cry right now.
I willed the happy tears to stay inside because I did not need to have raccoon eyes when I was wearing the most beautiful dress and shoes, sitting in my favorite restaurant in the world, and being serenaded by the rock god that was Incognito.
It took a moment, but when I felt I could talk without having my emotions spill over too much, I turned to Cole and said, “No one has ever done anything like this for me before. I—” I let out a shaky breath. “I just don’t know what to say.”
Cole reached across the table and covered my hand with his. “If you’re about to tell me that I’m going to end up with a gold-digger because of all this, then please don’t say anything.”
And the slight smile that he gave me completely melted my heart.
“But why did you do this?” I asked. “How…?”
He gave my hand a squeeze and gently rubbed his thumb along my knuckles. “Because you do so much for everyone around you, Arianna. You deserve to be pampered every once in a while.”
“But I…” I started, fully planning to tell him that it was too much. But when I saw a tightening in his eyes—a look that told me he was worried I was going to reject the lovely and amazing gift he’d given me—I simply said, “Thank you.” I sighed and gave him a soft smile. “Thank you for all of this. I feel like I’m living in a dream.”
He just gazed at me with a tenderness in his eyes that I’d never seen before. In a low voice that did funny things to my stomach, he said, “You deserve it, Arianna. You deserve the world.”
When he said that, I was reminded of our drive back from Hannah’s party when I was trying to decide what to do with Chad and he’d said those exact words to me.
I hadn’t believed those words then, but I realized that even though it had just been a short time, it seemed like I’d experienced enough in just one week that I was starting to believe them now.
Maybe all it took was breaking away from the negative influences in your life to realize that we all were of infinite worth and should never settle for something that made us feel less than.
Cole let go of my hand and pulled open his menu. “What do you say we order some dinner?”
“Yes, let’s do that,” I said. Then I opened my menu and tried to decide what I wanted to eat. Because it was only right that the best night of my life include the best food I’d ever tasted.
26
Arianna
Cole and I ordered our dinner, cassoulet for me and boeuf bourguignon for him, along with a bottle of 2014 Château Climens Barsac wine.
After the waiter had filled our glasses, I took a sip of my wine and said, “I still can’t believe all of this is even real.”
“Why?” Cole unfolded his napkin and set it on his lap before lifting his own glass to his lips.
“I don’t know…” I lifted a shoulder. “I guess there’s just a part of me that is still the same girl I was at eighteen.”
“And your eighteen-year-old self didn’t like beautiful dresses and French food?”
“No, I’ve definitely always liked those things.” I gave him a slight smile. “It’s just, I was a different person back then—pretty jaded when I thought about my future. And so I just couldn’t imagine that I could be so happy, or that I’d ever have a friend like you.”
“What do you mean a ‘friend like me’?”
“I don’t know. I guess just someone so thoughtful and smart and hard-working.” I shrugged. “Someone unhardened by the world.”
“So you think I see the world through rose-colored glasses?” He furrowed his brow like he didn’t know whether to be offended or just confused or what.
“I don’t think you see the world wrong or anything,” I hurried to say. “It’s just…I don’t know. You seem to have a more optimistic view of things—like you just expect for everything to work out for the best so you aren’t afraid to go after everything you want. And I really admire that about you.”
“But you’re going after your dreams.” He grabbed a dinner roll from the small basket between us. “Don’t you have an optimistic view of the world, too?”
I took a roll from the basket as well and tore off a piece. “I’m getting better. But when everything seems too good to be