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“I think we did everything,” I say. “It’s a small town.”
Also, the longer we stay out and about pretending to be a couple, the more confusing this gets. I’m showing him real things I care about, and he’s really listening. All the while his hand is spread on the small of my back. Or his fingers are looped in my belt loop. Or his hand is holding mine.
It’s like the engagement ring isn’t enough for Cole. He’s constantly claiming me with little touches that let the world know I’m his.
I hate it and I love it at the same time.
“I want you to get to spend time with your parents,” Cole says. “But keeping up the lie in front of them is...”
“Draining?” I say.
Cole nods.
I wrack my brain for something else to do. Something private, where neither of us will feel the need to act quite so well.
“There’s a movie theater,” I say. “How do you feel about old buildings that smell like buttered popcorn?”
“Very positively,” Cole says.
He pays our tab, then we head out. His hand is back on the small of my back, torturing me as he guides me to our next destination.
We endup seeing a superhero movie that’s been out forever. There’s no one else in the theater but some teens down in the front row.
One of the teen guys gets his nerve up enough to drop his arm over the shoulders of the girl next to him. She leans away from him, and then switches spots with her friends.
“Ouch,” Cole whispers. “Rejected.”
I flick popcorn at him. “Don’t mock. This is the big teen make out spot. Dating feels high stakes when you’re that young.”
“Says the wise old woman of twenty-six.” Cole’s voice is soft and sexy in my ear.
Maybe that’s why I confess. “I used to come here all the time with my high school boyfriend, fantasizing about all the things we could do. But all he ever wanted to do was watch the movie.”
I wait for him to snicker at my misfortune, because it’s one of my funny stories.
But Cole doesn’t laugh. Just slouches a bit in his seat. “Tell me about these fantasies.”
The air feels tense around us. On screen, the heroes try to disassemble a ticking bomb.
In the end I chicken out. “Tame stuff mostly. I wanted him to hold my hand.”
Cole quietly slips his hand in mine.
Oh. Oh, that’s kind of lovely.
His hand feels bigger and stronger than any hand I held in high school. Which makes sense. It’s a man’s hand, not a boy’s. And I’m not a girl anymore. I’m a woman.
On screen, the heroes realize they aren’t going to be able to stop the bomb. They sprint to safety as everything blows up behind them.
“Anything else?” Cole asks. His voice is quiet, nonchalant. But there’s something in the curve of his mouth that’s daring me to go on.
“Sure,” I say. “But I’m realizing that popcorn is not a particularly sexy thing to be holding while—”
Cole takes the popcorn and drops it on the seat beside me, spilling kernels everywhere.
“I was eating that.”
“No you weren’t,” he says, and damn him, but his confidence is intoxicating.
