Chapter Seven

"Babe, I love you, but this is quite possibly the dumbest idea you've ever had."

Truly snatched her pint glass from Lulu with a glare, accidentally sloshing beer on the table. This whole bar was grody—floors sticky with God knew what, band posters stapled on top of each other an inch thick off the wall, graffiti covering the bathroom stalls, layers of lipstick kisses on the mirror, cigarette smoke drifting inside from the alley. Some spilled beer would go unnoticed.

"What's so dumb about wanting my parents to be happy?" she shouted over the noise. Music was too generous to call whatever was happening on the stage, but that's what they got for going out for drinks on a Monday. Subpar, shitty bands. But sitters were cheaper on weekdays than weekends so Truly couldn't really complain.

Lulu frowned and pointed at her ear. "What?"

Mercifully, the guitarist's earsplitting riff ended, and the music stopped, the song over. Truly could hear herself think again. "I said, what's so dumb about wanting my parents to be happy?"

Dad had been an easy sell. Not only did he have plenty of PTO saved, the Lake Chelan Concert Hall was hosting a one-night-only production of Repo! The Genetic Opera, one of Dad's all-time favorites. All Truly had had to do was look at him with big eyes and a slightly jutted lower lip over FaceTime, ask if he'd be interested in spending a little quality father-daughter time in Chelan, and he'd readily agreed.

Mom had been slightly harder to convince, claiming to be extraordinarily busy with the fund-raiser the horticulture society was planning, but as soon as Truly had mentioned that the annual Lake Chelan Arts Festival was coming up and it would be fun to get out of the city, drink a little wine, and hit up the silent auction? Mom had folded like a house of cards.

Stage two ofOperation Get Mom and Dad Back Together was a go. In a little over two weeks, they'd all be in Chelan and she'd be one step closer to achieving her goal.

Lulu rolled her eyes. "That's the thing, you don't want your parents to be happy; you want them to be together."

"It's the same thing."

"Is it?"

Truly sipped her beer and tried not to make a face. Next round, she was totally ordering a Dirty Shirley. "Obviously."

"Look, babe, light of my goddamn life, I love you and I know your heart is in the right place, but your brain? Babe, it's all kinds of fucked-up."

Yikes.

"You sure know how to make a girl feel special."

Lulu waved her off. "Oh shut up. We're all a little fucked-up. It's just that your brand of fucked-up is a little more"—she clenched her fingers like she was choking someone—"hands-on."

Her brows rose. "Are you insinuating that I'm some kind of control freak?"

"Hon, you waved goodbye at controlling as you passed it miles back." Lulu wiped beer foam from her top lip. "I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's just a thing. You like to call the shots. You can't help it any more than you can help that your eyes are brown."

"You just literally called my brain fucked-up."

"Ugh, I hate it when you pay attention to what I say." Lulu nudged Truly's beer toward her, urging her to drink up. "I'm just saying, there should only be two people in your parents' marriage." She cocked her head. "Unless they're game to add a third. Your dad is a stud."

Truly wrinkled her nose. "Gross."

"Objectively, your father's a silver fox."

"Objectively, my father has no hair on his head."

Lulu looked at her and they burst out laughing.

"He looks like Stanley Tucci!" Lulu argued. "He fixes a mean Aperol Spritz! It's hot."

"He's my father!"

"I have eyes and a functioning libido." Lulu sniffed. "Your daddy's dead sexy, live with it."

Truly shivered. "I will pay you to never call my father daddy ever again."

"Get the next round and I'll try to restrain myself. My point stands. I know you love your parents, but it's their relationship. Not yours, theirs. I say this with all the love in my heart, of which for you I have an abundance, but this isn't yours to fix. Quit meddling; that way madness lies."

"All I'm doing is making sure the circumstances are conducive for communication. That's it! The rest is up to them."

Lulu stared, looking unconvinced. "You're literally tricking them into being at the same place at the same time. The same itty-bitty lake house. You called it forced proximity. You want to know what I heard when you said that? Captivity."

Beer dribbled out the sides of Truly's mouth. "Lulu!" She scrambled for a napkin and of course there were none. She wiped her chin with her hand. "Way to make it sound like my parents are Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing. I'm not a zookeeper."

"Come on. You're engineering the perfect environment for them. A place they can't escape—"

"They each have cars. Freak."

Lulu flipped her off. "Oh, like you haven't considered leaving out a little guest basket for them. Massage oils and flavored lubricants and teas to stimulate their libidos. You're probably going to show up to the cabin early just so you can douse their bedroom with black market pheromones you bought online."

"Your brain is a scary place."

"No worse than yours, you hypocrite."

"Contrary to whatever goes on in your wildest, weirdest fantasies, I have no intention of forcing my parents to do anything they don't want to do." Other than, you know, be in the same place at the same time and talk. "I just want to encourage... togetherness. Communication. This isn't about me. I just want them to remember all the reasons they love each other."

