Page 78 of Truly, Madly, Deeply

“A baby?” Muffy screeched and stood so fast she knocked the table, her glass toppling over, blessedly empty. “Oh, I’m so happy.” She sniffled, rounding the table and dragging Caleb and Ali into a hug.

Mr. McCrory held his nearly empty glass aloft. “Congrats, kid. Knew you had it in you.”

The sound of wood screeching against wood made her shiver.

“Congratulations,” Colin said, perfectly polite, congenial even, smile fixed. And if she weren’t watching him so closely, he might’ve seemed okay. But she was watching him, was so attuned to Colin that he could’ve blinked wrong and her spidey-senses would’ve tingled. His eyes were focused an inch over everyone’s heads, gaze distant and smile just this side of too wide to be real. A flimsy veneer. “Excuse me. I’d like to check on the dessert. Be back in a sec.”

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Truly had brought a cream pie and he knew it.

But she sat perfectly still, quietly seething with a smile pasted on her face as everyone took his excuse at face value, didn’t even question as he strode from the room, shoulders unnaturally stiff.

When he hadn’t returned after five minutes and the conversation about potential baby names grew grating, Truly asked after the restroom.

Muffy gave her vague directions to pass through the kitchen, hit the hall, and you can’t miss it. Which didn’t matter because Truly didn’t really need to pee. She was mostly looking for an excuse to find Colin.

... who wasn’t in the kitchen. Big shocker there.

He wasn’t in the bathroom, either. But she did find a window in the half bath overlooking the drive. It was foggy out for this time of year, but not so foggy she missed the gray-blue BMW backed into the drive, a rainbow sticker on the bumper.

Oh, she knew there was a reason she didn’t like that bitch.

Truly tore out of the bathroom, a woman on a fucking mission, daring anyone to get in her way. God only knew what drew her to the French doors at the end of the hall, but she followed her intuition.

Moonlight glinted off Colin’s hair, as glossy and dark as the lake. He was down on the dock, bare feet cutting waves in the still water.

Truly shut the door behind her softly and crept down the knoll leading to the dock, cool grass tickling her feet. It wasn’t her goal to sneak up on him, but she wasn’t exactly looking forward to announcing herself, either.

Until she glimpsed the cigarette between his fingers and saw fucking red.

Her feet slapped against the aged wooden boards of the dock. Colin craned his neck, looking over his shoulder, about a second too late to stop her from reaching down and plucking the cigarette from his hand. She didn’t think, just tossed it in the lake with a noise she wasn’t ashamed to call a growl.

“The hell?” Colin spun toward her, water rippling around his ankles.

She stomped her heel against the dock, wood trembling beneath her foot. “Those will kill you, you know that?”

“Something’s gotta do it,” he mumbled, and her blood reached boiling.

“Not on my watch,” she spit out. “I swear, Colin—”

“It wasn’t even lit. I didn’t even bring a lighter.”

With that dumb as shit confession hovering in the space between them, the fight drained from her. She sank down to her knees, rough wood biting into her skin as she swiveled, twisting to the side, letting her bare feet skim the surface of the water. “God, I hate you.”

She didn’t. Not even a little bit. Not at all.

Colin knocked his shoulder against hers. “I like you, too, Truly.”

She laughed. “So what? Were you gonna, like, absorb the nicotine through your skin? Was that your security cigarette? Like a blanket but dumber and deadlier?”

He cringed. “I don’t even smoke. Not anymore. I quit... God, I don’t even remember. Two years ago? Yeah, two years ago.” He looked at her, sly smile spreading across his face. “You realize you probably just gave some poor, unsuspecting fish cancer, right?”

“Shut up.” She buried her face in her hands and groaned. “If you don’t smoke anymore, where did you even get that?”

A moment passed and then another before it registered that her question might’ve been loaded.

“Ali. Her jacket, I mean. She smokes—smoked? I don’t know now because of the...” Colin let out a loud, painful-sounding breath through his nose and gripped the side of the dock, his knuckles turning white. “I figured she’d have a pack on her.”

She dragged in a breath and held it until her lungs burned. Here went nothing.

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