“He was sitting not far away, watching me, and I surprised a smile on his face, the first real smile I had ever seen him give, a smile that curved and softened the tight mouth, and warmed the ice-cool eyes; a smile that brought the blood to my face and made my heart turn over.”

“When we first met, his face broke into a full-out smile. Not one of those polite smiles you give a stranger on the street. No, the smile sped up my heart and brought on a whole new definition to the word beautiful.”

“And then he smiled, kind of a quirky half smile that tipped up only the right corner of his mouth. Because of that smile, that goddamn human smile, I had to swallow down a burst of affection that nearly brought tears to my eyes. Instead, I looked away, and hated myself - for my inability to hate him despite the things he said, the things he did, the things he expected.”

“My face filled with the warm glow of embarrassment preventing me from smiling back so I turned and ran away.”

“You know, you’ve set a really bad precedent for first dates,” I said. “How is anyone ever going to top this?”I turned to him for the first time. He was watching me, not the scenery. “I brought you here because I wanted to see the look on your face when you saw this place.” He smiled, and my heart flipped over. “It was worth the trip.”

“It was the first smile of my life. Of course, that is a ridiculous thing to say; I had been smiled at often, the big man had smiled at me not a minute since. And yet I say: it was the first smile, because it was the first that ever went straight into me like a needle too thin to be seen.”