Chapter Text
“The world is shit and life is a meaningless march towards death.”
The genuinely shocking cascade of biscuit crumbs that falls from his mouth as he says it would probably undermine this very wise commentary, but luckily Colin is sharing it over the phone and no one is in the room to judge him.
“Considering I can literally hear the half-masticated biscuit moving around your mouth, I’m inclined to agree, actually.”
Well. Judge him too harshly, anyway.
“I’m serious, Ben,” Colin whines, heroically pushing the tin over to the other side of the bed like he isn’t just going to reach for it again as soon as he hangs up. “What’s the point of it all? The climate’s fucked. Animals are going extinct. Social progress is stagnant. Art is dead. Capitalism is—”
“Easy there, Lenin,” Ben says, cutting him off. Which is probably for the best, because Colin had at least five more existential threats locked and loaded. “I know things have been a little weird since you’ve been home—not that you’ve exactly opened up about why, you pillock—but seriously, what exactly brought on this level of nihilism? It’s unlike you.”
Colin sniffs, not particularly eager to get into everything with his most carefree and confident brother—whatever “everything” is, since he’s not even totally sure himself—but not really seeing a way out, either.
“Well, if you must know, I was re-reading A Cook’s Tour—”
“Oh, Christ. Again?”
“—and it’s like, if a fucking visionary genius like Anthony Bourdain, one of the most fascinating and brilliant and loveable people this rotten fucking species has ever produced can’t make it work in this godforsaken world, what exactly are any of us supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? Just sit on my sofa and eat cheese for the rest of my life? Wander aimlessly around Tesco like some kind of lunatic? Do Sudoku?”
“You know, you’re really making a lot of sense here.”
“Ben.”
“Colin,” Ben mocks right back. Is that supposed to be his Colin impression? Flop City, in Colin’s opinion. He knows the teasing is mostly out of love so it doesn’t sting too much, even if it is yet more proof that his family will never quite understand him the way he longs for rather pathetically in his lowest moments. “Are you drunk?” Ben asks then, voice laden with suspicion.
“What? No!”
A few beats of silence.
“…okay, fine, I had a little of that super pretentious whiskey Ant got me for my birthday. But that was hours ago already. I’m basically stone cold sober now.”
Naturally, his body chooses this moment to let out an unfortunately timed hiccup.
Ben sighs, and whatever, he doesn’t have to sound so resigned. “So this is about work, then?”
It’s Colin’s turn to sigh now, and he hates how pathetic and defeated he sounds, even to his own ears. “Maybe,” he says vaguely, more for his pride because it’s not like the evasive maneuvers are actually going to work or anything.
“Ant said you might have something lined up with that airplane magazine.”
Colin exhales loudly through his nose. Of fucking course Anthony has already spread that far and wide to the whole family. He’d never miss a chance to celebrate Colin getting some “real” work, or whatever classifies as real work in Anthony’s eyes. Something that actually makes Colin’s stupid fucking business degree from Oxford make sense, probably.
“Yeah, that. They’re interested in a multi-part series about adventurous dining destinations in Europe.”
“Well that sounds pretty perfect for you, right? Weren’t you just telling us about that life-changing hole-in-the-wall souvlaki place in Kavala?”
“Kalamata. And they don’t want stuff like that, man, they want flashy Michelin star restaurants in Athens and Paris and Berlin so they can sell travel packages and credit card programs and hotel partnerships or whatever. It would just be some shitty drek that people who didn’t have time to buy a book at the airport or download a podcast halfheartedly skim when they’re bored on their flight.”
Ben lets out a disbelieving chuckle. “Well damn, don’t sound too negative about it or anything.”
Despite his best efforts to be normal about this whole conversation, Colin immediately feels his hackles rise and his shoulders deflate. This is exactly why he usually opts not to talk about this stuff with Ben, who it feels like has always known exactly what he wants in life and has let very little slow him down. Colin knows that Ben got a fair amount of shit from Anthony about the impracticality of pursuing an art degree early on—never mind that their family is fucking loaded, Ant, but whatever—but once he eventually took a prestigious position as a creative director at a high-profile graphic design firm, Anthony moved on.
Meanwhile, Colin…well.
“It’s just—you know what, never mind, you’re probably right,” Colin says, suddenly feeling too tired to press further. “It’s a solid opportunity. At least until I figure out what the next big thing could be.”
He hears a concerned noise on the other end. “Hey, really, are you okay? If you’re not, we can totally—”
“It’s fine, Ben,” Colin says, trying to infuse as much cheer into his voice as possible, though even he can tell he sounds a little flat. “Really. Just me being…you know.”
Ben hums skeptically, and Colin pretends not to hear it. “…if you’re sure.”
“I am,” Colin says with finality, and then engages his tried-and-true hard pivot that’s very rarely let him down. “Anyway, what do you want?”
He’s never claimed the pivot to be particularly subtle.
