39. Cole
COLE
I’m parked outside Aurora’s building with both hands locked around the steering wheel, staring at the entrance. I’m so wound up I’d sell a kidney for a cigarette. I haven’t had one since Sophie left, which probably explains why I’m sitting here tapping my thumb against the wheel.
This is fucking ridiculous.
It’s one date.
That’s it. One date. One chance to prove I’m not the version of me that stood in my doorway and said shit I’d rip out of my own throat if I could.
I should be calmer than this. I already got the yes. She agreed to come. That should be enough to calm me down, but if anything, it makes me more anxious, because now there’s actually something to lose.
I drag a hand through my hair, open the car door, and get out, leaning against it because sitting still another second feels impossible.
But the minute the door of her apartment building opens, I’m already stepping forward before I even think about it, like some part of me still only knows how to move toward her.
And then Aurora walks outside, and every thought in my head disappears.
Holy fuck.
She’s wearing a long brown lace dress that hugs her body, and the heels only make her legs look longer, which makes me smile.
I love how tall my girl is. Love that she never tries to make herself smaller.
Gold hoops catch the light when she moves, and her blonde hair is down in loose curls over her shoulders, making her look so goddamn beautiful I just stand there staring at her.
I push off the car and start walking toward her, but stop after a couple of steps because if I keep going, I’m going to do something stupid, like haul her against me and forget every plan I had about taking tonight slow.
“You look…” My brain offers up about ten things at once. Stunning. Gorgeous. Like the love of my life. I swallow them all down and manage, “Beautiful.”
She lifts her chin and keeps walking toward me. “I know.”
A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it, and I press my tongue into my cheek while I shake my head.
I start toward the driver’s side, already pulling my keys from my pocket, but when I open my door and glance up, I realize she hasn’t moved. She’s still standing exactly where I left her, arms folded over her chest and one brow raised.
I lean over the roof of the car. “Is everything okay?”
She gives me a look. “I don’t go on dates with guys who don’t open the car door for me.”
I stare at her. “Are you joking?”
She shoots me a look. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
Of course.
Aurora has a talent for making me work for every little thing, and God help me, I love that about her. I shut my door, walk around the front of the car, pull open the passenger side for her, and hold my hand out.
Her eyes drop to it, then lift back to my face. She leaves me standing there just long enough to make me feel like an idiot before she finally puts her hand in mine and lets me help her in.
The second she settles into the seat, her perfume hits me, and my brain immediately drags me back through every second I spent with her—not that I ever really stopped thinking about it.
I lean in to grab her seatbelt, and the second I do, I realize exactly how close I am.
Close enough to hear her breathing, close enough to see the way her eyes lift to mine, the way her lips part just a little, close enough to count the faint freckles across the bridge of her nose under her makeup, close enough that if I moved even a little, I could kiss her.
And God, I want to.
The memory of kissing her fills my brain. The first time. Every time after that. If I’d known the last time I kissed her would be the last, I would’ve never stopped.
My gaze drops to her lips, because they’re right there, and for one reckless second, I think about kissing her and forgetting every promise I made myself about taking this slow.
But that’s not what tonight is.
So I make myself pull back. I drag the belt the rest of the way across her and click it into place, my knuckles brushing the side of her hip in the process.
She draws in a tiny breath at the contact, and it goes straight through me.
I glance up without meaning to and notice that her eyes are on my mouth—only for a second—before they flick back to mine, and something passes over her face before she turns away.
Her expression goes guarded again, but there’s a faint flush high on her cheeks that definitely wasn’t there a second ago.
A slow smile pulls at my mouth.
I like knowing she still wants me. Even after everything. Even after I made a complete mess of this and gave her every reason not to.
I shut the door and head back around the car with that smile still tugging at my mouth, and it’s still there when I start the engine and pull away from the curb.
I put music on as I drive us into the nicer part of town, where the streets are quieter and everything looks softer and warmer somehow. She doesn’t say anything, and neither do I, but every few seconds I still glance over at her because apparently I’ve lost the ability not to.
