Page 61 of Truly, Madly, Deeply

With a jaunty salute, Caitlin skipped off to the bar, Colin’s credit card in hand.

“Thanks for the save,” she said, now that they were alone. “I wasn’t looking forward to reliving my humiliation in front of your sister.”

That look had returned to Colin’s face, the one where he stared at her like she was the Sunday crossword. “Humiliation would be if the attraction weren’t mutual.” Hearing it put so plainly put a funny but not altogether unpleasant knot in her stomach. “Humiliation would’ve been if I had gotten that screenshot and said something along the lines of, Gosh, Truly, I’m flattered.”

Hypothetical or not, she cringed.

Colin laughed. “See? Not humiliating.” He slid the beet salad toward her. “Eat up before my sister lodges another vegetable at my head.”

“You kind of deserved it.” She popped a quartered beet in her mouth before reaching past Colin for a buffalo wing. “That story you blabbed? Now that was mortifying.”

“Eh, it was you or her. Sacrifices had to be made.”

“And you chose me? Shucks, I’d tell you I’m flattered but we’ve already established that phrasing sucks.”

Colin smiled, eyes dropping to her plate. “Did you know the history of the chicken wing is disputed?”

The question took her off guard enough that she laughed. “Random, but all right, I’ll bite. Disputed how?”

Colin had a perfectly good plate of wings sitting beside him and yet he chose to steal the wing off her plate. That would’ve gotten under her skin a month ago, but now she just felt weirdly fond that he wanted her wing. The one she’d touched. “Okay, so there are two general theories. One’s that Anchor Bar in Buffalo—sorry, is this boring? This is probably boring. We can talk about something else. Do you want to talk about something else?”

There was an odd note in his voice she desperately wanted to dispel, a twist to his lips she wanted to smooth away. She reached for another wing and kept her hands to herself. Please remain seated and keep arms and legs inside at all times. “Anchor Bar in Buffalo... what’s the 411? What’s the hot gos, McCrory? Tell me everything. Don’t leave me hanging.”

Colin laughed and something inside her eased. “Settle down. The year was 1964.”

“1964.” She nodded as if she knew a damn thing about the ’60s other than civil rights, counterculture, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Twiggy. “A good year.”

“Even better when you learn that the Bellissimo family of Buffalo claim that to be the year they invented the buffalo wing. Now, there are several conflicting stories circulated by the family and others about how exactly the buffalo wing, as we know it, was born, but what’s more interesting is that John Young, a guy who moved from Alabama to Buffalo in 1948, began selling wings fried and served in a tomato-based Mumbo sauce in 1961. He claimed the Bellissimo family didn’t start selling wings as a regular menu item until, get this, 1974.”

“Hot gossip indeed.”

Colin stole a celery stick and tore it down the middle, dipping one half in ranch and the other in blue cheese. “Just wait. Young also claimed in an interview that Frank Bellissimo used to come to his restaurant and eat wings. Even though Anchor Bar still claims to be the home of the original chicken wing, history’s not on their side.”

“Juicy,” she said. “And you know all of this, how?”

Colin reached for his beer. “Uh, too much time spent on Wikipedia?” he admitted, bringing his pint glass to his lips. “And I have trouble sleeping. Side effect of Adderall. I have a bad habit of forgetting to take it and then taking it too late.” He set his glass down. “I have a tendency to latch onto a topic and—”

“Obsess?”

Colin thumbed away the foam from his upper lip. “I was going to say hyperfixate, but sure, that works.”

“So, this week it’s buffalo wings?”

“Technically, I started researching pizzle, which naturally led to bulls, which led to buffalo, and that led to buffalo wings.”

“Naturally.” She nodded. “So, what else does Colin McCrory research in his spare time?”

Colin paused, staring at her like he was weighing his next words against the look on her face. Whatever he was searching for, he must’ve found because he asked, “Still don’t know what you want?”

And that sudden segue warranted a drink. Truly reached for her glass and—awesome. Empty. “I don’t know.”

Screw it. She stole Colin’s pint glass, erasing the bitter aftertaste the lie had left behind with a mouthful of equally bitter beer. Blegh.

Colin’s lips twitched, not even trying to hide his amusement as she wrinkled her nose and pushed his glass away. Far away. “You don’t know what you want, or you don’t know whether you don’t know what you want?”

“I—hold on.” She kicked Colin right in the shin. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I was getting to it.” He locked both his ankles around hers, effectively trapping her leg against his. “Nice deflection, by the way. But I’ll let it slide. This time.”

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