“You called me.”
Colin scoffs dismissively. “Pssh, technicalities. You were using your mischievous little leprechaun voice so I know you were aiming for something.”
“…I genuinely don’t know what to say to that.”
“Out with it, Benny boy.”
He can hear the moment that Ben gives in and chooses to engage with his diversion, and yes, success. “Well, I was going to invite you to come out with us to Mondrich’s tonight since I know you’ve hit a bit of a rough patch, but if you’re going to be such a fucking sad sack about it—”
“I can’t,” Colin cuts in, casting a longing glance at the biscuit tin. “Pen and I watch Drag Race over the phone on Fridays, you know that.”
The pregnant pause from the other end of the phone is damning, but Colin can barely muster up the strength to care.
“How do you manage to be gayer than I am and I quite literally had a dick all the way up my ass last night?”
Colin represses a gag and rolls his eyes heavenward, not for the first time tonight praying to be taken by the angels. “First of all, we share streaming accounts, buddy. I know how much Vanderpump you watch, and am more than willing to use that knowledge against you. And second of all, your well-established harlotry aside, I love and support you, bro, but we are definitely not close enough to make that level of detail okay.”
“I seem to recall a time when you phoned at three in the morning just to tell me that tits are the pinnacle of God’s grand design—”
“Excuse me, I was high as fuck—”
“—you were crying.”
“And you know what, what about it? Tits are incredible and I refuse to be silenced by the likes of you, strumpet.”
Ben laughs. “You’ll hear no argument from me on that. And as much as your deeply problematic slut-shaming wounds me to my core, at least I’m getting some. When was the last time you actually saw a pair of tits in real life?”
And nope, Colin’s not about to dig into that right now. Nope nope nope. “Oh shit, I just remembered I have something in the oven. And on the stove. I’m, you know, making something that requires the oven and the stove. Both of them. Is that the smoke alarm I hear?”
“Oh come on—”
“GottagohavefunatMondrich’sbye!”
He lets out a long, tortured breath after he hits the “end call” button. Colin loves his family, he really does—more than life itself, really. Which is probably why he’s so bad at dealing with the incessant feeling that he’s letting them all down at every turn.
Hence…biscuits.
Choosing to shake off the now-familiar existential dread that follows any conversation he has with his family, he stuffs three more biscuits in his mouth and changes into his rattiest pajamas—even though it’s only nine o’clock and he was literally already wearing sweatpants. Sometimes he wonders why they don’t just make those fuzzy sleep sacks for newborns in adult sizes and be done with it. A total regression to infancy sounds pretty good right now.
He's just resettled on his couch in a full, gloriously uninhibited manspread when his phone buzzes.
“Hey,” he says, smiling despite himself.
“…okay, what’s wrong?”
Colin blinks. “What? What do you mean? Nothing’s wrong.”
“Please,” Penelope snorts. “You’ve been on a biscuit binge, I can tell.”
His mouth drops open a bit. “You could tell that from one word?” he asks incredulously.
“Yup,” she says simply, like she’s describing a perfectly normal phenomenon. Maybe she is, when it comes to him—Colin’s very sure he doesn’t want to dig into that too deeply. “Are you spiraling over Anthony Bourdain again?”
Christ, she’s good.
“I mean…possibly,” he says sheepishly, even as a pleasant, gooey warmth spreads through his chest at the notion that someone could possibly know him so well. It’s a feeling that he’s come to associate with Penelope over the years, one that she always manages to evoke in him even when he’s tens of thousands of miles away, in what feels like the remotest corner of the world. Even when he feels like he barely knows himself.
“How many sleeves down this spiral are we?” she asks, to the point and blessedly without judgment. God, she really is the best.
He glances guiltily at the biscuit tin. “Two,” he says.
“Colin.”
Ugh. “Fine, three.”
“Custard creams?”
“Jammie Dodgers.”
“My god.”
She says it so deadpan, he can’t help but laugh. “I know, I know, it’s bad,” he says, groaning. “I’m singlehandedly canceling out all the hiking I did across the Andes in one sitting. I may have to join an actual gym now. I’m not cut out for gyms, Pen—you know how fitness people frighten me.”
“They are definitely very scary,” she says, and Colin feels tension leave his shoulders just from the soothing quality of her voice in his ear. He’s always suspected that Penelope is a bit magic. “So much grunting.”
“So much grunting!” he agrees. “Like, we live in a society, you know? Can’t a person watch The Office on the treadmill in peace, safe from the knowledge that everyone around them could happily crush their skull with their bare hands? Very much including the women in that, by the way.” He doesn’t mention the fact that when those women aren’t eyeing up the hencher men doing all the grunting, they’re looking at him like they want to slurp him up like a human protein shake. And that it all inexplicably makes him feel like shit about himself and the world at large, whether they’re looking at him or not. But that’s a layer in the big, smelly onion that is Colin Bridgerton that he's in no hurry to peel back, quite frankly.
