I send them a quick reply before slipping my cell back into my purse as I approach the door to the men’s bathroom, lost in my own thoughts.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” I say, grabbing onto an upper arm to steady myself in my heels.
His scent hits me first, familiarity racing through me before I look up and confirm what I already knew.
“Cole?”
“Shit,” he curses.
“W-what are you doing here?” I ask, my brows pulling together.
“Umm…”
“I told you I was coming here earlier,” I mutter, mostly to myself as I try to figure this out.
“Yeah, I, um…” He trails off as he rubs his jaw. It’s weird, seeing him nervous and unsure of himself. That’s my specialty. “I wanted to come and make sure everything was okay. That he…that he was treating you right.”
His words hit me with such force, I have to take a step back.
“You’re…you’re checking up on me?” I don’t mean for it to come out quite so accusatory, because that isn’t how I feel about it.
The truth is, I’m swooning hard.
“It’s not like that. You were worried about him pushing too hard and wanting too much and—shit. I’m sorry. It was a stupid idea. We’ll pay our bill and leave you to your evening.”
“We?” I ask, attempting to peer around him toward the restaurant to see who he’s with.
“Yeah, I invited some of the guys. They don’t know why, though.”
A soft smile plays on my lips as I stare up at this huge man. He’s still intimidating as hell, but in this moment, he’s so much more than the focused, intense goalie that so many see.
“Thank you,” I breathe.
He frowns.
“What?”
“Thank you for coming to check on me.”
His frown deepens.
“You’re not angry at me?”
I shake my head. “No, Cole. I’m not.”
He doesn’t look like he believes me. “It looks like it’s going okay,” he muses.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I’m just not sure he’s the one for me.”
“I’m not sure you’re meant to know that on the first date,” he says encouragingly.
“Maybe not,” I mutter as our eye contact holds.
“You should probably go. He’ll start to think you’ve abandoned him.”
