Chapter 82: The First Real Date

Lisa’s pov

If I’d been told a month ago that I’d be standing in front of my mirror, my dress smoothing out under hands that were shaking with nerves, wondering if Leo Walker was going to like the way I looked tonight, I would have said they were joking.

And yet I was.

My own reflection looked back at me, wide- eyed and unsure, a faint blush heating my cheekbones. I’d been nervous since he first asked me to go out with him. Not in the stiff, obligatory way we used to answer to formal dinners or business functions – but in a way that took my breath away.

Not as colleagues.

Not as business partners, not as a husband and wife joined by paperwork. But as two people on a real date.

The word itself made my stomach flip with a combination of anticipation and fear. A date. With my husband, who for the longest time had seemed more like a distant stranger than anything approaching a partner. And yet, in the past few weeks, that distance between us had been gradually breaking down. Conversations droned longer.

Glances conveyed meaning. Silence was no longer heavy. This seemed deliberate.

I heard soft footsteps in the corridor and then a timid rap on my door. My heart skipped inside my chest.

“Come in,” I said, my voice so hoarse I hardly knew it was mine.

The door was opened, and Leo came in.

Then for a moment, the world spun.

He wasn’t in a suit. No crisp tie. No clean polished, intimidating businessman. He had on a black shirt with the top button undone, the sleeves were rolled up and he had on black jeans that were way too tight for him.

Dressed down was somehow in my mind upended him. He looked younger somehow… less guarded. As a man he might have been before the hardbums life shaped his hold.

“You look…” he said, stopping his words to softly clear his throat. A flicker of a smile hovered upwards on his lips. “You look beautiful, Lisa,” he said.

Warmth blossomed within me immediately, curling like a fist into the very center of my chest.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “You too."

He looked around the room. “Are you ready?”

I nodded, reached for my little purse off the dresser, and felt an acute sense of how his eyes moved with mine. The consciousness wasn’t unpleasant. If anything, it sent a flutter through me that I didn’t try to suppress.

The ride to the restaurant went in an easy kind of quiet. This time it was not the tense hush that used to fill the space between us in the car but something almost quiet enough to be considered peaceful. The city lights streaked past the window as my mind drifted. He had one hand resting on the steering wheel while the other was resting on his thigh,he looking composed and calm.

From time to time, our eyes caught each other’s in the windshield and we shared a wordless grin.

The restaurant he picked out was tiny, hidden away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Through the windows, soft lights shone and a faint music came out to the street when we walked in. It was cozy and warm, not like those big, loud and shiny places we’d been to for show before.

“I wanted something not too noisy,” he said as the hostess led us to a corner table near the window. “I thought we might want to actually hear each other tonight.”

The fact that he’d thought of that made me smile.

“I like it. It’s perfect.”

When we sat down, something peculiar occurred. My anxiety dissipated and was replaced by a mild sense of curiosity. Sitting there, opposite of him, it didn’t seem like I was on a dicky date with a guy I was stuck with. It seemed like I was meeting somebody new for the very first time.

We started talking about little things. Books I was reading recently. A podcast he followed on his morning runs. The food that we both absolutely despised but feigned affection for when out on the town. I was laughing more than I had in months, if not years, I kept thinking to myself. His humor was not contrived. It was fast, disguised, and playfully comical.

“And here I was thinking you were some icy, no-nonsense, unreachable guy,” I teased at one point, holding my glass to my lips.

He chuckled quietly. “Trust me, that reputation didn’t arise out of nothing. I earned it, I worked hard for it.”

“And now?”

“Up until today I was more afraid than I’ve been in years,” he said quietly, looking me in the eyes. “Because I’m realizing all the areas that I’ve limited myself in, by keeping everyone at arm’s length.”

Between us, those words were like lead, but at least they were truthful.

The food came, but for a time I hardly knew of its existence. Our topic had been ushered into more intimate subjects but neither one of us led it. He spoke to me about his childhood — about how he learned to trust no one but himself. I talked about my dreams, the ones I’d thrown in the back of my mind because reality seemed a lot less scary.

“‘You always prioritize everyone else above yourself’ Even when you are in disguise.” “And you always act like you never feel anything,” I said softly. “They tell me when I’m not myself.”

He smiled at that a real smile, and something in my chest clenched.

He wasn’t going to let us go home without a walk after dinner.

At night the park was silent, the path lined with dim lights that produce brilliant golden circles on the ground. Soft leaf crumbles beneath us as we walk alongside each other. From time to time, our shoulders meet, sending a tiny electric shiver running up through my spine.

“I wanted to thank you for tonight,” I said at last, breaking the easy silence. “I didn’t know I was this badly in need of it.”

“I should be thanking you,” he said. “For giving me the opportunity to do something right with you this time.”

We came to a halt by a little pond that mirrored the cracked silver moon. Stopped, he stared, and I stopped, turning to him.

The night seemed oddly motionless, as if it were ours alone.

“Lisa…” he murmured against my ear.

“Yes?”

I just don’t think I’ve ever been so scared about how much I’m beginning to care about somebody.”

For me, too, that fear was trembling — sharp and undeniable. Because I cared. More than I was prepared to admit out loud. More than was safe.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been that excited about it either,” I whispered to no one in particular.

He moved a bit closer, so close that I could feel the warmth of his body, the even pace of his breaths.

For a second, I thought this was an error. If I was getting ready to walk headlong into some thing—some place—that would alter the path of my life.

But then his hand took mine, warm and confident, his fingers snaking through mine as if they had always belonged there.

And then, as he pressed his thumb lightly to the back of my hand and smiled at me, I could see one simple truth: For the first time since we've been married…

I didn’t want to run.