Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
maya
With a strangled scream, I throw yet another sweater onto the ground. It doesn’t look any better on me than the last, or the one before that.
Cole told me to dress comfortably for our date, but my version of comfortable isn’t fit for being seen out in public. So I don’t know what to wear. A sweater and leggings? Sweatshirt and yoga pants? Bathrobe and slippers?
“Did you get stuck in a pair of pants?” Kennedy calls from my couch. “Cole’s picking you up soon, and we’re still waiting for a fashion show.”
“Coming!” Frowning into my closet, I snag a navy blue sweater that Ava says is “kind of cute.” She thinks most of my clothes are too baggy or boring, so that’s the highest form of praise I can expect from her.
Kennedy and Sophie cheer as I walk into the living room, and though I roll my eyes at the theatrics, I appreciate the support.
They stopped by to help me pick out an outfit.
That somehow turned into them rummaging through my wine rack—carefully curated via the highly scientific method of label aesthetics—and picking one to uncork. Well, twist off.
“Cute! The sweater makes your eyes pop.” Sophie scans me from head to toe over the rim of her glass.
“And it makes your titties look good,” Kennedy adds with a wink. “I vote for this outfit.”
“It’s the only outfit we’ve seen,” Sophie points out. “But I vote for it, too.”
Wiping my clammy hands against my jeans, I exhale a deep breath. I’ve never worried so much about what to wear on a date, and I’ve never stressed about how a date might go. Either I like them or I don’t.
But I already like Cole. A lot. And this is a big step.
Agreeing to go out with him tonight means I’m officially opening myself up for a world of hurt.
In the few months I’ve known him, he’s made himself a steady presence in my life.
One that makes me blush, and laugh, and get out of my comfort zone.
And the farther I let myself fall, the harder it’ll be to pick myself back up when it’s over.
Kennedy offers me her drink. “You want a sip? You look like you could use it.”
“I’m freaking out,” I blurt out.
“There’s no reason to be nervous.” Sophie gives me a reassuring smile. “Cole’s an amazing guy, and it’s not like you haven’t been on dates with him before.”
“I haven’t.” Frowning, I plop onto the couch between them. “I made it clear I wanted to be friends.”
My friends lean forward as if the move was choreographed and exchange a look. Huffing, Kennedy rolls her eyes. “Maya, I love you, but you and Cole have been dating since you met months ago. You just haven’t been fucking.”
Sophie nods. “She’s right. The only difference is going to be the orgasms. Nothing to be nervous about.”
I suck in a breath, readying an argument, but before I can tell them all the reasons they’re wrong, Cole knocks on my door, punctual as always.
Showtime.
I pull the door open, and his eyes light up in genuine happiness. “Hey, baby.”
“We’ve graduated from bean to baby?” I tease with a small smile.
“I’ll never retire bean, but now you can have a nickname and a pet name.” He cradles my jaw and leans in for a kiss.
My breathing becomes unsteady as he dominates my mouth, his tongue tangling with mine in a sensual movement. Behind me, a round of whoops goes up, and when they reach a level too loud to ignore, he pulls back.
“We’ll have to pick that back up later,” he murmurs against my lips. “Didn’t realize we had company.”
“We were helping her pick out her lingerie,” Kennedy shouts. “And making sure you got her pretty flowers.”
Eyes closed, I take a calming breath so I don’t do something completely warranted like strangle her.
Cole chuckles, bringing his mouth to my ear. “How drunk are they?”
I take a step back and straighten my shoulders. Sometime while I was trying on a multitude of outfits that I nixed before even showing my friends, they finished bottle number one and cracked open a second. “Very.”
Inside my apartment, he shuts the door quietly and holds out a gorgeous bouquet. “These are for you.”
I ignore the oohs and aahs from the couch and press my nose against the red roses.
Their sweet smell brings a smile to my face.
I’ve never gotten flowers from any man but my brother.
Not even from Josh on Valentine’s Day last year.
Instead, he got me chocolates and a bottle of wine—which he proceeded to eat and drink—and then tried to convince me to have anal sex. Super romantic.
“Thank you. They’re gorgeous.”
“Gorgeous flowers for a gorgeous woman,” he says, his eyes raking over me with a proprietary gleam that causes heat to creep through me.
I slip on a coat and rush Cole out of my apartment before Drunk and Drunker can embarrass me any further. “So what are we doing?”
