Page 6 of Truly, Madly, Deeply

Truly nodded and so did Colin.

“Okay, here we go. In three... two... one...” Caitlin smiled at the camera. “Welcome back, my little heathens, to a new episode of Unhinged. I’m your host and the devil on your shoulder, Caitlin McCrory. You all are in for a treat because today I have not one, but two guests joining me for a special episode all about”—she dropped her voice—“relationships. Anything goes today, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals. Which, if you know me, is saying something.” Caitlin’s smirk widened, totally in her element. “I opened my inbox last week, for all of you lovely listeners to submit your most burning questions about love and sex—though, for the dude who wrote in seeking help for some literal burning, I’m going to advise you contact your primary care physician. On that note, a reminder that neither myself nor my esteemed guests are medical professionals. But”—she paused, tossing Colin a grin—“we do have a legal expert in the house today. Please welcome our first guest, the dipshit who stole my first Barbie, my brother, Colin McCrory.”

He flipped her off with a grin. “I can’t believe you’re still bringing that up twenty years later. Get over it.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes. “Colin, the heartless bastard that he is, has a decade of experience working as a family lawyer here in the Emerald City and as I was telling our second guest, he can spot a red flag a mile away. And speaking of our second guest, I’m ecstatic to introduce none other than the internationally bestselling author of over a dozen historical romances, Truly St. James.”

Blood rushed to Truly’s cheeks, her blush deepening as Caitlin cheered, Colin clapping beside her. Truly smiled at the camera and waved.

“Her books have been translated into over ten languages and featured by outlets such as the Washington Post, NPR, the New York Daily News, BuzzFeed, and Cosmo. Entertainment Weekly named Truly ‘one of historical romance’s brightest stars’ and called her most recent release ‘a triumph.’ When Truly isn’t writing, she can be found haunting her local coffee shop here in Seattle and—okay, I have a question for you, Truly. Feel free to tell me to fuck off, but is that really your name? Truly?”

“It is.” She cleared her throat as quietly as possible, hating how her nerves turned her voice thready. “My parents, they’re big into theater. My dad’s the artistic director of the Emerald City Repertory Theatre and my mom is a retired stage actress. Emerald City Rep was putting on a rendition of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, my dad was the show’s orchestral conductor, and my mom was cast as one of the leads, Truly Scrumptious. That’s how they met. Hence, the name. This August, they will have been married thirty-three years.”

“Truly, all I can say is, thank God your parents didn’t meet on Funny Girl, because Fanny St. James doesn’t exactly scream sexy historical romance novelist.”

“I don’t know.” Colin looked thoughtful. “In the UK, fanny does mean—uh...”

Caitlin leaned her hand on her chin, grin devious. “Go on, Colin. Say pussy on air. Make my day.”

The tips of his ears pinked and Truly had no business finding it as adorable as she did. “Aren’t we supposed to be giving relationship advice or something?” Colin asked.

“As a matter of fact, yes. Yes, we are.” Caitlin flipped to her next notecard. “So, we’ve got a realist”—she pointed at Colin—“we’ve got a romantic”—she gestured to Truly, Vanna White–style—“and we’ve got listeners in desperate need of relationship advice. And these two are going to give it to you straight.” Caitlin paused, lips quirking. “Or you know, not, because this podcast is many things, but straight isn’t one of them. But before we get down to it, I want to know—Colin, do you self-identify as a realist? And if so, how do you define that in your own words?”

His brow furrowed and his lips parted and... wasn’t that a sight? His bubblegum-pink tongue sweeping out against his plush bottom lip, wetting it. “I would say I am, yes. I prefer to accept and deal with situations and people as they are, not what they could be.”

“You heard it here, folks, my brother the realist.” Caitlin turned to Truly. “Truly, same question. Do you self-identify as a hopeless romantic and how do you define that?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m hopeless.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and smiled at the camera. “But yeah, I’m a romantic. I’ve never met two people more perfect for each other than my parents. Even after thirty-three years, they’re just as madly in love with each other as they were the day they met. I’ve never even seen them fight before. That’s how perfect they are for each other.”

