Page 3 of The Moment You Know

“I mean it, Paige. Getting you laid is actually on my bucket list.”

“It’s on your bucket list? That’s not how bucket lists work.”

“It’s how mine works and that guy is the one to cross it off.”

Paige exhaled a long suffering breath and asked, “So, just for the sake of argument, how would you prove it?”

Instead of answering, Jules turned and started waving somewhat wildly at the guy to get his attention, which she did just as he was raising his glass of beer to take a drink. Looking startled for a moment, his expression turned slightly guarded when Jules pointed at him, then to herself. She paused for several seconds, before pointing at him again and then pointing at Paige, finishing with a dramatic head-tilt, as if to say,Well?

“Jesus, Jules, he probably thinks you’re asking him to have a threesome,” Paige hissed. “And I don’t give a shit if that’s on your bucket list—”

“It’s not, so don’t worry.”

Now grinning, the guy set down his glass while his friends, who had all watched the exchange, laughed at him. He took their amusement in stride, otherwise not paying them any attention as he slowly and deliberately pointed at himself, then at Paige.

“Holy shit,” Paige murmured. She thought she was going to fall off her chair.

“I freaking told you so,” Jules cried triumphantly, extremely pleased with herself. “I’m never wrong about these things.Never.”

“But what if you are? What if this is a joke? A prank?”

Jules glanced over at the guy, then back to Paige. “It’s not. But if it is, I’ll kick that guy’sballs into the next century.Now get your ass over there and say hello.”

Still in shock at what had just played out, Paige swallowed as she remembered she was wearing her ancient, ripped jeans with a distressed Pink Floyd T-shirt and had very little make-up on. And God only knew what her hair looked like.

“I can’t. Jules, I look terrible.”

Rather than try and convince her friend otherwise, Jules waved off Paige’s concern. “Don’t worry about it. Clearly he doesn’t think so and that’s all that matters,” she said, before repeating, “Now get your ass over there and say hello.”

“Fine. But not without your ass. You’re coming with me.”

“Fine.”

Picking up her drink, Jules got to her feet and waited for Paige to do the same before walking over to the other table. Halfway there, Jules turned to Paige and told her in a low voice, “I expect you to name your first child after me.”

“What if it’s a boy?” Paige asked, forcing herself to focus on the conversation with Jules and not on tripping while the guy was watching her approach. “‘Jules’ isn’t unisex.”

“Okay, your firstdaughter, then. You can name the rest of your kids whatever you want.”

“Kids, plural? How many do you think I’m going to have?”

“How would I know? That’s up to you and whoever that guy is.”

As they neared the table, ‘that guy’ stood and offered Paige his chair, then grabbed a chair from a nearby table and squeezed it in next to his. One of the guys across the table grabbed a chair for Jules, who took it with a smile and immediately started introductions after sitting down.

“I’m Jules,” she volunteered with a blinding smile.

“Miles,” said the guy to Jules’s left, the one who’d gotten the chair for her.

On the other side of Miles, the guy who Paige recognized as the one who’d yelled ‘pussy’ earlier, leaned forward to gallantly shake Jules’s hand. “Nate.”

It was now Paige’s turn and instead of addressing the table at large, she focused mainly on the guy to her left; up close, he was even better looking and she could see his eyes were an unusual hazel color—deep green, like the color of wet moss, with hints of blue and flecked with gold. His mouth was a work of art, his full lower lip grabbing her attention, until she saw the beautifully shaped bow of his upper lip … but the moment she saw the cleft in his chin, she was complete toast. “I’m Paige.”

“I’m David,” he told her, his voice low and masculine.

Paige barely heard the guy to David’s left say his name was Alex, because David almost immediately leaned in close and semi-whispered in her ear, “I’ve been wondering what color your eyes were.”

His admission made her blink in confusion. He had eyes sonnets could be written about and he’d been wondering about hers? “They’re brown.”

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