I suck in a breath, readying an argument, but before I can tell them all the reasons they’re wrong, Cole knocks on my door, punctual as always.
Showtime.
I pull the door open, and his eyes light up in genuine happiness. “Hey, baby.”
“We’ve graduated from bean to baby?” I tease with a small smile.
“I’ll never retire bean, but now you can have a nickname and a pet name.” He cradles my jaw and leans in for a kiss.
My breathing becomes unsteady as he dominates my mouth, his tongue tangling with mine in a sensual movement. Behind me, a round of whoops goes up, and when they reach a level too loud to ignore, he pulls back.
“We’ll have to pick that back up later,” he murmurs against my lips. “Didn’t realize we had company.”
“We were helping her pick out her lingerie,” Kennedy shouts. “And making sure you got her pretty flowers.”
Eyes closed, I take a calming breath so I don’t do something completely warranted like strangle her.
Cole chuckles, bringing his mouth to my ear. “How drunk are they?”
I take a step back and straighten my shoulders. Sometime while I was trying on a multitude of outfits that I nixed before even showing my friends, they finished bottle number one and cracked open a second. “Very.”
Inside my apartment, he shuts the door quietly and holds out a gorgeous bouquet. “These are for you.”
I ignore theoohsandaahsfrom the couch and press my nose against the red roses. Their sweet smell brings a smile to my face. I’ve never gotten flowers from any man but my brother. Not even from Josh on Valentine’s Day last year. Instead, he got me chocolates and a bottle of wine—which he proceeded to eat and drink—and then tried to convince me to have anal sex. Super romantic.
“Thank you. They’re gorgeous.”
“Gorgeous flowers for a gorgeous woman,” he says, his eyes raking over me with a proprietary gleam that causes heat to creep through me.
I slip on a coat and rush Cole out of my apartment before Drunk and Drunker can embarrass me any further. “So what are we doing?”
“Well, I was looking atPagePulseand?—”
I stop on the fourth-floor landing and hold up a hand. “I’m sorry, you what?”
“PagePulse,” he repeats like it’s a foreign word. “That site where you track the books you like.”
“I know whatPagePulseis. I just didn’t know that you did. No offense.”
The wicked tilt of his grin makes my knees wobble dangerously as we continue down the stairs. “I looked up a few of your favorite rom-coms to get ideas for our date.”
That in and of itself is worthy of a rom-com.Swoon. Gripping the railing to keep from tumbling, I peer over at him. “Were you inspired?”
At the bottom of the stairs, he hits me with his signature smile and rests his hand on my lower back. “Yep. In the books, they always do cute things like go to a museum, or the best ice cream shop in the city, or an arcade. But none of those areyou, so I decided to think a little outside the box.”
“Okay…” I truly have no idea where this is going. “So if we’re not going to a museum, ice cream shop, or arcade, then what are we doing?”
He waggles his brows. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”
I grip the taut muscle of Cole’s thigh as the helicopter tilts and sways. Of all the scenarios I envisioned for tonight, enjoying a helicopter tour of Boston was most definitely not one of them.
“Is it supposed to be this rocky?” I yell over the choppy sound of the spinning blades. In the small space, Cole’s scent—a mix of his woodsy cologne andhim—surrounds me like a safety blanket. It calms me in ways that the weighted blanket Ava got me for Chanukah two years ago never has.
“I can hear you.” Cole taps the mic attached to my headset. “And yes, we’ll even out soon.”
I nod and force myself to relax against my plush leather seat and take in the view. This experience? It’s definitely set the bar for any future dates. Knowing Cole, that was probably his intention. He did tell me he plays to win.
“Oh.” I tap my pointer finger against the panoramic window. “That’s the Gardner Museum.”