Penelope hums sympathetically. “Colin, you don’t have to work out much, you know that, right? Pretty sure you had several visible abs the last time we all went to Aubrey Hall.”
Ah, now those were a good couple of weeks. Two summers ago, when he found himself in between trips and surprised the whole family by crashing the annual outing to Kent for the first time in years. They spent every sunny day by the pool—Colin remembers that Penelope got all freckly and cute, and she wore this fucking killer polka dot swimsuit and one of those gauzy cover-up wrap skirt things that he doesn’t quite understand the mechanics of, but she looked so, so pretty in it when she smiled at his and his brothers’ dumbass antics over the top of her book.
Colin feels rather unnerved by how suddenly and vividly that memory flashes through his mind—the booze, right? It’s gotta be the booze—so he deflects it with some tactical smarm.
“Looking at my abs, were you?” he says, deliberately laying it on thick and waggling his eyebrows like she can somehow see him right now. But considering that he knows with absolute certainty the exact way she’s currently rolling her eyes, maybe it’s not so crazy to think that she could. “Well, I regret to inform you that those abs have since merged into what may seem like a belly to the untrained eye, but is actually just one giant, all-powerful super-ab.”
She giggles, and he feels himself grinning like an idiot in response. “Is that so?” she asks, and she sounds so fond of him that the warmth in his chest spreads to his extremities. “Well one is still better than zero, Col. Save the gym memberships for those of us who actually need them.”
Despite her light tone, he frowns at her words. “What are you even talking about?” he asks, genuinely confused. “You don’t need to go to the gym.”
He can easily picture her rolling her eyes again right now, but this time he’s a little less amused by it.
“Tell that to my mother,” is all she says, and suddenly he feels his mood dip again, the soft grin falling off his face. But considering he’s now thinking about Portia Featherington and the expletive-laden piece of his mind he’s been wanting to give her for about ten fucking years, some mood dippage is to be expected.
“Your mother’s a rancid bitch of the highest order,” he says, and maybe he should feel bad about it, but the whiskey and his latest existential crisis are working together to ensure he gives way fewer fucks than normal. “Don’t let her project her issues onto you just because you’re gorgeous and she hates herself.”
He realizes as he says it just how right he is, just how true his words are. Penelope is, has always been, well…beautiful. Just…objectively and scientifically speaking. It’s obviously something he’s had to ruthlessly compartmentalize as they’ve built such a deep friendship over the years, because those kinds of thoughts are a slippery slope and Pen is simply too important to him to ogle her like a horny buffoon, like some kind of disgusting man. But none of that changes the fact that she’s…well. Kind of perfect, really. Like, those…and her…whew. Just…her things. All the things.
Objectively speaking, of course.
Colin feels his ears go a little hot at his current train of thought—like literally what has gotten into him tonight, Jesus Christ—and Penelope hasn’t said anything for several seconds, so he violently eschews all tit-adjacent thoughts and reaches desperately for a joke to get the mood back on track.
“I can feel in my bones how much you want to do the Miss Congeniality line right now,” he says, because it would absolutely be his first instinct if someone had just called him gorgeous and he’s very much not ashamed of that. “Since you have to deal with your mother daily, I’ll graciously allow it.”
That gets Penelope laughing again, and Colin feels relief flood him. “I’ll spare you that, but I appreciate your generosity,” she says, and he finds himself a little disappointed that he won’t get to hear her croon You think I’m gooooooorgeous, you want to kiiiiiiiiiss me directly into his ear, for some reason. “Anyway, I recognize your pitiful attempt to shift the spotlight to me and I’m here to tell you that it’s not going to work.”
He grimaces. “Not even a little bit?”
“Nope,” she says, popping the ‘p’ in a way that bounces around his ear in a strangely pleasant way. “So what’s wrong? Did Anthony say something? Did he try to pitch you that lame ass marketing role at the firm again?”
He can’t help but exhale a laugh—Penelope just gets so righteously indignant on his behalf every time Anthony does that, and it makes Colin want to hug her so badly sometimes.
“No, it’s not Ant,” he sighs. “Well, I mean it is him, a little bit, but no more than always. It’s just the same old shit, y’know. The whole ‘my family is comprised of highly driven, scarily motivated, extremely successful go-getters who all seem to effortlessly balance every element of their lives’ thing, and meanwhile I’m currently pondering a three-month contract with an in-flight magazine to write about shit I don’t want to write about and mainlining biscuits and wearing Spongebob PJs—you know the ones.”
“The ones with the gaping hole in the butt?”
“That’s what she said,” he says absently, and it’s a testament to their friendship that she doesn’t even comment on it. “And the hole is in the thigh area.”
She hums, dismissive. “It’s definitely the butt, but continue.”
