Darkness Before Dawn

snort, knowing that he's seen it at least five times with me. Nineties movies are our thing, granted, Home Alone always takes the cake, but I still love them all.
    "It's always playing on AMC, dammit," he mumbles below his breath, making me laugh loudly before I turn to see Spencer watching us, equally amused.
    "We have no privacy," I whisper. "At all. Am I the only one that gets annoyed with that?"
    Cole groans. "Blake, we need them, please don't start this again. They're good people and they are going to make sure nothing happens again. And we have Connor and them."
    "Don't remind me," I reply, swirling my spoon around the melted ice cream. If it weren't for Mark and Connor confirming who my grandfather is, I would think they were trying to play a bad joke on me. It's just too much to deal with, which is why I haven't even considered meeting him yet. As much as I want to see my father because I'm morbidly curious, I'm not sure I can go through with it. Connor says he doesn't even know I'm alive, which makes it easier to stay in hiding. It also makes me wonder how he doesn't know I'm alive if Connor, Mark and my grandfather all know that I am.
    "Are you sure you don't want to meet them?" Cole asks, disrupting my thoughts.
    "I don't know, Cole. I don't know anything anymore," I whisper, looking up from the ice cream for a second before returning my gaze to it. He puts down his spoon and places his hand over mine, completely covering it before squeezing it once.
    "You know me," he says in a low voice that makes me snap my eyes back to his.
    "And that's all I need to know," I reply just as quietly.

 

    As we stroll hand in hand around the city, which proves to be sticky, as summers in New York usually are, we fall into comfortable conversation about the buildings and how much nicer the people are in Chicago.
    "Don't say I didn't warn you about your clothes," he says, giving me a pointed look.
    "You keep saying that!" I say, exasperated. "Let's just go buy some damn clothes."
    He grins widely. "Okay, let's do that."
    I'd forgotten how much I absolutely hate shopping with Cole. I've been standing around playing hanger rack for him and following him around the entire department store as he looks at all the sports jackets.
    "I've never met anybody that needed this many freaking sports jackets!" I exclaim when he places the fifth one on my aching forearm.
    "I'm not getting all of them, don't worry," he says with a wink.
    I let out a huff and take a seat on a couch while he continues to walk around and I see a pretty sales girl walk up to him and take out her measuring tape. Cole shakes his head and smiles at her, politely declining, but she continues to follow him around while I just watch as an amused spectator. Cole keeps looking over his shoulder and smiling stiffly at her, but she's clearly not getting the picture. She just keeps following him and checking out his ass while I laugh from my seat. Cole snaps his head to me and pleads for me to help him but I decline, still laughing. He narrows his eyes at me and laughs a little, shaking his head in disbelief before making his way over to me. The girl, who is still following him, looks at me with wide eyes when she spots me and realizes that he's not alone. I smile at her for a moment before Cole covers me with his body, making me squeal as I lay back completely on the flat surface of the couch. He bites my bottom lip lightly before sucking it into his mouth.
    "You like that? Watching other girls flirt with me knowing I only have eyes for you?" he murmurs against my lips. I gasp in surprise as his body leaves mine with a push up. His green eyes sparkle with mischief as he runs his tongue between his teeth ever so slowly, calling my attention to his mouth. The clearing of somebody's throat causes us both to snap our heads in that direction. Watching us with dropped jaws are two blond curly haired kids, no older than ten and their pissed off mother. I look at Cole, who is smiling sheepishly as stands, pulling me up with him. We stand awkwardly in front of the family, apologizing with our eyes and facial expressions as the mother continues to scold us with hers.
    "That was pretty hot." Our heads turn in unison to a teenager standing by with a pair of jeans in his hand and a Slurpie in the other. He sips on his drink and shrugs at the woman who is glaring at him.
    "Jonathan, you do not make comments of approval about those things in front of your brother and sister!" she