Page 5 of The Moment You Know

“Happy birthday,” she said.

“Thanks,” he replied and then slightly wary, told her, “Now, go ahead and let me have it.”

“Let you have what?”

“A bunch of shit about my birthday being on Groundhog Day. Everyone does it.”

Paige pursed her lips for a moment. “Well, my birthday is April 15th, so I won’t be giving you any shit about being born on Groundhog Day. To be honest, I’m actually pretty jealous.”

“Jealous?”

She gestured toward a TV that was currently showingGroundhog Dayand they watched asBill Murray drove off a cliff into the quarry with Phil the groundhog. “Your birthday essentially has its own mascot, not to mention its own movie. I’d trade birthdays with you in a—” Paige broke off as the sudden appearance of Nate’s head over her shoulder made her jump in surprise. “Jesus Christ!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Nate apologized, giving Paige a soothing pat on her arm, before glancing at David with undisguised curiosity and amusement. “So, how are things progressing over here?” he wanted to know.

“Things are progressing just fine, thanks,” David told him.

“Does that mean you two are getting to know one another?”

David gave Nate a long, pointed look. “We’re working on it.”

“Aww,” Nate gushed like a teenaged girl, deliberately overlooking David’s aggravation. “Looks like your birthday wish is coming true—”

David reached over and pushed Nate away by his face, cutting him off. “That’s enough, Nate. Time to piss off.”

“Keep me posted!” Nate called out, laughing. “Because I wantallthe details.”

Paige waited until David had settled back in his chair and then asked, “Birthday wish?”

“They toasted to my birthday and made me make a wish. Then we drank a shot of Tequila.”

The scene he was describing was obviously the one she had witnessed earlier and she tilted her head. “So, what was your wish? Nate said it looked like it was ‘coming true’,” she said, using air quotes, something she was usually against, because it was stupid.

He paused for a moment. “My wish was to get to know you.”

Paige didn’t say anything as she struggled to believe he had really wanted that. It seemed likesucha line, but he looked utterly sincere—not to mention he had obviously gotten called a pussy for it—so she should’ve had no reason not to believe him. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” He leaned forward, moving into her personal space and took one of her hands, twining their fingers together. She was a little shy—and not his usual type—but David was overwhelmingly drawn to her, from her dark, caramel-colored hair, amber eyes and liberal dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks, to her wide, generous mouth; even her slightly pointed chin was appealing. “I saw you and … I just wanted to get to know you.”

Paige’s heart actually tripped and she had to take a calming breath. “You know, I think Alex was wrong earlier.”

“He’s wrong about a lot of things, so you’ll have to be more specific than that.”

“When he said you had zero game,” she clarified softly.

He raised an eyebrow. “So you don’t think he was wrong when he said I was pretty?”

“No. He was definitely right about that.”

Chapter 1

The present

Paige leaned back in her chair, taking a few moments to do her breathing exercises while holding an amethyst worry stone in her hand and rubbing it with the pad of her thumb. Usually the combination of the crystal and focused breathing helped to relieve her stress, but today they weren’t relieving a damn thing.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Rub, rub, rub.

---