“I don’t know, Pen,” he says, feeling underneath himself and damn, there’s no denying it: there is definitely ass cheek to couch cushion contact. “I see everything they’re doing—everything you’re doing—and it’s like…am I ever going to find the thing? All you guys seem to have found your thing, or have somehow always known what your thing is going to be, and it feels like my thing has never been more out of reach.”
“That’s what sh—”
“Pen.”
“Sorry.”
His mouth quirks up at the corner, despite his maudlin mood. “Anyway, there’s no point in going through the whole sordid tale again,” he says. “You already know all this and the last thing I want is to bore you with all my whiny ‘nepo baby with a dead dad’ issues. Like…even I find myself annoying. How do you stand me, woman?”
He can tell she wants to giggle, but she manages a put-upon sigh, instead. “With great willpower and lots of alcohol,” she says. “But take it from someone who may not be a nepo baby but also has dead dad issues—on top of her very-much-alive mother issues—I promise you that your feelings are pretty common? Most of us are just blindly feeling around like little naked mole rats, trying to grab hold of just about anything that can maybe have the slightest chance of making us a little bit happy. And I know you don’t exactly feel the pernicious effects of capitalism as keenly as the rest of us, Mr. Moneybags—”
“Hang on a moment, Pen, I just slipped into my nightly caviar bath.”
“—but all of us struggle to find purpose, Colin. And you’re very, very fortunate to have the talent and time and resources to truly go out and find it. Most people don’t.”
“You found yours,” he can’t help but mention, even as the truth of her words flows over him.
She scoffs. “Uh, you mean my low-paying copyediting job? We’re not exactly talking about the heights of prestige here, buddy.”
“Hell no, that shithole does not and has never deserved you,” he says, because literally fuck those fascists who never listen to any of her feedback and refuse to promote her—
“The ‘shithole’ in question being the BBC,” she laughs. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Whatever,” he says dismissively. “I’m not talking about those cunts, I’m talking about the fact that you’re a real writer. It’s your calling and you’re so fucking good at it, like…it comes to you so naturally it’s insane. And you’re working on that novel you won’t let me read yet—fuck you again for that, by the way—but I know it’s fucking brilliant so don’t even try to sass me, Featherington.”
“Colin…”
“It’s your thing, Pen, don’t you see?” he pleads, desperate for her to understand this fundamental truth that’s been eating at him for the better part of a month. “Even when your boss is giving you shit and even when you’re blocked and can’t write a word, you still know you’re doing exactly what you’re meant to be doing. I want that feeling, you know? I know I’m lucky in a million ways, but is it crazy to want that a little bit? Honestly, tell me if it is, because me going ‘round the bend would make a lot more sense than whatever psychobabble I’m currently word-vomiting at you. Sorry about that, by the way.”
He hears her sigh on the other end, but it blessedly doesn’t sound exasperated or annoyed, and he gives thanks for Penelope’s infinite bank of patience when it comes to him.
“Please don’t apologize,” she says, and he could honestly cry a little bit at the sweetness of her voice. In a very manly way, of course. “It’s not crazy at all to feel that way. You deserve to feel that way. And I know you will—I promise you, you will. And if you want to try out every possible career in London, movie montage-style, I’ll be your comical sidekick all the way. But maybe instead of agonizing and analyzing this so much you just need to stop searching so hard? Relax and let your purpose find you a little bit? The universe, tempestuous bitch that she is, may surprise you.”
Colin smiles softly, suddenly overcome with gratitude for her. That he has her in his life to put up with his bullshit and pull him out of the muck. “The universe is a woman, is she?”
“Obviously.”
“Mm, the science checks out.”
“Anyway,” Penelope says lightly, and he feels his heart clench again that she knows that he needs a change in tone right now. “Thank you for your faith in me, grasshopper, but if it’s any comfort, it’s not like my novel is going anywhere. It’s just something I’m doing to say I did it. Like hiking. Or shower sex.”
He nearly chokes on his own saliva at that last bit. What the blistered, bleeding fuck is wrong with him?
“I thought you were going to talk to Agatha,” he croaks.
“I don’t know,” she sighs. “I feel weird using your family connections for something like this. Isn’t that a little bit…unsavory? Unseemly? Uncouth?”
“Whoa there, Wordsworth, save all those moving adjectives for Danbury,” he says, once again grinning goofily into his phone. “My dude. My guy. You using my family connections is exactly what the world needs now. Please, please let my nepo baby status do some real good for a change.”
“Eh, those free Beyonce tickets you got us all last year were pretty good, too.”
“Pen,” he says, though he can’t quite hold back a laugh. “There is literally no one on Earth more deserving than you. Email Agatha. Don’t make me nag you about it—you know my mother. I was trained for this by the best in the game.”
Penelope snorts. “We stan the GOAT,” she says solemnly. “I’ll…think about it, okay? For real this time. I…thank you. For the push. And your faith, misguided as it may be.”