“Are you serious?” Caitlin sounded shocked. “Never?”

“No. Never. They’ve served as a sort of... blueprint for me for what a relationship should look like. And I guess that’s what makes me a romantic. I believe in happily ever afters because I’ve seen one in real life.”

It was a variation on what she said anytime someone asked her, why romance? Because she’d witnessed a forever love, a love that could go the distance—persevering through a cancer diagnosis (Dad), a dementia diagnosis in a parent (Mom’s mom) that led to home health care, the subsequent death of all four of Truly’s grandparents, even a random IRS audit.

Lesser couples would have folded after just one of those bumps in the road. But Dad still bought Mom flowers every Sunday and they still slow danced—poorly—to music only they could hear.

That’s why she wrote the books she did—to remind readers that love was real and it was out there and to never give up hope.

Not even upon discovering your fiancé was a lying, cheating douchenozzle.

“God, that’s dreamy.” Caitlin smiled. “I love that. All right, now that you all know a little more about Truly and Colin, without further ado, let’s get to it.” Caitlin tossed that notecard over her shoulder, moving on to the next. “Dear Caitlin & Co., I’ve been with my boyfriend for almost seven months. He’s a great guy, we share a lot of common interests, he makes me laugh, and my family really likes him, which is important to me. There’s just one problem—not once has he ever gone down on me.”

Never? Yeesh. Poor thing.

Caitlin continued, “I tried to talk to him about it and he didn’t have much to say, only that ‘it’s not his thing.’ It’s not like I don’t occasionally get off when I’m with him, but I won’t lie and say that it doesn’t suck that I’m, well, willing to suck and he won’t reciprocate. Any advice? Signed, Sick and Tired of Being an Uptown Girl.” Caitlin sighed deeply and slumped back against the couch. “Oh, Uptown Girl. My deepest condolences that your boy won’t go downtown for you. Truly? Colin? Either of you want to start us off and give our girl some advice?”

Colin looked at her, brows raised, the left corner of his mouth quirking higher than the right, and there was no way she was imagining the way his voice went slightly husky as he murmured, “Ladies first?”

It wasn’t her fault that she was suddenly picturing Colin McCrory repeating those words as he made a home for his head between her thighs.

“What a gentleman.” Truly flashed a smile and looked away, feigning interest in the mic in front of her. Anything except for his stupidly pink mouth.

“No one should feel pressured to do anything—sexually or otherwise—that they don’t feel comfortable with. Consent is paramount. Full stop. There are plenty of reasons why someone might not feel comfortable with performing certain sexual acts. It could be trauma, it could be a lack of experience manifesting as an insecurity. Or maybe your boyfriend doesn’t know how to get you off orally and he’s afraid of looking stupid, so he’d rather not try. Or maybe it’s just patriarchal socialization courtesy of the internet and bad porn so he thinks his cock is, like, God’s gift to womankind or something and believes you should be satisfied with intercourse alone. Who’s to say? I don’t know and you don’t know, either, clearly, or else you wouldn’t have written in, because all he’s told you is that it’s not his thing. He could be lazy or selfish or traumatized and you don’t know because he’s not communicating, which might not be the issue you wrote in about, but I do believe it’s a big one.”

She paused, catching her breath. She had a bad tendency to speak too fast when she was nervous and today was no exception.

“A lot of women, people, are afraid of hurting their partner’s feelings so they’d rather stay silent than rock the boat and risk rejection, but that’s not going to serve either of you. Unexpressed anger or even just frustration is going to breed resentment. I think Uptown Girl needs to consider, one, whether the lack of reciprocity is a deal-breaker for her and, two, whether she can handle her boyfriend’s lack of an explanation. And then she needs to tell him.”

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