Page 65 of Taken
Dear Diary—
Dear Journal?—
Dear Future Me Most Likely?—
The made-for-TV movie seems like it’s finally reached a thrilling conclusion or at least a good stopping point for a sequel. It turns out the hot guy I met on vacation is totally into me and is currently making us some soup for dinner as I write.
Totally into me? Who am I kidding?
WE’RE IN LOVE. BIG BOLD LETTER L O V E
It feels so weird to write that but it’s true. Nicholas and I have been inseparable since the fire.
Since the hospital. Since the drive home from the hospital.
Fuck.
I’ve never felt like this before in my life. It feels good. Really good. Warm and fuzzy and everything in between.
Or maybe that’s just a side effect of my prescriptions??? The pain in my leg is finally starting to fade but it’s not completely gone just yet. Nicholas has been taking really good care of me, though. Which is probably why I should wrap this up and go find him.
Soup time!
“You picked the worst time ever to bring me out on a date like this.” I chuckled as Nicholas held out a chair for me at some fancy restaurant, green vines hanging all along the walls. “You definitely should’ve done this when it was easier for me to get around.”
Nicholas didn’t say anything in response, only offering me a small smile as he helped me into my seat. When I was settled in, he took his seat across the table, handing me a menu to look over. My eyes drifted from the menu to the handsome man in front of me, all dressed up in a suit and tie. It was a look that I’d rarely seen Nicholas wear, so often dressed down when he was out of his uniform for work.
Hot damn.
The sight in front of me was almost enough to distract me from the restaurant’s décor, something I took in even more as I glanced around the place. The vines were a nice touch but so were the bottles tucked away in built-in lattices, the years emanating expensive just from looking at their labels. The low lighting was also appreciated, the lamp above our table on a setting that was the perfect kind of dim, giving off just enough light to read the menus and to visually trace the outline of Nicholas’ jaw?—
“You’re staring at me,” Nicholas murmured, without even looking up from his menu.
“Can you blame me?” I wistfully sighed. “My boyfriend got all dressed up for me tonight.”
“I got all dressed up because there’s a dress code,” he corrected, with a grin. “But impressing you may have been something in the back of my mind, too.”
“So? Is there a reason for the season?” I pressed. “A celebration for the occasion?”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t bring us out here just to get us out of the house, did you?”
“No, you’re right,” he admitted. “There is something I wanted to talk to you about.”
Suddenly, his demeanor shifted into something more somber, something more serious.
I laid my menu flat against the table, confusion spiking through my veins.
“You’re not breaking up with me, are you?” I suggested, half-joking, half-terrified. “And you’re doing that thing where people break up with you in public so you don’t make a scene?”
“What? “No,” Nicholas chuckled. “I’m not breaking up with you, Parker. Trust me. It’s going to take a lot to get rid of me.”
“Just checking.” I offered him two thumbs up, a sense of relief washing over me. “In that case, what’d you want to talk about?”
“I wanted to talk about this,” Nicholas said, sliding a pamphlet across the table. It looked like a pretty nice apartment building, pricey condos that only existed in downtown areas, the kind with glass windows and their own parking garage. “I wanted to know what you think.”
“It looks nice.” I took the pamphlet into my hand, flipping through its pages. “Really nice—Shit. Is that an indoor pool? Only for use by residents? That’s a really good perk.”