“Well, I was looking at PagePulse and—”
I stop on the fourth-floor landing and hold up a hand. “I’m sorry, you what?”
“PagePulse,” he repeats like it’s a foreign word. “That site where you track the books you like.”
“I know what PagePulse is. I just didn’t know that you did. No offense.”
The wicked tilt of his grin makes my knees wobble dangerously as we continue down the stairs. “I looked up a few of your favorite rom-coms to get ideas for our date.”
That in and of itself is worthy of a rom-com. Swoon. Gripping the railing to keep from tumbling, I peer over at him. “Were you inspired?”
At the bottom of the stairs, he hits me with his signature smile and rests his hand on my lower back. “Yep. In the books, they always do cute things like go to a museum, or the best ice cream shop in the city, or an arcade. But none of those are you, so I decided to think a little outside the box.”
“Okay…” I truly have no idea where this is going. “So if we’re not going to a museum, ice cream shop, or arcade, then what are we doing?”
He waggles his brows. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”
I grip the taut muscle of Cole’s thigh as the helicopter tilts and sways. Of all the scenarios I envisioned for tonight, enjoying a helicopter tour of Boston was most definitely not one of them.
“Is it supposed to be this rocky?” I yell over the choppy sound of the spinning blades. In the small space, Cole’s scent—a mix of his woodsy cologne and him—surrounds me like a safety blanket. It calms me in ways that the weighted blanket Ava got me for Chanukah two years ago never has.
“I can hear you.” Cole taps the mic attached to my headset. “And yes, we’ll even out soon.”
I nod and force myself to relax against my plush leather seat and take in the view. This experience? It’s definitely set the bar for any future dates. Knowing Cole, that was probably his intention. He did tell me he plays to win.
“Oh.” I tap my pointer finger against the panoramic window. “That’s the Gardner Museum.”
Cole peers around me to get a better view. “What kind of art do they have?”
“I have no idea,” I admit with a shrug. “But I do know that the largest art theft in US history happened there. A hundred million dollars’ worth of art was never recovered.”
His laugh mixes with the steady thump of the blades and the whir of the engine. “Let me guess. You read about that in a book?”
“Yup.”
He rests his chin on my shoulder, and we watch the skyline get farther and farther away as we cruise over the North Atlantic coastline. “You were right, you know.”
A laugh bubbles out of me. “I’m always right, but could you specify?”
“That when you talk about books, I envision a very beautiful, sexy librarian.”
I shoot him a dirty look, though I don’t mind in the least that he’d use words like beautiful or sexy to describe me. I’d never attribute adjectives like that to myself, but the way Cole’s looking at me makes it hard not to believe him.
“I said when men hear about my job,” I huff, though there’s no fire behind the words. “Not when I simply speak about books.”
With a chuckle, he places a kiss on my temple.
Then he settles back into his seat. For the rest of the ride, the helicopter maneuvers over and between buildings like it’s an eagle while the captain points out historical landmarks.
Overall, it’s impressive, though I squeeze Cole’s hand in panic every time we drop even the slightest bit.
I’ve known from the start that Cole is an affectionate person.
But now that I’ve stamped his passport, allowing him to leave the friend zone, his attention has only amplified.
The entire ride, he finds any excuse to touch me.
Massaging my nape when I lean forward to get a better look, brushing hair away from my face, and toying with the silver rings on my fingers.
It’s intimate without being sexual. And by the time we land, every part of my body is attuned to his, desperately waiting for the next touch.
He helps me out of the helicopter, then rests a hand on my lower back as we crouch and scurry away, squinting against the gusts of air caused by the blades.
I shiver in the cool night air and unabashedly use Cole’s height and body to block me from the bulk of the wind.
I don’t feel bad in the slightest, considering he uses the cold as an excuse to keep my hand clasped with his.
“That was amazing,” I remark as we enter the heated parking garage. “Thank you.”
“Pretty cool, huh?”
“Very cool. You’re going to have to think way outside the box for our next date if you want to top this.”
“So there’ll be another date?”
A smile plays on my lips as my heart thumps a little wildly against my breastbone. “I guess so.”
Cole spins me around and slams his lips against mine.
It’s unexpected, since we’re standing between two cars in the middle of the garage, but I sink into it, nonetheless.
The intensity of his need overwhelms my senses and coaxes all the air out of my lungs.
He backs me up until I’m pressed against a black sedan, his body molded against mine.