“I cannot believe what I’m hearing.”
“I know,” I said, carrying two glasses of prosecco over to the table. Sara was unboxing our food—fried ravioli and a loaf of focaccia from Caniglia’s—and staring at me as if I’d grown a second head. I gave her a sheepish grin and murmured, “I can’t quite believe it myself.”
She’d called last night, right after the kiss and smack-dab in the middle of my mental freak-out, to see if I wanted to grab food and catch up sometime. I said something desperate like “can we tomorrow, please?” and thankfully, she was down for a quick happy hour. I hadn’t planned on telling her about the kiss, but the minute she’d walked into the condo and asked how I was, I’d blurted out the whole thing over our first bottle of wine.
“So, um,” she said, looking like she wanted to laugh as she opened the carton of ravioli that the delivery driver had just dropped off, “does this mean there’s something brewing between you and Mr. Beck?”
I sat down and picked up a ravioli. “No, no, no, I was excited so I hugged—”
“Stop.” She shook her head and snagged a few ravioli for herself. “In no normal situation does a friendly hug end in dry humping against a doorframe. Try again.”
That made me snort. “It was way sexier than dry humping, Sara.”
She coughed out a laugh and said, “For real, though—you know I’m right. There has to be something crackling if you were both sober and a yay-I-got-the-apartment hug turned into foreplay.”
“Okay.” I dropped the ravioli back onto the plate—it smelled weird—and reached for my wine instead. I said, “I suppose there’s . . . an awareness between us all of a sudden. Sexual chemistry, I guess. But I also know that he doesn’t really like me.”
Her eyebrows went down. “What?”
“I mean, I guess he likes me now,” I said, taking a sip and picturing his heavy-lidded gaze from the night before, “but that doesn’t mean he respects me. He just sees me as a shitshow dipshit.”
Sara took a bite of one of the breaded appetizers and just looked at me while she chewed.
“I’m dreading seeing him, to be honest.” I ran my finger along the stem of the wineglass. “He’s probably beating himself up for doing something so stupid.”
“You haven’t seen him since the kiss?”
I shook my head, a little embarrassed by the fact that I’d spent extra time on hair and makeup that morning, just in case I saw Colin. “When I got up this morning, he was already gone.”
As if on cue, the sound of a key in the lock came from the entryway, and my stomach went wild with butterflies. I felt a little light-headed and took a deep breath, trying to look cool and casual.
Sara smirked, raised her glass, and gave me a tiny nod of support. “Cool and casual. You’ve got this.”
The door opened, and Colin walked in.
Dear God.
Did the man ever look less than perfect?
I allowed myself one second to do a lustful inventory—blue eyes, stylish suit, wide chest, broad shoulders, Adam’s apple—before turning my attention to the focaccia on the table. I leaned forward and unwrapped the loaf as I said to Sara, “I can’t believe they still have this bread.”
I felt it in my peripheral vision when he looked over at us. Noticed us.
“They told me when I called in the order that my timing was good, because apparently they sell out in fifteen minutes or less every single day.” Sara set down her wineglass and—bless her—smiled like we were having the greatest time. “Is it really that good?”
I pulled off a hunk and set it on my plate before pushing the rest of the loaf toward her. “Oh, yeah.”
“Hey.” Colin set his messenger bag on the table next to the door, walked into the kitchen, and gave me a weird look. His eyes moved all over my face and I wondered if he’d been expecting a reaction over the kiss or something, because he looked like he was trying to find answers to a thousand questions.
“Hey,” I said, glancing at Sara and trying not to grin as she gave me a discreet look. “This is Sara, by the way. Sara, this is my brother’s roommate, Colin.”
Colin’s mouth curled into a warm, friendly smile that made my stomach feel light and he reached out and shook her hand. “Nice to meet you. Although . . .”
Sara tilted her head and smiled.
“Didn’t we go to the same high school?” Colin let go of her hand and put his in his pockets. “You look really familiar.”
I could tell Sara was charmed by the fact that he remembered her, and the two of them immediately launched into a recollection of their shared study hall and some kid named Gerbil who used to sell beef jerky under the table.
The wine was starting to give me a warm, glowing buzz, which made it impossible not to fall into a shitty grin as he behaved like Prince Charming. When they finally finished walking down memory lane, I said, “Sara, did you know that Colin has a Purple mattress?”
She sputtered out a tiny laugh. “Is that right?”
Colin’s eyes narrowed and he looked at me the same way he had before, like he was trying to figure something out. He swallowed and gave a polite nod, coupled with a smile. “Guilty as charged.”
“Consider me jealous,” Sara said.
I tilted my head and squinted. What was he doing? Where was the know-it-all, cocky smart-ass? I said to Sara, “Y’know, he is never this nice.”
“What?” Colin’s gaze was back on mine, and he rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I’m nice.”
I rolled my eyes and picked up my bread. “Only because I’m moving out.”
Sara said, “He’s a man. Nothing makes a man quite as nice as when he’s getting his way.”
I laughed and Colin gave a half smile as he scratched his eyebrow.
“He’ll probably fall asleep cackling the day I actually leave,” I giggled, raising my glass to my mouth and finishing what was left.
“In a flawless suit, no doubt,” Sara laughed, but shot him a kind smile.
Colin looked amused as he walked over to the counter and picked up the bottle of wine. He looked at Sara and asked, “Can I get you a refill?”
“Yes, please,” she said with tipsy enthusiasm.
He brought the wine to the table, and as he asked Sara something about where she lived, I wondered what was up with him. I squinted as he was incredibly polite, treating her to a sweet, genuine smile.
Why was he being so nice?
It made me uneasy.
I watched him refill her glass, but the sight of his luxury watch peeking out from under his cuff distracted me with a gut-punch flashback of the way it’d felt when he was holding my face and a strand of my hair had gotten pulled between the links.
It’d felt like nothing. A pull that didn’t matter because his fingers were on my skin, his mouth on my mouth, his breathing heavy, and his body pressing mine into the doorframe.
God.
He laughed when she said something about her baby, and it was impossible not to find him to be the most charming man on earth.
What the hell was he up to?
Colin
I listened to Sara—baby, husband, house in West O—but my mind was on the girl in my periphery. It was taking extreme self-control not to look in her direction. I’d tossed and turned all night after the kiss, plagued by guilt and also a nonstop replay of the kiss, so at five in the morning I’d finally gotten up and just went into work.
Where I spent half the day with my head in my hands, trying to stop thinking about it. I needed to have a minute alone with her to make sure we were cool, but I also didn’t want to be alone with her. What was wrong with me?
“Excuse me—waiter?” Olivia cleared her throat, and when I swung my gaze her way, she was giving me a wine-drunk smirk. “I could use a refill, as well.”
“Of course, ma’am.” My blood went instantly hot as I looked at her red lips and the lipstick print on the rim of the wineglass. Shit, shit, shit. I swallowed and poured, unable to come up with a single comment.
What were words again?
I felt her watching me, and when I looked up from her glass, to the sprinkling of freckles on her nose and cheeks—how had I never noticed those before?—her eyebrows were knit together. Her eyes were narrowed, her head was tilted, and she was blinking fast.
She looked absolutely confused.
Same, Marshall.
Hard same.