When I pull into a spot near the entrance and kill the engine, she glances out the window, her brows drawing together. “This isn’t a restaurant.”
The corner of my mouth lifts. “Great observation, Prescott.”
She rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean. I thought you were taking me to dinner or something.”
I glance at her and lift a brow. “I’m not wasting my one shot at a real date with you on the same basic crap every other guy would do.” I see the surprise flicker across her face, but I push myself to continue. “I’ve got the rest of my life to take you on a dinner date.”
Her lips part, and my gaze drops to them before I can stop it. Fuck. She’s so damn pretty it makes it hard to think straight.
I clear my throat, get out, and circle around to her side. When I open the door and hold my hand out, she looks at it for half a second before putting hers in mine and stepping onto the sidewalk in those heels that put her almost eye level with me.
We just stand there for a second, her hand still in mine and her face tipped up toward mine while we just stare at each other.
I wish I could stop the moment right there and frame it, because I’m so damn aware that this might be all I get.
Because if she decides, when this night is over, that she’s done with me, then I will never get to look at her like this ever again.
Will never have the best thing that ever happened to me in my arms again.
So I just look at her for a few seconds longer, wanting to soak it all in.
I finally take a step back and start walking down the riverfront strip. Every now and again, her hand brushes mine when we move around somebody, and each time it happens, I feel a zing up my arm.
I want to take her hand, but I don’t. Not yet. I have no idea if she’d let me, and I’m not stupid enough to push my luck when I’m still very much on thin ice.
When we stop outside the entrance, Aurora’s eyes flick up to the building, then back to me. “You brought me to a gallery?”
I let out a chuckle and pull the door open, jerking my chin toward the entrance. “Come on.”
I hold it open for her and follow her inside. The place is quiet, polished, full of people wearing clothes that probably cost more than my car. I should probably feel out of place, but I don’t really give a shit. Aurora’s here. With me. That’s all my brain seems interested in tonight.
She slows in front of the first painting and I hang back, watching her instead of what’s on the wall.
I know that look on her face—I’ve seen it before when she’s sketching, or painting. Her shoulders loosen, her mouth softens, and she tilts her head a little, studying the piece in front of her, and it’s like everything in her finally settles for a second. Like she can finally breathe.
It’s how I feel when I look at her.
She steps closer to the painting. “I used to love places like this when I was younger.”
That gets my attention enough to drag my eyes off her and onto the canvas for about half a second before I look back at her. “Yeah?”
She nods, still staring ahead. “Museums mostly. Galleries too, if my mom could get us into one. I could stay in them forever.” The corner of her mouth lifts.
“I used to walk around imagining what it’d be like if one of mine was hanging up there someday.
Which was probably a little ambitious considering I was mostly drawing My Little Pony at the time. ”
A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it, and I grin as I follow her farther into the room, while she talks about the paintings that catch her eye.
Most of what she says goes straight over my head, if I’m being honest. But I like hearing her say it anyway.
I’d listen to her talk about things I don’t understand for hours if it meant I got to keep her beside me like this.
When she starts drifting to the right, my pulse kicks up and I reach for her arm.
She looks back at me, eyes narrowing. “What are you doing?”
“You’re going the wrong way.”
Her brows pull together. “What do you mean I’m going the wrong way? I haven’t even gone that way yet.”
“I think there’s something in here you’ll like more,” I say, steering her left instead, my hand sliding to her hip as I guide her.
She scoffs, but she lets me lead her anyway, her heels clicking softly against the floor. “You have absolutely no idea what I like in art.”
I glance down at her, my mouth starting to pull. “That so?”
“Yes,” she says, that automatic bite in her voice so completely her that it almost makes me laugh. “You don’t know what half this stuff even means, so how exactly would you know I’d like any—”
The words die in her throat the second she steps into the room.
I’ve been thinking about this moment ever since they emailed me back, playing it out in my head a hundred different ways, but none of that does a damn thing to prepare me for the way she goes completely still beside me when she sees her painting hanging there on the wall.