When Cody Bennett Austrie began his freshman year of high school in 2007, an older classmate caught his eye. Stephanie Winifred Brooks was a junior, and as the alphabet gods would have it, her locker was a few spaces over from his.
“I don’t know whether it was just the way she dressed, how pretty she was, but coming in every day in the morning and seeing her standing there, I decided to get to know her,” said Mr. Austrie, 31. “She was nice enough to get to know me as well, even though I was a tiny underclassman at the time.”
They were students at the High School of American Studies at Lehman College, a specialized school in the Bronx. They struck up a friendship, talking in the hallway, instant messaging at night and hanging out after school. They took the same route home and shared many “stolen moments,” as Mr. Austrie now calls them, on the bus and at a Dunkin’ Donuts that was a kind of midpoint where their paths home diverged.
“I feel like you would go out of your way a little bit, ’cause you didn’t have to go home that way,” Ms. Brooks, 33, said with a laugh.
“I had like three or four different ways to get home,” Mr. Austrie replied. “I chose one of the ones that you were on, yeah.”
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Though they didn’t date in high school — Ms. Brooks had an upperclassman boyfriend — they were good friends for the two years they overlapped. Once, he gave her a Valentine’s Day card, which she held onto.
After high school, they kept in touch. They shared many common threads, sometimes without realizing, orbiting each other’s lives like “ships passing in the night,” Ms. Brooks said. Over the years, there were glimmers of romantic interest between them, but they didn’t truly reconnect until about five years ago.
In late summer 2019, while catching up over text, the two realized they were both working at CBS in Manhattan. Ms. Brooks is currently an executive producer for CBS News, and Mr. Austrie, who attended the New York City College of Technology, is a technical engineer at Paramount, the parent company of CBS.
At the time, she had a second job as a resident director at Manhattan University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in communications. With that and her overnight news shift, it was challenging to find a time to get together, but they went back and forth trying to meet up. Finally, one night in November, they met for dinner at Santa Fe Grill, a Mexican restaurant in the Bronx, near her dorm.
After dinner, Ms. Brooks invited Mr. Austrie to watch “The Walking Dead” with her. She was a devoted fan who watched the zombie horror series every week. As they watched together, Mr. Austrie wasn’t “too scared,” she said. “That passed the test for me.”
They consider that night their “second first date,” because it came after years of almost-dates. After that, they started seeing each other more. One night on the subway after a date that December, Mr. Austrie knew he wanted to marry her.
“I just kind of looked at her and held her close, and said that I think this is it,” he said, “and it scares me, but if you’ll be willing, then, you know, I’d like you to stick around.”
When the pandemic lockdowns began, Ms. Brooks moved into an apartment in the Riverdale neighborhood, where he came to stay. They cooked together and listened to music, getting to know each other as adults. For her birthday, in July 2020, he helped her cousin surprise her with an outdoor celebration in front of her building.
They made a tradition out of returning to Santa Fe Grill to celebrate the anniversary of their “second first date.” On the fourth anniversary, in November 2023, Mr. Austrie gathered friends and family at the restaurant and decorated it with about 80 photos of them, including two from their teenage years, surprising her with a party, and a proposal.
She said yes twice — once to him, and again in a microphone for everyone to hear. They celebrated with margaritas, karaoke and conga lines. “He really knocked it out of the park with just the thoughtfulness that went into arranging it,” Ms. Brooks said.
On Aug. 15, the two were married at Glen Island Harbour Club, an events space in New Rochelle, N.Y., by their friend Wendy Boche, who was ordained by the Universal Life Church for the occasion. The wedding cake featured 3-D printed figures of the couple as a cake topper. The guest list of about 194 people included friends from high school, and their chemistry teacher.
Weeks before the wedding, they returned to their high school, walking the halls where they first met. The principal gave them a school banner, which they displayed at their wedding.
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