The Art of Living

[28] Faster Than It's Healthy

"Okay?" Ellie asked surprised and smiled timidly at him.

Brian smiled a little and nodded. "Yes, okay.."

Ellie smiled wider and got up. Part of her hadn't expected him to agree to her offer. "Okay, okay, uhm.." Suddenly she was quite nervous, she pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear, trying to calm her hands. Her throat felt very dry suddenly which made it hard to keep her voice steady. "I don't live far actually, we can walk. Maybe.. uhm.. what do you want to eat?" She took a deep breath, trying to organise her thoughts, to calm her rapidly beating heart a little. "We might have to go shopping quickly, I don't really have a lot at home right now."

He looked at her astonished, as if he couldn't quite believe that that was really happening. And frankly Ellie couldn't quite believe it either. But the entire time she heard Sue's advice. To not fight what she wanted. And she didn't want to fight this, she did want Brian to come to her flat.

After a moment of hesitation, Brian got up.

Trying to seem as confident as possible, Ellie started to lead him to her flat. She didn't say anything until they left the park, simply because her mind was completely blank. But she didn't want the two of them to get lost in silence, comfortable or not. That was why she cleared her throat, nervously rubbing her forehead when she saw that he looked at her. "So, there's a small shop down there, what do you want to eat?" She asked him and glanced at him with a small smile. She had to try to stay calm, as calm as it was possible. So she would seem as normal as possible.

Brian looked at her and dared a small smile as well. "I don't really mind, whatever you have will do fine, I'm sure." He seemed to be not quite sure yet what to think of the situation, which somehow calmed Ellie down a little, because she felt the same way. It was such a strange situation.

But Ellie didn't want to show that too much. "How about we make pizza or something? I have a bunch of vegetables that should be used, and we can make dough and so on. We need to get cheese though, and whatever else you want on top of the pizza. If you have enough time for something like that." Planning the pizza helped her to focus her thoughts because it gave her something to do.

Brian nodded and followed her across the road, away from the park. "Oh yeah, I definitely have time for that. I don't have anything planned at all... and pizza sounds very good to me."

"Okay, well what do you like on your pizza?" Ellie asked and smiled at him. As nervous this situation was making her, she was still unable to get the smile off her face. Because this situation also made her very happy. Brian was there, by her side. And she wasn't alone anymore.

"Oh I'm not really picky, but I don't like meat all that much, so if we could just leave that off, at least for a part of it, then I would appreciate it."

Ellie nodded and walked inside the shop with him. It was a relief to hear him talking to her so relatively normally. She liked learning random things about him for some reason. Ellie stuffed her hands into the pockets of her trousers, shrugging a little. "Uhm.. Okay, no meat... but apart from that, you have to tell me what you don't like.. I don't really know.. but how about mushrooms? Do you like that? I still have some olives and peppers too.. But we need tomatoes, and cheese, definitely." She turned on the spot slowly, letting her eyes wander over what the shop had to offer. She knew that she had to try to avoid looking at Brian, or her mind would go blank again. He seemed to have that effect on her.

Brian was looking her, a small, nearly unnoticeable smile on his face. "That sounds fine with me, we don't need to make anything fancy. Mushrooms and peppers. Maybe we can find more than one kind of mushrooms," he suggested.

Ellie nodded and looked at the vegetables, trying to give herself something to focus on. Out of the corner of her eye, she had seen that Brian had been about to place a hand on her back, but then decided against that. Which was a little disappointing, if Ellie was honest with herself. Because alone the thought of that made her stomach flutter in the best possible way. But she couldn't dwell on that because she didn't want to ruin Brian's good mood again already by being too distracted. "That's fine with me, yeah." She nodded and started to pick out a few things, a couple of peppers and a handful of various kinds of mushrooms, there were surprisingly many to choose from. She knew her answer hadn't been the longest but it was all that she could coordinate herself to say in that moment.