A step.

If you really want to dive into this post, pour yourself a nice glass of cab and turn the lights down low.  It's unlike my other posts.
Trying something new.  So sit down next to the fireplace and put on a jazz record.  Let it flow, slowly.  And if luxury is at your disposal, call up Barry White and ask that lovely man to read it to you.

So he wrote her a song.  Down and wanting her back, he had no other choice.

He didn't know how to play the guitar, and his singing career was, well, very limited to sparse, drunk karaoke.  But he had to do something.  Something to help her remember who he truly was.

Because he wasn't himself lately.  He let outside influences become inside influences.  His confidence was torn.  And since the couple was so close, his tear tore her as well.

So he wrote her a song.  A song about that time they got ice cream and about the time that they went camping.  A song about making love and a song about making lust.  A song about the hopeful future and a song about the distant past.  The past where things still worked.

He practiced his song many times, but he could never get it to sound quite right.  He strummed only three simple chords, but they all seemed to blend together.  That top string kept up an ugly humming, like it was rubbing up against a quarter.  The fatter E string.  He had to google that.

The rhythm of his lyrics mimicked that of Chevy's new triangular wheels.  In spite of all this, he knew that tonight was the night for the private performance.  The sound didn't feel right, but the timing did.  She would be home.

So he put on a suit and strolled over to her place.  He had shunned formal wear towards the end of their love, citing irreconcilable differences, but he decided that the occasion called for the sharp, clean look of a well-pressed suit.

She opened the door, and knowing it was him and how much love had been lost, she didn't notice much.  She didn't notice his smile or the guitar in his hand or the sharp, clean look of his well pressed suit.

But then he gave a her warm "Hi," and as she started to see all the things she hadn't noticed before, he sat her down, said "Hi" again, this time looking into her eyes.  He started to strum...  A funny thing ended up happening - the chords flowed smoother than sand, falling from the hand's grasp.  The lyrics suddenly fell into place, settling themselves in comfortably, homely.  His inner Jack Johnson was as present as he would ever be.

As he sang, he remembered almost all the lyrics, lyrics he couldn't even get to flow right ten minutes prior, when reading off his crumbled paper.  It's safe to say, at that very moment, he and his song had merged to one.

So he kept strumming and singing, looking into the eyes of his former other half, and he saw a look in her that he hadn't seen in months.  Excited eyes, a bit of blush, blush like pink roses, and a smile that fought through a barrier that had been set between them for longer than either can remember.

He finished the song, and he could tell that she didn't know what to say.  In fairy tale fashion, she would get up from her chair and pummel him with her hips and tell him everything else with her lips.  But she didn't.  And she felt a worried feeling inside, because she couldn't do just that.  She wasn't ready to react like so, that is, if she was ever going to be ready.

But he interrupted her fumbled words and said, "I know what you're thinking.  And it's just a song.  A song can't fix everything, but it can show you that I've been working on us.  All the looks you just gave me were worth it enough for me to fumble through writing this trainwreck.  A bold reaction of pure love, without the reservations being acknowledged, would just put us back into misery the next morning.  I didn't know what to expect when I came over, but I got more than I could have ever wanted."  He said all this with a genuine smile.  Genuine smiles never came this easy before.

They then talked for hours, explaining things with cool heads for the first time in a long time.  Some things said weren't necessarily bringing them back together, but he saw progress.  He saw honesty.  He also saw he had a chance.

As he walked out the door, into the night, they embraced, hugging with more passion than any sex could match.  He left her with a smile, as she did for him, and he walked home, guitar in hand, suit laying fit on his now-lighter shoulders.  The man and woman were no where near his preferred destination, but he knew the last steps they just took were magic.