"Parent-trapping your parents is a bad idea," Lulu singsonged, reaching for her beer.

"It's brilliant," Truly singsonged right back. "I'm sorry you don't have the vision to see it."

"Oh, I've got vision." Lulu waggled her brows.

"Pervert." Truly giggled. Maybe she'd skip the Dirty Shirley. This second beer was hitting her hard and fast. "If you're going to blame anyone, blame Colin. He's the one who gave me the idea."

Kind of. Technically, she'd come up with it on her own, but Colin was definitely the one who'd planted the seed.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold the phone. Colin?" Lulu leaned her elbows on the sticky table. "The dude you want to hate-fuck?"

"If you mean the guy I'm doing the podcast with, then yes," Truly said primly. "I do not, nor have I ever wanted to, hate-fuck anyone."

Lulu burst out laughing.

"I don't! I—his advice isn't half bad, all right?" She squirmed atop her barstool. "Maybe he's not entirely awful, either. He's actually kind of clever. Funny."

"Oh, you so want to sit on his face." Lulu grinned. "I fucking knew it. Slut."

"Lulu!"

"I say that with all the love in my heart. Reclaim the word, hon. Seize that bull by the balls."

Truly balked. "Horns. It's seize the bull by the horns."

Lulu smirked. "Isn't that what I said?"

Truly brought the glass to her lips and chugged. She was not nearly inebriated enough for this. "You're ridiculous."

"What's ridiculous is the chemistry you two had." Lulu fanned herself. "If I could bottle that shit up and sell it, I'd make millions. Millions."

"It's not like that. Colin and I aren't like that."

Lulu rested her chin on her folded hands. "And whose fault is that, hm?"

"No one's. It's—" Her phone buzzed, lighting up with a text from an unknown number. Great. Probably another of those we've been trying to reach you about your vehicle's extended warranty spam texts. "Sorry. One sec."

She pried her phone off the sticky tabletop and swiped at the screen.

The fuck?

Her heart stopped.

Dark and slightly blurry, that was clearly a snapshot of someone's Kindle. A Kindle with two of her most recent books downloaded.

Truly flashed Lulu the screen. "That's weird, right?"

Her number wasn't public. It wasn't on her website. Her publicist had it, yeah, but Mel wouldn't give it out all willy-nilly.

Lulu frowned. "Local number?"

206. "Yup."

Lulu looked over her left shoulder, then her right. Like anyone in this dive had their fucking Kindle out. "Ask 'em what they want."

Truly rolled her eyes.

Truly (10:15 p.m.):Who is this?

There, direct and to the point.

"I asked who they were."

Lulu scoffed. "They could lie."

Now who was being ridiculous?

Her phone buzzed with a reply.

Unknown number (10:16 p.m.):Colin.

Unknown number (10:16 p.m.):McCrory. In case you happen to know another Colin.

Unknown number (10:16 p.m.):Plausible, considering it was in the top 200 names from 1982 to 2016.

Truly smiled.

Colin freaking McCrory.

Truly (10:17 p.m.):Did you Google that?

Colin (10:18 p.m.):Would you judge me more if I said yes, or no, that I just had that fact in my back pocket?

Truly (10:18 p.m.):Don't worry. I'm going to judge you either way.

"What has you grinning like that?"

She dropped her phone, caught red-handed. "Um, nothing?"

Lulu glared. "Bullshit. Fess up. Did your mystery texter send you a dick pic? Is it good? Share with the class."

"No! It's nothing like that." Fessing up to this felt worse. "It's, um. It's just Colin."

Lulu grinned. "Just Colin. Speak of the devil, huh?" She froze. "Holy shit. He's reading your books? Truly."

"Kind of weird, right?"

He didn't need insight into the inner machinations of her mind, and that's exactly what her books would give him.

"Kind of hot, I think you mean," Lulu said.

Her phone buzzed and damn it if her heart didn't lurch. "Hold on."

Colin (10:19 p.m.):Rude.

Her face went instantly hot.

Truly (10:20 p.m.):I thought you liked me rude. Or was that just sweet talk?

Her phone buzzed almost immediately.

Colin (10:20 p.m.):You think I'm sweet?

She took a greedy gulp of room-temp lager. Nothing she'd tried so far had gotten rid of the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Might as well try drowning them.

"How'd he get your number, anyway? Did you give it to him? Truly, have you been holding out on me?"

"No, you nosy freak. I don't know how he got my number."

Lulu kicked her under the table. "Well, ask."

Truly (10:21 p.m.):How'd you even get my number?

Colin (10:22 p.m.):My sister.

Of course.

Colin (10:22 p.m.):Don't blame her. I asked her for it.

Colin (10:23 p.m.):She told me not to be weird. Whatever that means.

Lulu snatched the phone from her.