He wants to argue with her on that, to continue complimenting her until he’s confident her ears and cheeks are flushed red, but knows he’s got to quit while he’s ahead. “The people need your bestseller, Pen,” he says. “I’m merely a vessel for your divine light.”
There’s a pause on the other end. “You know…” Pen says after a few beats. “Maybe you should talk to Agatha.”
“Me?”
“You’ve traveled all over, collected all of these immersive stories, tried all of these different things…have you ever considered putting all of that into, well…a book?”
His mouth drops open. “A book?”
“Is there an echo in here?”
“Pen, I can’t write a book,” he says, because duh-doy, who the hell would spend their hard-earned money on, let alone read a whole book of what he has to say? He is, quite famously, an imbecile, and he has a lot of references to back him up on that.
“Why not?” she asks, and she sounds genuinely irritated, bless her. “You’re a fantastic writer—you’re descriptive, you’re funny, you’re down-to-earth. You could do it easy.”
He feels his face flush at the compliments—and oh, how the turn tables. It tables so hard. “I…thank you? I mean, you’re wrong, of course, but it’s nice to hear.”
“I’m not wrong, you asshead,” she snipes. He finds the fact that she’s angry with him on his own behalf somewhat delightful. “That little piece you wrote last month about sharing that meal with that street artist—I must have read it three times, it was so engrossing. I kept thinking that it could be the basis of a whole book chapter, if you wanted.”
He gapes at the phone. “You read that?” That piece…well, writing it was actually one of the few moments in the past year when he didn’t feel like total shit about what he’s doing with his life. It felt a little stupid to spend so much time on it, since he didn’t feel confident enough to shop it around and it was just going up on his blog, but couldn’t help being proud of the end result, a little bit. Even if it was pointless.
“Of course I read it,” Pen says, and she sounds genuinely surprised at the question. “I read everything you write.”
Colin suddenly senses hot, thick emotion rising in his throat, like he could burst out crying at any second. He gulps and rubs his chest, trying to keep it together, but it’s like the wind’s been knocked out of him, he’s so full of feeling. Like there’s something overwhelming coming over him that he doesn’t quite have a name for.
“Um,” he says, clearing his throat. “Th-thanks, Pen. That’s…that’s really lovely, actually. I…let me give that some thought?”
He feels her smile through the phone like it’s a physical sensation. “You promise?”
“Yeah. I promise.”
“Good,” she says, and with that, the spell is broken and Colin can breathe again. “Do you need to get snacks before we start or are you more biscuit than man at this point?”
He forces out a dramatic scoff, shakily pushing the remaining vestiges of his emotions aside and trying to forget about the weird tingling in his chest. “You insult me, ma’am. I bought an entire bag of white cheddar popcorn for this very occasion.”
“That’s my boy. Alright, go get it. I think they’re gonna do Snatch Game tonight.”
“Oh fuck yeah.”
Colin spends his entire Saturday mulling over Penelope’s suggestion. He plumbs the terrifying and deeply cursed depths of the Notes app on his phone, he pages through his collection of well-loved Moleskine notebooks, he relives memories of his travels via his camera roll—but mostly, he stares vacantly at the wall as her encouraging words from the night before filter through his brain over and over, a tease at a future that there’s just no way could ever possibly be his. Not like it’s hers, anyway.
Because there’s a lot he doesn’t understand in this world—how to change a car tire, the fundamental tenets of particle physics, why anyone would willingly spend their time playing golf—but he does understand that some people are simply meant for greatness. He knows this because he grew up surrounded by them, watching fecklessly from the sidelines with a beer in his hand as his older brothers found their callings and his younger siblings came into their own at a speed that had eluded him.
And he watched Penelope work through her crippling shyness to become someone who’s truly settled in herself, watched her embrace her destiny as a writer. No, she hadn’t yet reached the heights of success he knows deep down she longs for, but it’s only a matter of time. Like the sun rising, or the tide coming in, or Ben contracting chlamydia—it’s just inevitable.
Because he’s officially having one of those days now, he finds himself reminiscing about his very first encounters with Penelope’s writing in a way he hasn’t in years. Though, of course, he hadn’t exactly known it was her writing at the time, sneaky little minx that she was. In his final year at Eton, all he had heard from Eloise were tales of the anonymous Instagram account that had taken her and Penelope’s school by storm, exposing tidbits of salacious gossip about everything and everyone—from which popular assholes were talking shit about each other to which theater kids were sucking face. And when he came home from Eton, it was merely a source of mild amusement when he sat around his family living room and listened to Eloise and Penelope banter animatedly about the latest posts. Even then, he had to admit that the account was pretty fucking funny.
That is, until he started dating Marina Thompson. She was arrestingly pretty in a way that felt very important at the time—a year younger than him, but her cool indifference made her seem way out of his league, and his mates would clap him on the back and bemoan his luck at snagging someone so fit. It felt good. It felt like something that someone like him should be doing. Which, at the time, was more than enough to keep him moving forward, ever forward, even though his interactions with her were sometimes stilted and his family looked at them together with concern in their eyes and Penelope…well.
