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The man was an arsehole. A right, total arsehole. 

Never mind that Colin had met him twenty minutes ago. Never mind that he was at least four years older than Colin and wore a self-assured smirk like his reputation depended on it. Never mind that he was dating Colin’s best friend, his arm draped around her with pride, all while shooting everyone around them a goading look, as if daring them to say something about the way he showed off his girlfriend to the world. 

Penelope’s new boyfriend was an arsehole. End of story. 

The thing about having a friend who dates an arsehole, though, is that they either 1.) very much do not know that they are dating an arsehole, or 2.) fully know that they are dating an arsehole, and dismiss their arseholiness with a flippant hand and a playful roll of the eyes. Colin waited until he got a moment alone with Pen, then quirked his brow and pressed his lips into a fine line, watching her understand his wordless question. He and Penelope’s friendship had long evolved beyond needing words to communicate, and within seconds, Colin knew she had discerned just how infuriating he found the man. 

But all she did was shrug. Waved a single hand in the air while holding her gimlet, her lashes fluttering the pretty way they did when she was borderline tipsy. Equal parts shock and relief coursed through his veins when he realized Penelope seemingly fell into the latter category, and his heart skipped a beat upon seeing her cheeks take on a rosy tinge. 

Then his heart fell to the pit of his stomach when she called her new boyfriend—Chris—"cheeky," and asked Colin if he liked how forthright the man was. 

Silence. Colin breathed in and out. Eyed his siblings across the pub. Wondered where his own girlfriend was while chewing on his bottom lip. His instinct was to ask for Penelope’s definition of cheeky. Penelope frequently called him “cheeky.” Laughed at all of his jokes, including those that he knew came across as downright cheeky. But Colin’s cheekiness didn’t teeter on patronizing or sharp, which made him a bit insecure if Penelope actually found all of his jokes funny or if she ever just laughed along to be polite. How could he and this royal arsehole both be considered cheeky when their senses of humor differed so much?

As to the forthrightness, Colin’s swift and definitive answer would be no. He did not like how forthright Chris was. He didn’t like forthrightness as a trait, period. People confuse honesty with brutality, but cruelty has no place in candor, especially with strangers whom someone barely knows. Forthright people wield a dangerous weapon carelessly, and Colin loathes the negligence that often follows in the wake of tactless honesty. Chris’s forthrightness didn’t make him entertaining or brave. It kind of just made him a cunt. 

The fact that Penelope assumed Colin would like Chris made matters worse. Colin had tolerated most of Penelope’s boyfriends before, even if he thought every one of them hadn’t been nearly good enough for her. She was still his best friend, and he wanted to try to like whoever she dated. Boring blokes? Sure (looking at you, Alfred Debling). Weird guys? Why not (Colin actually quite liked the guy who spent thirty-eight minutes explaining the difference between a dragon and a wyvern). 

But Penelope had never dated an arsehole before. And it didn’t matter that Chris shared Colin’s passion for travel, or had a particular interest in literature, or even that he had a desire to gorge at every restaurant in London—Colin didn’t like him. Didn’t like that he exaggerated every facial expression in a way that felt equal parts genuine and condescending. Didn’t like that he thrived on witticisms that teetered on the edge of cutting. Didn’t like that he assumed things with a brazen confidence that came off as unearned arrogance. 

By the time Penelope sipped her third drink, her hand trailed up Chris’s arm, and her eyes glistened with inebriation and affection, and Colin felt fed up with the entire ordeal. Tired of enduring the man’s intense gazes and bearing witness to Penelope’s obvious flirtations, Colin sauntered back to his family’s booth, shoulders tense as he shot off a text to his girlfriend on the way. 

Despite everyone’s jovial mood and the hubbub of the pub, Colin sat and glared at the interloper Penelope had invited to his family’s pint night. His mind kept replaying the mock surprise that Chris wore before curtly disagreeing with something Anthony had said. How Chris regaled them with stories of attempting to make minor unilateral decisions in his and Pen’s short relationship. Beer in hand, Colin turned toward Eloise, hopeful that his little sister would bitch about her best friend’s new boyfriend, too. 

“I don’t like him.”

El downed the rest of her beer and shifted to see him better. “No?”

“No.”

“I think he’s fine.”

“You’re joking.”

Eloise shook her head, then turned toward the couple standing at the end of the bar, tilting her head as she observed Penelope and Chris engage in a heated discussion about something that he couldn’t make out. 

That was another thing. Penelope and Chris, just this evening, had fought about three different things. Not mild quibbles or discussions, but full-blown arguments that escalated into something that made him and his siblings awkwardly turn away, unsure how to react. It had taken years for Penelope to become the secure, poised woman before him, who said what she thought and advocated for herself without hesitation. She didn’t care to expose the truth about someone while finding a way to remain civil. And, when provoked, Penelope could throw a barb better than anyone he knew. 

