waiting for her at their favorite restaurant. They ordered dinner, and he put a ring box on the table.
They were married on Jan. 2, 2010, in their church, New Creation Bible Church in North Little Rock.
Antwan is a partner at Wright Lindsey Jennings and a Little Rock city board director. Taneesha works in the dentistry field.
Antwan is grateful to Taneesha for changing his life for the better.
"I will tell you," he says, "that whenever I leave the house now I'm always prepared in case I have to take my shirt off."
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The first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: “I was like, ‘Man, this guy is crazy.’”
He says: “She looked good.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “The CD had skipped playing our first dance song and the DJ could not get it to play. So instead of playing ‘Sweetest Love” by Robin Thicke, he ended up just playing ‘Stanky Legg.’”
He says: “I remember her walking down the aisle and me crying tears of joy.”
My advice for a long happy marriage:
She says: “Support your spouse in everything that they do.”
He says: “I know communication is important and you need to share your true feelings with your spouse, but sometimes you’ve got to shut up and don’t say what you mean.”