In hindsight, the way that she had trouble meeting his eyes and would constantly find excuses to leave when Marina was around should have tipped him off, but in the grand tradition of Bridgerton blind idiocy, he never quite managed put all the numbers together and solve for x. Even that one night, when “she’s not who you think she is, Colin!” came tumbling out of her mouth in a teary rush, all he had done was bristle and get defensive and stomp out of the room like a petulant asshole, unwilling to question anything about his life when it was all going so well on the surface.
Which blew up in his face rather spectacularly when the infamous account posted a crispy but unmistakable photo of Marina leaning up against a tree with George fucking Crane’s tongue down her throat. Which led to the extremely cool and not at all soul-crushing revelation that Marina had only been after a rich dude to make George jealous, and Colin had seemed like the nicest of the lot. How lovely to be seen as the least unacceptable human trust fund within a three-mile radius! Just a wonderful boost to the ego, zero humiliation involved, ten out of ten, would recommend, etc.
That night, Penelope came to his room—where he was definitely not blasting Dashboard Confessional and openly sulking like the world’s most annoying white boy—and came clean about it all. That she had been the mastermind behind the account all along, that she had overheard Marina talking about her little scheme to her friends and wanted to spare him even worse heartbreak down the line, that she should have just told him directly, that she was sorry, that she was deactivating the account. Weirdly, through all his heartbreak and anger, he remembers feeling an inexplicable pang of distress that she was shutting it down. But instead of pursuing that line of thought, he sullenly told her to get out of his room and proceeded to give her the cold shoulder.
Well…for about a week. That was really all he could manage—a heroic feat, really, considering it’s Penelope and he craves her banter like the desert craves the rain, or whatever. In the end, it wasn’t hard to forgive her and move on, and she ended up parlaying her talents into a much tamer, school-sanctioned column in the student paper.
God, she was so fucking good, even then, even when it was just her low-stakes teenage gossip that had everyone in her school feverishly refreshing their feeds. How could she possibly think the novel she’s working on isn’t destined for the greatest literary success? How could she ever think that his amateurish little travel stories are worthy of publication in a book? How could she think that he’s any good at all?
It doesn't make any fucking sense.
But…still.
He reads and re-reads his old pieces and journals and notes and just…thinks. He thinks and thinks and thinks until his phone tells him it’s two in the morning, and even though he knows he should get up and crawl into bed, he ends up falling asleep on his sofa with a pounding headache that’s still there come morning.
Colin still feels vaguely like death in human form when he meets Eloise and Penelope for brunch the next day, certain that he looks like he’s nursing the almighty god of hangovers despite the sad fact that he was depressingly sober the entire day before. Can your mind get drunk on thoughts? Is it possible to go on some sort of brain bender?
“Nice shades, Neo,” Eloise says as he pulls up a chair at their table, tossing a crumpled napkin at his head with alarming accuracy. “Is your leather trench coat at the dry cleaners?”
He manfully resists the urge to stick his tongue out at her. “Brave of you to come for my fashion choices,” he says, keeping his sunglasses on out of spite because they’re cool as fuck, actually. “Any plans to moonlight as a carpenter, or are those cargo shorts meant to be a stylish homage to Gregory’s primary school wardrobe?”
Penelope lets out an involuntary snort and immediately puts her hands up defensively as Eloise swats her on the arm. Colin shoots Penelope a triumphant grin.
“Betrayal,” Eloise hisses. “Some of us have no choice but to lean into our chosen alternative aesthetic because we don’t have the tits for cute little corset dresses—”
“Eloise!” Penelope cuts her off, glancing nervously down at her own chest and flushing an adorable shade of red. “Can we not? My tits never asked to be part of this narrative.”
Colin would beg to differ, actually, because…wow. The neckline of the sweet floral sundress Penelope’s wearing today is cut low enough that her…that she…erm. Well. They’re very…present. Really…making themselves known.
Suddenly, he’s very grateful for his Neo shades and their heroic ability to prevent her from seeing where he’s trying desperately not to look, because he’s failing pretty fucking hard. He’s not exactly a proud man when it comes to breasts, historically, but…it’s Pen. Drooling over her tits like the pathetic cretin he is feels like backflipping over a crucially important line in the sand.
“What?” Eloise says, waving off Penelope’s objections. “I’m saying you inspire boob envy in all of us lesser mortals, Pen. Learn to take a compliment.”
“Thanks, I guess?”
“I know that if I had tits, mine would definitely be jealous of yours,” Colin chimes in. Very helpfully, he’s sure.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Anyway, enough about Pen’s tits,” Eloise says, and Colin’s nasty little goblin brain can’t help but object. “Or wait, no, they’re still relevant to the topic at hand, actually.”
He perks back up at that, and only hates himself for it a little bit. After all, he hates himself for so many things these days, it may as well all be background noise at this point. “Oh?” he asks. “Did I interrupt a weekly Tit Havers Anonymous meeting? Shouldn’t you be holding those in some kind of dank church basement?”
Eloise just shakes her head and sighs. “I remain deeply disturbed by our genetic affiliation,” she says, and whatever, man. Penelope’s mouth is curled at the edges like she thought it was funny, so Colin puts that joke in the win column. “No, we were talking about Pen’s record dry spell and how she’s long overdue to get wet—wait, that came out wrong. Less dry? Is that better?”
“El, come on—” Penelope pleads. Colin’s stomach suddenly feels a little funny.
“What? So it’s been a while since you hooked up with someone. Spent the night. Had a shag. Got your freak on—”
“We get it, El,” Penelope says flatly, rubbing her temples like she’s staving off a headache of her own. “Thanks for that.”
Well. That’s. Uh.
Penelope is Colin’s very best friend—there’s no one on this earth he’s closer to, no one who he’s bared more of his shriveled, twisted little soul to over the years. But if there’s something, just one teeny tiny little thing, that they’ve never really talked about, it’s, well…sex? It’s just not something that’s ever come up organically. He’s honestly not sure why, come to think of it—after all, he’s always been well aware of when she’s seeing someone, and vice versa. But they just…don’t talk…about…that? That’s weird. Is that weird? He’s not sure if it’s weird, exactly, but confronted with the truth of it here and now, it suddenly feels…notable.
Eloise is carrying on, though, completely unaware that Colin is having a mini mental meltdown in the seat next to her. The Neo shades, coming in clutch yet again. At this point he’s never taking them off.
“It’s not a big deal,” Eloise is saying to Penelope when Colin tunes back in. “It happens to the best of us.”
Penelope rolls her eyes. “You literally shared your Google calendar with me so I can note the days you and Phillip are sexiling me in advance,” she says, before taking a swig of her mimosa that Colin can only call borderline violent. “Speaking of, Colin, can I stay at yours on Friday?”
His heart gives an uncharacteristic lurch, but he quickly shakes it off and shoots her a goofy grin. Get it together, you demented fuckwit. “Of course,” he says. “We can do Drag Race IRL instead. Bring your commentary A-game or don’t bother showing up, Featherington.”
She smiles at him gratefully, and warmth spreads in his gut.
“We’re not sexiling you,” Eloise protests, which sounds like something a filthy sexiler would say. “It’s just, with his kids, you know how it is—”
“It’s fine, El,” Penelope cuts in. “I get it, and I’m happy for you, bro. I’m just saying that the last thing I want is a lecture from someone who’s getting it on the reg.”
Eloise smiles dreamily. “I am, aren’t I?”
“Should I leave? I can leave,” Colin mutters. If he could go from fetus to grave without being forced to hear about his sister “getting it,” that would be awesome. Ideal, even.
“You just need to, you know, put your pussy in the wind,” Eloise continues, which nearly makes Colin choke on his ice water. “Go to bars, get on the apps…the usual wretched shitshow.”
Penelope groans and puts her face in her dainty little hands. “I hate the apps.”
“Well of course you do,” Eloise says dismissively. “Anyone who doesn’t hate them is a fucking sociopath. But such is the nightmarish world we live in, my sexually frustrated little friend.”
Their waiter chooses that moment to stop at their table and take their orders, and Colin takes a beat to study Penelope—despite Eloise’s good-natured teasing, there’s a distinct aura of tiredness and resignation and just general sadness around her that’s making him restless. Itchy to make her feel better, to smooth out the cute little worry lines on her forehead.
“Pen, what’s wrong?” he asks when the waiter walks away, and it comes out softer than he intends. Penelope’s shoulders deflate a bit, and his heart gives another little twinge.
She sighs. “It’s just…the apps haven’t always been the kindest to your girl here,” she says, clearly trying to keep her tone light but the slight waver in her voice gives her away. “Guys are always so…enthusiastic via text, but they’re never quite as excited when we meet up and they see all this coming their way, you know?”
No, Colin doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand at all, actually.
“Huh?” Eloise says eloquently, and yes, exactly. Excellent question, El.
Penelope looks between them with a pained expression. “Okay, yeah, wow, no, definitely not talking about this any further,” she says, shaking her head. “All you need to know is the apps are not a friend to Penelope Featherington and it’s an unfortunate reality I accepted long ago. If you wish to cry on my behalf, please do so on the inside so as not to make a scene.”
He recognizes that she’s attempting to joke her way out of this conversation, and he almost lets her get away with it out of deep respect for her game, but his mind is still stuck on what she said. Because even though he doesn’t quite understand what she’s getting at, he knows he has to make it right, somehow. What good is his existence on this miserable fucking planet if he can’t make his sweet, kind, incredible best friend feel good about herself? If he can’t ease her troubles in whatever dumb little way he can? He may be useless in literally every other way, but he can do this, hopefully.