Colin loved listening to her thoughts. Loved letting them roll around in his head, loved the multitude of layers that each one contained, loved how they lodged somewhere between his ribs and challenged him to look at the world in a new way. 

Chris seemingly loved to clash with them. 

His sister drummed her fingers on the table, studying him with a scrutinizing gleam. “Penelope says he’s quite charming, you know?”

“Charming. Cheeky. Forthright. Didn’t know the same girl who dated Alfred Debling wanted someone with those qualities.”

“God. See. I think you just proved my point.”

The din of the pub hummed around them as Colin frowned at his sister. “Your point… being?”

“That he’s fine. Rather likable, really.”

He snorted. “I actually think I proved how low the bar is.”

Eloise pulled a face, and Colin’s ears grew hot seeing the insinuation dancing in her eyes. His sister could critique any of Pen’s partners, but the minute he pointed out that someone perfectly acceptable was still wrong a wrong fit for his best friend, Eloise, along with any of his other siblings, gawked at him as if his comments stemmed from jealousy and not concern. He harbored no ill will toward Chris. Just hated the odd familiarity he possessed as he leaned down to whisper something in Penelope’s ear.

Colin scowled into his beer as Penelope shook her head, raising a single hand as if to tell her boyfriend to stop speaking, effectively ending whatever argument they’d had. Chris took a haughty drink from his pint before donning an expression so self-righteous it made Colin wince. 

His sister said something that he didn’t hear, and he blinked at her until she pulled a face and repeated herself. 

“You really don’t like him?”

“I don’t.”

“Not even a little bit?”

Colin narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

Eloise gave him the look she always did before telling him something that she considered an obvious observation, but that somehow managed to elude him, and he internally groaned. He loved his sister, he did, but Eloise and observant generally only went together as antonyms, so any observation she made came with a twinge of irony and the acknowledgement that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Eloise glanced over at Chris and Penelope, then back at him. “You do know he’s you, yes?”

Offense flared in his chest, and his mouth gaped open as Eloise smirked at him before turning back toward Chris. 

“Let’s go through the list, shall we? Like you, Chris has travelled extensively, and specifically mentions loving Greece. Like you, he talks about loving books, and while he isn’t a magazine writer like you, he does have a travel blog where he reviews popular tourist destinations, which, let’s be real, sounds like something you would do.” She paused, scoffing before following with, “He even kind of looks like you, Colin.”

“What?”

He whirled back toward Penelope’s boyfriend, raking over his appearance and scanning for any similarities. Besides both of them being tall and broad-shouldered, Colin couldn’t discern too many other physical traits that they had in common. Chris had vivid green eyes in place of Colin’s navy blue and chestnut hair instead of Colin’s dark brown. His smile seemed more lopsided, his features more angular. The man was objectively attractive, but hatred blunted his ability to see any physical traits they shared besides tall and well-built. 

“Just saying, Col. You might try to get to know him.”

Colin glanced over at his sister, who nodded and grabbed his beer, polishing it off in a single gulp. Out of his periphery, he watched Penelope ask for the tab, then glare at Chris when he stole the receipt and lofted it above his head, handing his card to the bartender while ignoring his girlfriend’s petulant stomp. 

Colin gritted his jaw. It seemed Chris’s mild patronization of those around him wasn’t just limited to Penelope’s friends. The idea of spending time with a man that he so ardently disliked, who he knew, in his bones, didn’t belong with his Penelope, sounded repulsive. He valued, even prioritized, Penelope’s happiness above everyone else’s. Would do anything to make her smile or laugh. And he genuinely worried about his ability to maintain his decorum in any setting with her arsehole of a boyfriend.

He huffed. Checked his phone and confirmed his next-day plans with his girlfriend. When the man announced his departure, Colin managed a curt wave, the corners of his lips quirking up in a way he hoped resembled a smile. 

Chris squinted at him on the way out. 

👫 👫

Five minutes after Chris left, a girl walked in. And Penelope swore that she was staring at the Tesco-brand version of herself. 

Red hair, but not quite red enough. More auburn, less orange. Long lashes that framed brown eyes instead of blue. Freckles, yes, but scattered across the bridge of her nose, no. If the perpetually apathetic Archibald Featherington had been tasked with describing his youngest daughter from memory alone, Penelope thought this might have been what he would have come up with. 

The interesting part of seeing someone who looks like you is that it serves as an exercise in self-love. Initially, surprise stalled Penelope from forming any sort of impression about the girl other than “fellow curvy redhead.” But as seconds ticked by and as Penelope eyed the girl’s green jumper, something bloomed in her chest. The girl was quite pretty. Gorgeous. Beautiful, even. And there’s a lot to be said for finding beauty in a stranger as a means of bolstering your own confidence. 

Then the girl walked over and placed a swift kiss on Colin’s cheek, and that thing that bloomed in Penelope’s chest expeditiously shriveled up and died. