Page 82 of The Moment I Knew

I moved over to the window. The shutters were closed, the wood dark and weathered, the latch stiff when I tried it. I pushed a little harder, and it gave with a soft groan. Cold air rushed in as I swung them open, and I sucked in a breath.

“Oh,” I breathed.

The view was completely different from up here. The fence disappeared beneath us, the tops of trees stretching out instead of their trunks. Beyond the yard, rooftops and streets unfolded, the town laid out like something small and manageable. And above it all, the sky felt closer somehow—wider, deeper, endless.

Cole stepped up beside me, so close our arms pressed together. I rested my hands on the sill, leaning forward just a little. “I used to think this was the highest place in the world.”

He glanced at me, then back out at the view. “Kind of feels like it still is.” He shifted back. “I brought something.”

That made me pause. “A present?”

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small paper bag, crumpled from being stuffed into a pocket. He held it up like an offering. “It’s not big. I couldn’t exactly climb with a cake.”

I took it from him carefully and peeked inside. Two cupcakes stared back at me, frosting slightly smudged but intact, each with a single candle pressed into the center.

“We don’t have a gingerbread cupcake,” he said, “but I got my aunt to help me make them chocolate spiced cupcakes. She said it should be close enough that you’d like it.”

My throat tightened, tears springing to my eyes as I looked at the cupcakes in front of me.

“You made them yourself?” I asked. Even though he obviously made me coffee when I went into The Corner Cup, it never occurred to me that Cole could bake.

“Of course. I mean, they probably suck because it was my first time making cake, but…” He shrugged. “It wouldn’t have been special if I just brought it from the shop, right?”

I set the bag on the floor and rested back on my heels, suddenly unsure what to do with my hands. Cole pulled out a blue cigarette lighter from his bag.

“If you get wax all over my treehouse…” I threatened.

“I promise I will leave the treehouse in the same pristine condition it was in when I arrived.”

I laughed and watched as he used the lighter on the candles. The soft flicker of the candles cast shadows across the treehouse. Cole held the cupcake out to me. “Make a wish,” he whispered.

“I don’t believe in birthday wishes,” I said. I had believed in them once. For most of my life, in fact. But with the way my life had imploded in the last year, I’d given up on believing in any sort of magical wishes—if they were real, my family never would have fallen apart the way it had.

Cole just shrugged, unphased by my answer. “Humor me.”

I hesitated, then closed my eyes anyway and blew out the flames. Cole clapped, exaggerated and dumb, and I laughed despite myself. I handed him one of the cupcakes and grabbed the other, peeling the paper away. We ate in companionable silence, sitting on the creaking, cold floorboards of the treehouse, crumbs the space around us. He licked frosting off his thumb and caught me looking.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said, and meant everything.

After a moment, he checked his watch again. “Ten seconds.”

My heart was beating so loudly I was sure he could hear it.

“Five.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “Three.” I forgot how to breathe. “Two.” His hand brushed mine—light, almost questioning. “One.”

Midnight.

“Happy birthday, Imogen ” he said softly.

And something in his voice undid me. I didn’t remember deciding to move—I just know that one second there was space between us, and the next there wasn’t. My hand tightened in the fabric of his shirt, and his other hand came up to my waist like it had always known where to go.

His lips were soft against mine, and for a split second I thought about how this was my first kiss and how it was happening at midnight and how none of this was part of the plan for tonight.

And then I stopped thinking.

The world narrowed to the feeling of him—his hand steady at my side, the faint hitch in his breath, the way he tilted his head just slightly like he was afraid I might disappear if he wasn’t careful.