“Well fuck the apps, then,” he declares loudly, and Penelope’s face whips around to look at him.
“What?”
Colin finally removes his Neo shades, because this is serious business and it demands the full gravitas of his serious face. “Fuck ‘em,” he repeats. “Forget the stupid apps. They’re full of finance bros and himbos and freaks lying in wait to send sweaty dick pics to unsuspecting innocents.”
“How do you know about the dick pics?” Eloise asks with deep suspicion. “You’re not out there terrorizing the women of London with your pixelated genitalia, are you?”
His mouth drops open in indignation. “Of course not!” he exclaims, because honestly. “I’m just tragically familiar with my species and well-versed in our many, many shortcomings.”
“Emphasis on short, if we’re talking dick pics,” Penelope quips, prompting an eyyyy-ohhh and a high five from Eloise. And okay, Colin high fives her, too, because he can’t not. And he very helpfully does not mention that he did try to take a dick pic once, just to, you know, have on file in case it ever came in handy, but every attempt was cursed with what he can only describe as homicide lighting.
Some dicks just aren’t meant for show business, apparently.
“Come out with me on Friday,” he implores Penelope, shoving all thoughts of dicks far, far away into the untouchable recesses of his mind where they belong. “I can be your wingman!”
It’s genius, really. He’s a genius and they should award him the Nobel Peace Prize for this, probably.
Except for the fact that his chest feels tight at the thought of it, for some reason he can’t quite grasp.
Pen stares at him incredulously. “My wingman?” she asks, and okay, she doesn’t need to say it with so much doubt. “That’s just…what would that even entail?”
Colin grins, because the skeleton of a genius plan is already coming together in his genius brain. “I would just, you know, assess your options and help weed out the losers and douchebags, and use my crafty masculine wiles to maximize your chances of success with the non-wankers.”
Eloise scoffs. “And what exactly qualifies you for this role? Just because you’ve probably amassed a body count never before seen by humankind, Mr. Worldwide—"
“—hey, that’s not true,” Colin cuts in, flushing hotly at the insinuation. “And that’s judgey as fuck, even for you.”
The truth is, he’s in the middle of a rather considerable dry spell, himself. Not that there hasn’t been ample opportunity to blow off steam with any number of willing partners, but…well. That particular act hasn’t appealed to him much, lately. In quite a long time, really. He hasn’t talked to anyone about it because he’s honestly not sure whether it’s more embarrassing for people to think he’s totally bitchless or that he’s a one-man fuck machine, so he just lets people live with their assumptions. It’s easier, that way.
Still doesn’t feel great to hear those assumptions spoken so plainly, though.
Eloise rolls her eyes at his dramatics, but holds her hands up and doesn’t push back.
“I’m a very skilled and experienced wingman, actually, and I can provide references, if you submit a formal request,” he says, turning his whole body to face Penelope and opting to ignore Eloise altogether. “But I swear, it’s really not that complicated. It won’t be hard to find decent guys who are interested in you, I can promise you that.”
His brain chooses this exact moment to remind him about Penelope’s tits in that dress, right in front of his face, and it takes everything in him not to slide his sunglasses back on.
Penelope’s cheeks go delightfully pink, but the little sigh she lets out is still weary and it makes him frown. “You seriously don’t have to do this, Colin,” she says softly. “Thank you for the offer, I think? But I’m sure you have better things to do with your time than pimp me out.”
“Pimp you out?” he exclaims, because what? “Pen, that’s crazy talk. I’m officially calling a moratorium on all crazy talk, starting right now. It’s not like that and you know it. This is just me providing you with another set of eyes and ears so you can find someone who isn’t a prick, and I can also be on hand to give you pep talks when you inevitably doubt your own awesomeness. And I get to hang out with my best bud! It’s a win for all involved.”
Eloise hums. “It’s not a completely asinine thought, really,” she says, stroking her chin.
“Thanks, El.” He rolls his eyes. “Pen?”
She lifts her head, and the look she gives him is…inscrutable, but weirdly intense. It feels significant, like he should know what she’s thinking, like it should be stopping him in his tracks. He almost starts backpedaling, but just as he’s opening his mouth to apologize for overstepping, she sighs again.
“Fuck it,” she says, throwing her hands up in surrender. “Fine. Wingman the shit out of me, Bridgerton. Do your worst.”
He shoots her a big, bright smile, all too pleased to be given the chance to be there for her in her time of need, and she returns it weakly. But as Eloise changes the subject and the conversation moves on, his smile slides slowly off his face, and he can feel a weird, ominous sense of wrongness working its way up his throat.
He can’t explain it and he can’t seem to stop it, but suddenly, inexplicably, he finds himself thinking: Uh oh.