Page 93 of Truly, Madly, Deeply

“Did you—did you bet on my love life?” she asked, mildly horrified.

“What else are we supposed to bet on, Pumpkin?” Dad buffed a kiss against her cheek. “Sports?”

“Ha. That was a good one, Stanley.”

Dad preened. “I thought so.”

On the bright side, her parents were getting along, even if it was courtesy of conspiring against her.

“And you wonder where I get my boundary issues from.” Hypocrites, the both of them. “So, what? You just walk in the door, take one look at us, and assume we’re together because what? We’re not at each other’s throats?”

“No,” Dad said calmly, crossing his arms. “I took one look at the boy wearing your pants and then on my second look I spotted the sizeable love bite you’ve got”—he pointed at his own neck—“right about there, and well.” Dad razzle-dazzled his fingers. “Clearly someone was at your throat, Pumpkin Butt.”

Colin wheezed, the sound of a dying man. A death rattle.

She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and dragged him toward the kitchen. “Colin and I are going to take turns trying to fit ourselves down the garbage disposal. ’Kay? Bye.”

“Now, wait just a gosh darn minute, young lady. I’d like to talk to this young man.”

She slowed reluctantly.

Dad drummed his fingers against his arm. “Tell me, Colin McCrory—how well do you know musical theater composers?”

“Dad, no. Colin doesn’t want to play.”

“Colin doesn’t want to play what exactly?” Colin asked.

She sighed. “My parents have this rule—”

“Tradition,” Dad corrected. “It is a family tradition.”

“Tradition, where when you’re in a room you have to use a song title or lyrics by the composer the room is named for in every sentence. We’ve got the Sondheim sunroom, the Irving Berlin half bath, etcetera, etcetera. It’s a pain in the ass.”

“It’s inspiring,” Dad argued, hands on his hips. His offended stance. “Gets the creative juices flowing.” He shimmied his shoulders in a way she’d pay to never again witness.

“It’s a little like a puzzle,” Mom conceded. “Keeps you sharp.”

Dad crossed the room and threw an arm around Colin’s shoulders. “We do things a little differently at the lake house. You see, the lake house is a wild card. Sondheim, Rodgers, Hammerstein, Bart, Bernstein, Tesori... strictly mealtimes and any composer goes.”

She tugged on Colin’s sleeve, dragging him away from Dad and dropping her voice. “We can go out for dinner. You do not have to do this.”

Colin rubbed his fingers against his lips, brow furrowed. “It’s okay.”

“I mean it.” She wouldn’t think any less of him if he wanted to ditch. Her family could be a lot. “There’s this restaurant not far from here at Vin du Lac Winery. If I call now, I bet I can get a late reservation for four. Or you and I can just—”

He leaned in, lips pillowing against hers in a chaste kiss, shutting her up and stealing her breath in one go. He leaned back, a smile playing at the edges of his lips. Lips she wouldn’t mind kissing a few thousand times more. “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going.”

The quiet conversation her parents had been having on the other side of the room died swiftly.

Dad straightened, pointing at Colin across the room, a smile spreading across his face. “Dreamgirls, 1981. Tom Eyen. You familiar with any of his earlier work?”

“Like The Dirtiest Show in Town?” Colin shrugged. “I only saw the film version on Showtime, but yeah, I know it.”

Dad slapped both hands over his chest and fell to his knees. “Be still my heart. Truly?” He looked at her, eyes wide, expression solemn. “Either you marry this boy, or I adopt him. Do you hear me, young lady?”

“Dad,” she hissed, face hot and ears burning. “Can we try not to scare him off?”

For all the push and pull she’d done, the mixed signals she’d sent, she was kind of attached to the idea of Colin sticking around.

---