I bit my tongue on my coffee the next morning when Brandon offered to give me a lift to work. I nearly choked on my coffee. He stood there a bit back-leaning in the corner of the kitchen, and his eyes nailed mine. I almost felt that my heart missed a beat.
“Want a ride?” he asked in an ultralow voice.
I blinked, trying to figure out his words. “Uh, sure,” I let it out, revealing how clueless I was.
I finished my coffee and followed him out of the house. To my surprise, he opened the car door for me and closed it after I went inside.
The drive turned out to be musings. Brandon appeared different, less tight, less on edge. There was a weighty silence between us but not tensely so, as if both were becoming comfortably accustomed to this strange particularity. I shot a glance at him from the corner of my eye and wondered what could have caused the change.
As we pulled in front of the restaurant, he turned towards me with a little smile. “I’ll come pick you up later if I finish early at work.”
I nodded at him, still too stunned to really say much. “Okay, but you don’t have to go through that stress.”
“It’s not stress.” He smiled at me and I returned it before walking into the restaurant.
Slipped back into my mind, I barely could focus on anything all day before it had been that long without something sneaking in. Did he just do everything to make up for it, or was this something more? Those questions would come swimming into my mind, and then I would dismiss them all, filling all of my attention with work.
Evening came, as promised. Brandon stood waiting outside to receive me. I just started walking to the car with unsure steps, but he came out, his face beaming with charm, and opened the door.
“Ready?” he asked.
“For what?” I replied. He gave a mysterious smile, and his eyes were twinkling with gaiety.
He drove, and I sat beside him, barely managing to shake off the hint of excitement making its way from my very self. He wasn’t exactly ordinary, and that slight shift had really thrown me off. Finally, we drove up and parked by that small, kind of cozy restaurant that I hadn’t gone into for years. It is very well concealed inside the city, very personal, and full of charm.
Brandon showed me in, his hand lightly resting on the small of my back, steering me over to some quiet corner with soft lighting in its own way. I couldn’t help but turn up a small smile at him as we took a seat.
“Nice place,” I admitted.
“I am really happy you think so,” he replied without even breaking his eyes.
He pulled out a seat for me before he took the seat opposite me. We placed our orders and our food was ready in minutes.
Everything rode well; in fact, the conversation between us was easy enough that it seemed we were two old friends who had not met for years. I felt myself laughing at the stories he had told then, obviously enchanted by my account of how the day went. There wasn’t anything of tension between us, something which used to be a constant, quiet, underlying tension. In its place was something soft and sweet.
Later into the night, I realized that I learned more about Brandon, a side of Brandon he never really knew existed: Brandon was caring, considerate, and perhaps even nice. So he listened to what I had to say, acting now like he might smile at me, like he tried to get what I had to say or, oddly enough, know what I was going on about.
“Brandon,” I started. “What? Why the sudden change?” I asked the question that had been eating me up from inside.
He got very serious. “I want this to work, Natalie. Logically, we didn’t start off on the right foot, but I really want this to work.”.
His words were so sweet, even more bittersweet than I would have imagined. Here stood the man whom everybody believed to be stone-hearted and cold, standing in front of me and opening his feelings. I could only nod; no words came there tightening my throat.
Slowly a smile crawled over his face and for the first time since we were married, he almost convinced me that maybe, just maybe, we did stand a real fighting chance at happiness.
Dinner was nice, so in that regard, hope had begun to settle back in. For every step further from the hotel, Brandon’s hand started reaching out for mine. This time, I wouldn’t jerk my hand away, but rather let it be held, savoring the heat.
The possibility set up at that dead silence within the vehicle on the way back. I sneaked a few glances in his direction; my heart fluttered at what might be new and forbidding. Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
When we got to the house, he took my hand in his as he walked me back to my room. Now he was finally faltering with the opening of the door to turn and gaze at me with eyes that seemed to have darkened that little bit for each hour which would have seemed to progress.
“Thank you for tonight,” he murmured.
I replied with a warm smile on my face. “Thank you too.”
“Have a good night’s rest.”
“You too.” I walked into my room and stood at the entrance.
We just stared at each other. I mean, literally, I really do not know how long it might be before he actually walked away and I closed the door. Anyway, I smiled at myself with hope in my heart, maybe this is a new beginning.