Page 46 of The Moment I Knew

Mitch slammed his spoon down. “Okay, what is this?”

Cole looked mildly surprised. “Conversation?”

“This is inappropriate,” Mitch said. “We’re in the middle of something.”

Cole glanced at the half-melted yogurt. “Yeah, I can see that.”

Mitch straightened, clearly trying to reclaim control of the situation. “We’re on a date.”

“Really?” Cole asked, sounding genuinely curious. He turned to look at me. “That true, Imogen?”

It was obvious he’d seen Mitch for what he really was at the coffee shop the other day. I still wasn’t sure why he’d stepped in like he had, but he wouldn’t have done it if he thought I was interested. I was sure he had no idea why I ever would have agreed to this date and I wasn’t sure I wanted to try to explain it to him. But what could I say when Mitch was sitting right there? This was a date, regardless of how much I hadn’t wanted to be on it. And even if I admitted to Cole that I hadn’t wanted to come on this date, but had been steamrolled by Hilary into saying yes, he probably would have just called me weak for giving in.

There was no winning here. So I just nodded. A muscle feathered in Cole’s jaw. I could practically feel the disapproval coming from him as he stared at me, but there was no way for me to fix it now.

“And we’d prefer to be alone,” Mitch said pointedly, because apparently he had a death wish. Cole looked at him again, his expression far more irritated and murderous when directed at my date. Without even saying a word, he made Mitch cower away again in fear.

“Relax,” Cole said flatly. “I’m just waiting for my cousin to finish getting her food and then I’ll leave you two to whatever riveting conversations I’m sure you’re having.”

His cousin. I could almost sigh with relief, although I wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t here on a date, he was here with Katie. That also explained why he would be at a frozen yogurt shop at all, because I really couldn’t imagine him coming of his own volition.

“Why don’t you go wait for her at the counter then?” Mitch suggested. “I’m sure she’d prefer that.”

I stared at Cole with bated breath, waiting for him to straight up punch Mitch in the booth right now. To my surprise, though, he just looked amused.

“I think she can handle it on her own,” he said. Then he dragged his gaze toward me, giving me a pointed look that had my heart beating just a bit faster. “She can handle herself,” he said, and I got the idea that he wasn’t talking about Katie anymore. I jumped as I felt his leg brush mine under the table. At first, I thought it was an accident, but it stayed there, the warmth of it pressing softly against my skin. I never wanted him to move.

“Okay, I’m ready!” a cheerful voice said as she walked up, completely breaking me out of my spell. I jumped in my seat, putting an inch of space between me and Cole, the room suddenly feeling much colder than it had a second ago. I looked up to see Katie walking toward the table, her smile bright. “Oh hey, Imogen! Are you guys joining us?”

Cole stood up, looking at me with a pinched expression. “Nope. These two are on a date.” His tone was unrelentingly mocking. Then he put a hand around Katie’s shoulders, guiding her away from our booth. “We can’t bother them.”

He pinned me with a stare that had that heat swelling in my chest again. Katie’s gaze bounced between the two of us like she was trying to solve some kind of mystery. Cole broke eye contact first, turning and guiding her toward a table. He stopped to drape his coat over the back of his chair, looking my way one last time. His jaw was clenched, his nostrils flared slightly as he drew in a breath, but once Katie sat down, he followed suit, leaving me back at the table with Mitch and his cup of melted vanilla frozen yogurt.

Mitch slumped a little in his chair, muttering something under his breath about how much he hated that guy, while I exhaled slowly, finally feeling like I could breathe again.

fifteen

The date hadn’t exactly started out well, but Cole interrupting it like that brought it to a screeching stop. For the rest of the time we sat there, Mitch couldn’t stop talking about him—how annoying Cole was, how he didn’t “know his place,” whatever that meant, and how if he came near Cole again, he was going to fight him.

I chose not to point out that there was less than zero chance Mitch could take Cole in a fight.

Instead, I spent the rest of the date nodding intermittently and looking anywhere but at him. I stared out the window at the cars coming and going. I watched the parents corralling young kids through the shop, stopping them from sticking their hands in candy jars or smearing frozen yogurt over their faces. I watched the back of Cole’s head as he chatted with Katie, wondering if I might have enjoyed today if he was my company instead.

Not that I wanted to go on a date with Cole. Of course not. But I was sure he would be able to hold a better conversation than Mitch, who didn’t seem to notice that I hadn’t said anything in the last half an hour and hadn’t asked me anything about myself other than if I’d ever gone out with other guys. Clearly, he wasn’t exactly my soulmate.

When he finally got tired of complaining about Cole, Mitch suggested that he should probably get me home before it got too dark. I blinked and looked out the window, not realizing that the sun was already setting, but nodded.

Mitch pushed himself out of the booth with a loud grunt, stretching his arms above his head like he’d been trapped in there for days. My legs were stiff from sitting, and the thought of leaving—even with Mitch beside me—felt like a small relief. I followed him toward the door, tucking my hands into my coat pockets and letting the November chill bite at my cheeks.

Outside, the cold hit harder than I expected. I buttoned up my coat and shivered, though it wasn’t entirely the weather making me tense. Mitch fell into step beside me again, moving too close, and I instinctively sidestepped, just enough to put some space between us.

I thought we’d walk straight to the car, but Mitch paused a few steps from the door. We were still right beside the window of the shop, so the light from in there was spilling over us. Then his hand lifted, almost casually, and he reached toward my face. I froze. His fingers brushed a loose strand of hair away from my cheek, tucking it behind my ear like it was the most natural thing in the world. The touch was light, barely there, but my skin prickled where he’d touched me, every nerve screaming. I forced myself not to flinch, not to pull away too fast and make it obvious how much I hated it.

“There,” he said, smiling. “That was driving me crazy.”

I did my best to hide my grimace. I didn’t move his hand right away. It hovered near my collarbone for half a second too long before dropping back to his side. I exhaled slowly, pretending to focus on the uneven cracks in the sidewalk. He rocked back on his heels, hands sliding into his pockets like he was settling in instead of getting ready to leave.

“You know,” he said, glancing at the window and then back at me, “you look really good today.”