"Hey! Boundaries, much?"

"You were literally in the delivery room when I had Mai. You have seen my vagina at its absolute worst. We have no boundaries." Lulu swiped at the screen. "Damn. Please, for me, tell him he's been a very good boy and put him out of his misery?"

She buried her head in her hands and groaned. "Lulu."

Lulu kicked her under the table. "The guy's gagging for it. He's humping your leg. Virtually. Textually. Throw him a bone, I beg you. Do it for me. Pretty please with a cherry on—"

"Fine. I'll throw him a bone."

Truly (10:26 p.m.):If you wanted to impress me, you should've started with my backlist, McCrory.

She showed Lulu the screen. "How's that?"

"Damn." Lulu whistled. "Making him work for it. You're a sadist, St. James."

A sadist? Oh, as if. "I am not."

"Tell me you're not deriving pleasure from making this boy jump through hoops for you and then get back to me."

No one was making anyone jump through any hoops. "I don't—"

"So help me God if the next words out of your mouth are I don't want him."

Truly shut her mouth and stared at the sticky table. Someone had gouged a set of initials into the wood inside an ugly lopsided heart, which she traced with a finger.

For the first time in years, Truly didn't have a clue what she wanted.

It had always been simple.

Work hard doing something she loved, meet someone, fall madly in love, get married. Have a home, a life, as full of love and laughter as her parents had.

Everything she'd ever wanted had hinged on her belief in happily ever afters, but now she had doubts she'd never had before. She wanted to believe, did she ever, but...

She just didn't know anymore.

"I just got out of a six-year relationship, Lulu."

"Exactly. You just got out of a six-year relationship with a man-child you gave a lot of yourself to and got next to nothing from in return. You deserve to be happy."

Truly shifted uneasily on her barstool. "I don't even—he's not—okay, Colin's... nice to look at."

Fun to—to tease. Flirt with. She hadn't flirted with anyone in too long and it was novel. That was it. It was new. Of course she was enjoying it. It didn't mean anything.

Lulu looked thoughtful. "Not my usual type, a little too pretty, but he does have a very sittable-looking face and a slutty little waist working in his favor."

"Be serious, please."

Lulu rested a warm hand atop hers. "I love you, Truly, I do, but that's your problem. You're so serious these days and I could strangle Justin because I know he's the reason. Because you always had to be the responsible one. I don't know when it happened, but somewhere along the line he stopped treating you like a partner, and he expected you to—to practically be his mother."

Truly wrinkled her nose. "That's not—"

"It's true and you know it. And I know you did it because you loved"—it must've taken a lot for Lulu to say the word, her nose wrinkling and lips pursing distastefully—"Justin and because you have a big heart and you wanted so badly to see the best in him. You wanted to believe he could be better, but you? You deserve so much more than six years wasted waiting on a pumpkin to turn into Prince Charming."

Truly sniffled into the dregs of her beer. "You're the best. Really you are, but I—I'm kind of a mess right now, if you hadn't noticed. I'm far from being in the right headspace for a relationship."

Even if she was ready for one? A divorce—sorry, family lawyer and a romance author? Everyone knew that, like enemies to lovers and secret babies, opposites attract only worked well in fiction.

Lulu scoffed. "He's cute, but Christ, who said anything about a relationship?"

Truly frowned.

"Sweetheart, I'm not suggesting you marry the guy. I'm suggesting you go get your back blown out by the dude who's currently sitting at home reading books you wrote and texting you after asking his sister for your phone number."

Truly pressed a condensation-covered hand against her burning cheek.

After she and her high school boyfriend had amicably broken up after graduation, she'd gone on a string of disastrous dates with guys who'd made it clear they were more interested in getting in her pants than remembering her name. She'd put herself out there, gone to parties, joined a few of the supposedly less sleazy dating apps, and just when she was ready to call it quits and take a break from the dating scene? She'd locked eyes with Justin across the campus quad and the rest, as they said, was history.

Truly hardly thought her heart was located inside her vagina, but she'd never had a one-night stand, a fling. She didn't know if she was built for casual, let alone whether that was what she wanted.

"I don't even know if Colin's single. I don't even know if he likes women. Even if he does, that doesn't mean he likes me. The point could be entirely moot."

"Don't be dumb." Lulu drained her beer, stood, and pointed at Truly. "I'm going to hit the head. While I'm gone? You, missy, are going to ask that boy if he's single, you hear me?"

No. No way. She shook her head. "I am not doing that."

"Come on." Lulu rolled her eyes. "At least check his Instagram for clues."

"Clues? What kind of—"

"You're smart. Figure it out."

"Lu, I can't just—"

Lulu threw up deuces as she disappeared down the hall.

Truly sighed and slumped against the sticky table.

Screw Lulu.

She was not going to open Instagram, and she definitely was not going to search for Colin.

