Page 66 of Death Match

Cole played with the menus on the end of the table. “Do you want one or…”

I shook my head. “I’m going to just get the same thing I got last time.”

“Good choice.”

When the waitress came over, she poured us each a coffee and took our orders.

Cole passed me the cream and sugar. “I can’t guarantee it’ll be as good as mine this morning.”

I chuckled while I added the amount of sweetness I needed and stirred it with a spoon. “It could use a gimmicky cartoon mug,” I said.

“I was thinking the same thing.”

As I brought the cup to my lips and sipped, I looked around again. My gaze found one of the painted cherubs on the ceiling and paused. With its chubby little face and feathered wings, something pounded at the back of my mind. As if something locked away in my memory wanted to break free but couldn’t. And this thing, it was important. Really important.

I narrowed my eyes, trying to remember what it was I had forgotten. Little cherub baby with wings… Flying through the clouds… In Heaven… It’s an angel, isn’t it…?

An angel…

Angel.

A name hovered on the edge of my thoughts. E… E…

“What are you staring at so hard?” Cole’s question jerked me back, back to our booth and the plate of pancakes, sausage, and scrambled eggs before each of us.

“When did these get here?” I put down my mug, shocked I had missed the waitress coming back. The smoky and savory smells of the food tickled my nose and my stomach rumbled. Guess I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I was sitting down in front of a plate of all of my favorite foods.

“While you were staring into space,” he replied with a laugh.

I cleared my throat, still not used to this sudden intimacy between us. I liked it, I definitely liked it, but I wasn’t quite used to it.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” I shook my head to kick myself out of my daze. I put down my coffee cup and replaced it with my fork. “I’m good. Just drifted off for a minute.”

Hoping he didn’t ask any more about it, I began digging into the heap of food on my plate. We ate over small talk, mostly about what color to paint that room in the house and what our next project should be after. Cole wanted to do some work to the backyard, maybe build a porch for summer barbeques or a firepit for whenever Kay, Laurence, and Zach came over.

If I was going to be honest, I was only half-listening. My mind was reveling in the fact that this was actually happening. That I was sitting here with Cole, enjoying something as innocent and normal as breakfast out, and talking about fixing up the house—our house. One we lived in together. An old Victorian in Fairport.

The more I thought about it and the more happiness that filled me, the more the past faded away.

Whatever was happening here, I liked it. Actually, I didn’t want it to end.

“I’m thinking we could get it all done in a year, if we really bust our asses,” Cole said around a mouthful of food. He didn’t seem to notice the fact that I had gone quiet, the fact that I had stopped eating my food. “What do you think?”

Just coming back to the conversation, I nodded. “Sure.”

Reaching over to the side of the table, he pulled out all the extra napkins they had by the ketchup, sugars, assorted jellies, and syrup and began stuffing them in his jacket pockets. I furrowed my brow, dropping my fork so it clattered against the plate.

“What are you doing?” I asked him, glancing at a passing waitress and wondering if she would say something about him jacking them all. She didn’t.

“Can never have too many of these,” he explain and waved a few at me. “Especially when they’re thick like these ones. More like mini towels than a napkin really.”

I chuckled. “They are pretty nice.”

“Come on.” He slapped a hundred on the table. It more than covered our food, drinks, the napkins, and the tip. Then, he grabbed my hand, tugging me out of the booth and onto my feet.

My brows rose in confusion, but I let him drag me, leaving my plate filled with food and my half-full coffee cup forgotten.

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