“No, it wasn’t the wedding. It was what came after,” he said. “Everyone heard about what happened. Everyone knew that now I knew about Gemma and Max. My failed marriage became the talk of the town.” He sucked more soda down through his straw, then looked at her. “People look at you differently, you know? Like, you walk in a room and everyone goes quiet. Or they try to mother you or bring you food.”
“Pity pastries,” she said knowingly.
He let out a light laugh. “Right. It just got easier to stay at home.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you, Cole,” she said.
“Yeah, me too.” He looked down at the funnel cake and raised an eyebrow. “Are you even ready for this?”
The abrupt shift to light-hearted conversation took her off guard.
“I don’t think you are.” He smiled down at the plate.
The air between them shifted, and she told herself not to be greedy. He’d told her something personal, answering questions that had been on her mind for weeks. Never mind that his words only brought up more questions.
She tore off a bite of funnel cake and popped it in her mouth.
“So far, all you’ve done is introduce me to a lot of extra calories,” she said with a laugh. She took a swig of water and told herself that was enough food for one night—but the sugary fried dough pulled her back again and again.
It was delicious. Marcia would blow a gasket if she saw her eating this way.
“I’m just showing you what you’ve been missing.” He grinned. “And if you close your eyes, maybe you can pretend we’re about to go to your senior prom or something.” He nodded toward the tent where the music still rang out into the darkening night sky.
“I remember Julianna sent me a prom photo once, ages ago.” She stood and met him on his side of the picnic table. “She went with a guy named—”
“Franklin Styles,” he interrupted.
Charlotte laughed. “Yes! Franklin Styles. What kind of name is that?”
“I hated that guy,” Cole said. Spoken like a true big brother.
“Jules thought he was so cute.” She was sure to put proper emphasis on those last two words. “I remember being so jealous of that dress and that hair and that boy.”
They followed the sound of the music toward the big white tent. As they reached the doorway, he stopped and offered her his arm. “Charlotte Page, will you be my date to the county fair barn dance?”
She laughed. “Of course.” She laced her arm through his and he led her inside. The lights were dim, and there were people scattered all around the tent’s interior. A bar had been set up on one side, and at the opposite end of the entrance, a band stood on a stage and played a rowdy song Charlotte had never heard. There were a lot of people out on the dance floor, but the way they were moving wasn’t exactly what she’d call “dance.”
Other people mingled, some sitting at the tables outlining the space, some moving through the crowd of people. Charlotte tried to stick close to Cole, but she wasn’t great at pushing her way through a crowd. He reached back and grabbed her hand, keeping her close, until they reached a table with faces she recognized.
Lucy, Quinn, Quinn’s husband, Haley, and Betsy, along with a few people she hadn’t met, were gathered around a table.
When they walked up, everyone stopped talking to say hello, and Charlotte nearly cried, she felt so welcome. Having friends wasn’t something she was used to. Walking up to a group of dancers usually elicited cold shoulders and a pointed side-eye.
The raucous music ended and the band began to play a slow song. Quinn and her husband disappeared onto the dance floor, and Charlotte turned to find Cole watching her.
“Should we get this over with?” she said with a smile.
He leaned in closer and whispered in her ear, “I’d rather take my time.”
Charlotte’s heart sped up as he took her hand and led her to the dance floor. The song was unfamiliar, but his arm around her waist was not. She’d grown accustomed to his nearness, but here Cole didn’t hold her hand out to the side in a formal dance pose, he held it close and pressed it against his chest.
He held her differently now, his face dipped down toward hers, both of them enveloped by an intimate darkness. She clung to him more tightly, and as they moved, the rest of the world seemed to melt away.
“I wasn’t completely honest with you.” His voice in her ear tickled the skin on her neck.
She didn’t move when she asked, “You weren’t?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t only ask if anyone ever kissed you because I was curious.”
She looked up, her face so close to his they nearly touched. His eyes were squarely on her, sending a shock of nervous energy down her spine. “Why did you ask?”
She’d seen hundreds of movies with moments exactly like this one, but standing there in his arms, unaware of anything else happening around them, she begged her knees not to buckle, her palms to stop sweating. How surreal that she found herself in this space at this moment with this man. Perhaps Cole was the biggest surprise that had come her way since quitting the ballet.
“Because I was too chicken to tell you what I was really thinking.”
She found his eyes, leveled his gaze, stopped moving. “Which was?”
“Well.” He slipped a hand up her arm, letting it rest on the back of her neck. “That I want to kiss you.”
The air between them sparked, and she forced herself not to run away. She’d been putting up a wall between them every time they almost reached this point, and now, here it was, out in the open. There was no running away from what he’d just said.
“You do?” Her voice was thin and small.
He nodded. “But not here in front of everyone. Can we go?”
She nodded. He clung to her hand, but as they turned to go, Cole came to an abrupt halt. She peered out from behind him and saw they were standing face-to-face with Gemma, whose cheeks were streaked black with tears that had cut through her mascara.
“Cole, can we talk?” she asked.
His hand tightened around Charlotte’s, but it felt more like an involuntary motion than a purposeful one. He glanced down at her, but she didn’t say anything.
She had no right to tell him to ignore Gemma and leave with her, and if there was one thing she’d learned about Cole Turner, it was that if someone needed him—even someone who’d treated him as badly as Gemma had—he was going to bend over backward to help.
She loved that about him.
Except right now, knowing that he was about to leave her alone at a fair she hadn’t exactly wanted to come to, she also hated it.
“Will you wait for me?” he asked. “I’ll be right back.”
Charlotte looked at Gemma, who wiped her cheeks dry with the back of her hand. “I’ll just see you later,” she said. “I’ll go home with Lucy.”
“Charlotte, no.” He turned to her. “I’ll be right back.”
She looked him square in the face and forced herself to smile. “No, you won’t.”
And then she turned and walked away.
39
Cole followed Gemma out of the noisy tent and into the warm summer air, kicking himself for choosing her over Charlotte. It was so Gemma to show up at that exact moment.