Truly glanced at her phone. She wasn't.

What were the chances of him being on IG, let alone his profile even being public?

Truly picked up her phone and set it right back down.

The chances didn't matter because she wasn't going to look because she didn't care. She didn't.

Her thumb hovered over the IG icon on her home screen, but she wasn't going to do it. She wasn't. She was just going to scroll her feed, maybe watch a few stories, and—

Search: Colin Mc—

He was the number one search result. Algorithms were terrifying and Truly? Truly was weak.

She didn't know what she was looking for. The same person cropping up in multiple photos? Heart emojis in a caption? Colin looking at them all gooey-eyed? His hand a little too low on their waist to be friendly?

Caitlin made several appearances in his feed, and so did a guy with piercing green eyes and a birthmark over his left eye who was almost as pretty as Colin. His handle was @cillianmccrory so she was willing to bet they were related. Hence, pretty.

Otherwise, it was all awkwardly framed selfies and group shots with girls seated atop Colin's lap. Gorgeous girls. Lots and lots of gorgeous girls with their hands in his hair or their lips pressed to his cheek, and it was never the same girl, either. Which didn't rule out the possibility that he was seeing someone, but it didn't confirm it, either.

Seven weeks back and Truly had learned nothing.

... other than the fact that Colin looked ridiculously hot in a three-piece suit. Big surprise there.

She clicked on the photo, a group shot taken at some fancy shindig. A wedding, maybe. Even though all the guys in the photo were dressed similarly, her eye was drawn to Colin, left of center. His smile was just a little brighter; he was just a little bit more.

She scrolled to read the caption.

It was an honor to be named the recipient of the Emerald City Family Defense Fund's Volunteer of the Year Award at last night's Santa Claus for a Cause Toy Drive and Auction benefiting children and families in King County.

Unreal.

Against her better judgment, she scrolled to the next picture on Colin's profile and—

Hello, sailor.That was a lot of skin on display.

His pale blue swim trunks revealed more of him than she'd had the pleasure of seeing before.

And what a pleasure it was.

Dark hair trailed down from Colin's belly button—an innie—and disappeared down into those swim trunks that looked about a size too small, as if he'd borrowed them from someone else. His thighs, paler than his calves by a shade, were on full display, sprinkled with downy brown hair, flattened against his dripping wet skin and—

Truly choked on air.

She didn't have to guess anymore. The rest of Colin was just as mole-splattered as his face, his neck. There were two beauty marks resting just above each collarbone. Like a matched set. Truly wanted to draw a line between them. With her tongue. Fuck, she wanted to wrap her hand around his throat, gentle, and measure the distance between those two spots with her thumb and pointer finger.

Oh, she was so screwed.

She needed to talk to Lulu, stat.

Truly squinted down the hall. A line had formed outside the bathroom and considering how long it was? Chances were, Lulu was caught up in it.

Screw waiting. She took a screenshot and sent it to Lulu, needing to get this off her chest.

Truly (11:04 p.m.):He's so pretty it pisses me off.

She hit send and slumped against the wall. Save for the pushpin digging into her shoulder blade, she felt so much better. Lighter.

Her phone buzzed and she took her time reaching for it.

Colin (11:10 p.m.):I don't think you meant to send this to me?

Her brain snagged like it was caught on blackberry brambles.

Didn't mean to send what to him?

She scrolled back through their messages and—

Oh shit.

Her stomach went into free fall.

Fuck.

Oh fuck.

No.

No, no, no.

She didn't. She couldn't have.

Oh God. She had.

The proof was right there, staring her dead in the face.

Instead of texting Lulu, she'd sent her screenshot and incriminating message to Colin. Because he was her most recent contact. Because she was just tipsy enough to do something as careless as press send before double-checking who she was texting. What a rookie move.

Her hands shook as she typed.

Truly (11:13 p.m.):please forget i sent that

Shame curdled in her gut like spoiled milk as those dumb little dots danced across her screen, proof that Colin had seen her text and was typing back.

Colin (11:15 p.m.):If that's what you want?

What did he mean, if that's what she wanted? It was mortifying. Of course she wanted him to forget. She wished she could forget. Wished she could wipe this whole encounter from her mind, Men in Black–style.

Truly (11:18 p.m.):i'm out with lulu and i'm a little drunk right now srry!!

If she made sure to add in a typo so she'd seem drunker than she was? That was for her to know and Colin McCrory to never, ever find out.

Colin (11:20 p.m.):Ah. Haha. Okay.

Haha? She whimpered softly into the palm of her hand. Kill her now.

Colin (11:21 p.m.):Have fun and uh, drink water?

Colin (11:21 p.m.):Good night, Truly.

She was contemplating hurling herself off the roof of the bar when Lulu threw herself into her seat with a beatific smile that waned as soon as she actually looked at Truly. "What'd I miss?"