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“Actually, my favorite Austen hero is a guy called Edmund Bertram, but Mr. Darcy has been winning hearts for years.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I get it.”
“Glad I could enlighten you. Noah,” I added. “Your pocket is vibrating.”
“Shit. Let me get that.” We broke apart, and he dug the phone out of his jeans, scanning the screen.
“What is it?” I asked, noticing how still his expression had become.
“I need to take this. I’ll be right back, okay?” He kissed the end of my nose and ducked out of the theater.
When he came back a minute later, something was off.
“Is everything okay?” I whispered as he sat down.
“Yep. Come back over here.” He reached for me with a smile, but I saw the shadows in his eyes.
Noah felt distant after that. He smiled in all the right places and laughed along with me to Colin Firth trying to win Kiera Knightley’s heart, but whoever had called him had stolen all of his attention.
By the time the end credits rolled, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. But I pasted on a smile because I didn’t know what else to do.
“Thank you,” I said as the light came up. “I really enjoyed that.”
“It wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be,” he said a little dismissively. “We should probably figure out how to get you home without anyone suspecting anything.”
“Oh, okay.” My old friend dejection crept in like ice spreading through my veins.
Something had changed. I assumed it was the phone call, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Noah wasn’t feeling our date anymore.
We walked back to Connor’s truck in awkward silence. He didn’t hold my hand or wrap his arm around my waist like he had done earlier.
He didn’t even look at me. And I’d never felt like more of a fraud.
When he opened the passenger door for me and helped me inside, I gave him a small, hopeful smile, but he didn’t return it.
I waited until he got into the driver’s side and turned to him. “Noah,” I said, and he lowered his gaze to mine. There was a coolness there that hadn’t been there before, and the churning inside me only worsened. “Have I done something wrong?”
Regret flashed in his eyes for a second, but it was gone in another. “No, you’ve been great. We had fun, right?”
Fun.
The word rattled around in my head, but I refused to think the worst because it was Noah. He cared about me.
“We could… go somewhere,” I barely managed to get the words out. “It’s not that late and—”
“I can’t tonight.” He fired up the engine, the temperature between us falling subzero.
What little bit of hope I had left, withered and died.
Had I done something wrong?
I racked my brain, replaying the night over in my head. We’d both been having fun. He seemed into me. We’d kissed again, and it had been magical.
At least, I’d thought it had.
With every passing minute, my inner critic grew louder and louder. It wasn’t my own voice; it never was. It was the voices of every person in my life who had ever made me feel worthless.
My mom.
