You are in Love

the bar downtown

Cristina came home from woke that night, exhausted and confused. As she opened the door to the house she was instantly struck by the smell of bacon and the sound of music. "Cole?" she yelled into the house as she hung her keys on the hook and took her jacket off.

"I'm in the kitchen, love!" He yelled to her. She followed his voice and saw him standing with a glass of wine in hand, flipping pancakes.

She chuckled, "you're something, you know that?" She grabbed the bottle of wine and poured herself a glass.

"What? I can't make dinner?" He smiled at her, "c'mere." He lifted a pancake with the spatula and placed it on a plate as she walked over to him. When she reached him he wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her. She kissed him back, and slowly pulled away after a few second, only to feel his lips gently touch her forehead after that. She looked up at him with a smile.

"I was thinking about the night I first saw you, do you remember?"

Cristina smiled and said jokingly, "no, you'll have to remind me."

"I'd love to," Cole sipped his wine and pushed a plate of pancakes toward her. "Alex was in town, and you'd taken him to that bar downtown. I had gotten off work and it had been a particularly rough day. I remember walking into the bar and seeing this woman with beautiful black curly hair, and the most stunning eyes, and feeling every cell in my body become completely compelled by you. I was about to approach you, but you went back to the table with Alex. The way you acted, I thought he was your boyfriend."

"The bar downtown?" Cristina asked.

Cole nodded and continued his story, "I sat down defeated and then I heard it- I turned my eyes and you had pulled Alex on to the stage to sing karaoke with you. You were both drunk off your ass, but you looked so radiant having fun like that."

"You've never told me that before," she paused and her heart filled with happiness that was soon met with a feeling of despair. "I thought we met in the park."

"I guess that is where we met, but I was enchanted by you much earlier than that."

Cristina kissed him again but her heart was slowly sinking. How could I possibly love anyone but this man? she thought to herself.

"I love you, Cristina," Cole whispered to her. "I've known since that moment that I loved you."

"I love you, too" she smiled.

"I am curious, though, how did you and Owen meet?" He turned and filled his wine glass up. "I spoke to him the other day and he mentioned he was in the army, he's a very nice man."

Shit. Cristina thought, How am I supposed to tell him the story of how Owen and I met? He just told me this beautiful story about loving me, and I'm going to ruin it if I tell him- She took a deep breath and calmed herself down. He doesn't have to know, just down play it.

"Oh, he gave first aid to some car crash victims that ended up in our ER, and followed them to the hospital to get first aid on his leg. I was a resident so I stitched him up. He must've spoken to Webber while he was there, he ended up working there a couple months later."

"Interesting," he laughed.

"What?" She asked, hoping she hadn't said anything wrong.

"Nothing, you just spend so much time working I'm not surprised."

She laughed nervously, and finished her glass of wine. Hearing him talk about loving her like that only reaffirmed her fear: she could only ever love Owen that way.