Page 26 of Truly, Madly, Deeply

“Ah, Woodinville.” She nodded. “Nice place. Um, good wine.”

“Oh, yeah. The wine really was the highlight of my childhood.”

She sputtered. “I’m trying here.”

“Trying? My, my, Truly St. James,” he admonished, tutting softly. “You wouldn’t happen to be trying to get to know me, would you?”

“Yeah, well, you aren’t exactly making it easy.” She huffed, eyeing the orange eyesore on Colin’s lap. “Maybe you should put that helmet back on.”

“Is that a threat?” He smiled, a hint of teeth appearing between his full pink lips.

She crossed her arms and looked away from his mouth, his face, his—everything.

“More like a warning.”

“Hey.” He bumped her with his elbow, a gentle nudge. “I’m teasing you. It’s a thing people do.”

“Oh what, like pigtail pulling?” She scoffed. “Only child here, remember? I wasn’t exactly raised to play nicely with others.”

Colin hadn’t moved his arm and it was warm against hers, heat bleeding through the cotton of his shirt. Her sundress left her own arm bare, and goose bumps rose along her skin, not because she was cold but because there was something startlingly intimate about feeling Colin’s shoulder brush hers with every breath he took.

“Maybe I don’t want to play nicely with you.”

That was—he was—she—play—with—hnggg?

Her brain glitched.

Holy shit.

Had Colin McCrory just come on to her?

Her heart stuttered then sped, hurling itself against her rib cage.

She wasn’t an idiot.

They’d flirted. Pigtail pulling. But that’s all it had been. Nonsense.

This felt different. Like he was suggesting more. Proposing their flirting actually lead to something.

For the second time in less than a minute, her mind glitched, thoughts of what that something might be clogging up her brain like a traffic jam.

Colin winced and—why was he wincing? Oh yeah, that’s right, because he wasn’t inside her head. Because he’d probably taken her silence as a rejection rather than speechlessness.

She opened her mouth—

“You know, I just meant, you’re not very good at small talk.”

Oh. Ouch. Never mind, not hitting on her. Just casually insulting her.

“Shit, that came out wrong. You aren’t bad at small talk, I just meant... do you really want to talk about my brother or where my parents live, or do you want to ask me whatever it is you’ve clearly been dying to ask?”

“I was raised with manners, you know,” she said, finding her footing after the one-two punch of believing she was being hit on, only to realize... not so much. Honestly, she didn’t even know anymore. “I didn’t think asking point-blank about potential childhood trauma would be very polite.”

He flashed her another smile. “I think I like you better rude.”

She stomped ruthlessly on the fluttering in her stomach. “Well, since you asked. Are your parents still together?”

Colin nodded and settled deeper into the couch. She found herself sliding farther into his side. The cushion was uneven, that was why, but it also felt a little like Colin had his own gravitational field. “Married thirty-two years.”

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