Page 3 of Mr. Wrong Number

I pressed my lips together and closed my eyes. Leave it to my mother. The only thing worse, at the age of twenty-five, than having to ask your parents for money because you rolled into town on fumes and literally didn’t have a dime to your name, was having a mom who wanted to talk about it. I said, “Yes, I did it online last night.”

As if I had any choice but to deposit that mortifying parental contribution as fast as humanly possible.Because after the smoke cleared (literally) and it became apparent that my building was no longer standing, I’d had to spend what little money I had on survival items like an oil change, new tires, and a whole lot of gas to get me home to Omaha.

Thank God I still had one final paycheck coming next week.

My mother said, “You did it on the computer?”

I gritted my teeth. “Yes.”

“Evie’s husband said you shouldneverdo that. You might as well just give your money to the hackers.”

My head was throbbing. “Who is Evie?”

“My bridge partner, the one who lives in Gretna. Do you never listen to me?”

“Mom,” I said, contemplating pulling the oldcutting out, I’m in a tunnelcell phone trick. “I don’t memorize your bridge partners’ names.”

“Well, I only have one, dear, it’s not that hard.” My mother sounded deeply offended. “You need to stop with the computer banking—just go see the teller in person.”

I sighed. “Should I have drivenbackto Chicago to deposit it in person, Ma?”

“There’s no need to get snippy. I’m just trying to help.”

I sighed again and clambered to my feet from the low, low air mattress that’d bottomed out every time I’d rolled over in the night. “I know and I’m sorry. It’s just been a rough couple of days.”

“I know, hon. Just come over later, okay?”

“Okay.” I walked over to the door and threw it open. “I love you. Bye.”

I tossed the phone on top of the desk and squinted as the living room’s natural light assaulted my eyeballs. God, the hangover. I had that equilibrium tilt going on, the one that let your body know you were still too boozed up to drive, and I stumbled in the direction of the Keurig, desperate for coffee.

“Well, good morning, sunshine.”

I froze at the sound and instantly felt like I was going to throw up.

Because Colin Beck, Jack’s best friend, was watching me toddle toward the kitchen. As if the universe hadn’t already beaten the living shit out of me, there he was, standing beside the fancy breakfast bar with his arms crossed, witnessing my walk of shame with an eyebrow raised in amusement. He was wearing his I’m-better-than-you smirk and dickish good looks while I traversed the apartment in underpants and a too-small shirt like some sort of Winnie-the-Pooh variety of dipshit.

I blinked. Had he gottenmoreattractive?

What a prick.

The last time I’d seen him was my freshman year of college, when I’d gotten kicked out of the dorms and had to spend the final month of the semester living at home with my parents. Jack brought him over for spaghetti on a Sunday, and Colin had found the story of my stray-dog rescue turned mauling of multiple dorm tenants turned subsequent fire-sprinkler deployment turned massive dorm-wide flooding dismissal to be the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

Today he looked like he’d just come back from a run. His damp T-shirt hugged his über-definedeverything, and some kind of tattoo snaked down his right arm.

Who did he think he was with that, The Rock?

Colin had one of those movie-star faces, with the perfect bone structure and a killer jawline, but his blue eyes had a mischievous spark that offset the beauty. Rowdy eyes. I’d fallen in love with that face briefly at the age of fourteen, but aftereavesdropping on a conversation where he’d referred to me as the “little weirdo” at age fifteen, I’d taken an extreme right turn into loathing and never looked back.

“What are you doing here?” I walked around him to where the Keurig sat on the smooth counter, and I pressed the power button. The cool air reminded me that my backside was totally exposed in my idiotic vanity plate underpants, but I’d be damned if I let him think that he had the ability to faze me. I forced myself not to tug on the Cookie Monster pajama top as I searched the cabinets for coffee, telling myself that it was only a butt as I said, “I thought you moved to Kansas or Montana.”

He cleared his throat. “In the cupboard next to the fridge.”

I glanced over at him. “What?”

“The coffee.”

He wassucha know-it-all. He’d always reminded me of an East Coast mobster, the way he knew everything and was always right. So I lied and said, “Well, I wasn’t looking for coffee.”

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