and jeans to a reality TV viewing party and all the other people were wearing their fancy dresses.”
“That was just for fun.”
“And so is this.” He raised his eyebrows, daring me to challenge him.
“I really won’t look out of place with you looking like that and me looking like this?” I asked.
“It will be fine,” he said. “So can we go now?” He held his hand out. “I kind of have a lot of things planned for tonight.”
“I guess,” I said. After grabbing my purse from the couch, I tentatively put my hand in his and let him walk me to the car.
“So where are we going?” I asked Cole as we headed toward the shopping district in downtown Denver. I hadn’t heard of any special events happening in town tonight that he would need to be this dressed up for, so I was lost on what we could be doing.
“I’ll tell you when we get there.” He glanced sideways at me as he drove, and the smirk on his lips told me he was really enjoying keeping me in the dark.
“You know not all women like to be surprised, right?” I asked. “And as your dating coach, I feel like I might need to help you understand this.”
“But you like surprises, right?” He raised an eyebrow, clearly not caring about my advice right now.
“I like to surprise other people,” I grumbled, crossing my arms. “But when it comes to most everything else, I like to at least have some sort of an idea of what I’m getting into.”
Because if I was about to walk into one of the fancy charity events he was always getting invited to, I did not want to stick out like a sore thumb.
But of course Cole didn’t care about that because he winked and said, “I think it’s good for you to have someone keeping you on your toes for once.”
And I did something I hadn’t done since I was a teenager and totally stuck my tongue out at him.
Yikes! Maybe I was the one who needed the dating coach because I was certainly being a terrible example.
Cole just chuckled, good-natured as always. “We’ll be there in two minutes. Think you can wait that long?”
“I guess.” I folded my arms and slumped back against the leather upholstery of my seat.
Cole turned down a couple more streets, and in another minute he was pulling to the curb in front of one of Denver’s most expensive clothing boutiques, Avalon Couture.
He put his vehicle in park and nodded toward the glass doors. “This is why it didn’t matter what you wore for our date.”
“You’re taking me shopping?” I checked the sign above the store’s entrance to make sure I wasn’t imagining the store’s name. “Here?”
“Yes,” he said. “And before you try to tell me that I can’t buy you anything from this store because it’s too expensive, or whatever excuse I know you have running through your mind, let me just remind you that this is a practice date. And since I’m the one who asked, I get to do whatever I want to do for the date.”
“But—“ I tried to say.
“No buts.” He covered my lips with his fingers. “You can give me your professional critique later. Go ahead and take notes silently in your head, but you’re not allowed to tell me what I can improve on until the end of the night. Okay?”
I nodded slowly, noticing how the blood had rushed to my lips where his fingers were still touching me.
He held his fingers there for a moment longer, as if gauging whether he could really trust me not to say anything right now. But after studying my eyes for a moment, he must have seen something in them to make him believe I’d follow through with his request because he slowly removed his fingers from my mouth.
I pressed my lips together, not used to such an intimate gesture from him. Then I said, “I’ll try to keep my comments to myself. Even if I think that taking a date to one of the most expensive clothing stores in Denver might be setting yourself up for a relationship where the girl wants you more for your money than your awesome personality.”
“Arianna…” he said in a chiding tone. “You’re critiquing me already.”
I lifted my hands at my sides. “Sorry, I can’t help myself.”
But instead of saying anything more about the subject, Cole climbed out of his car and came over to the passenger side to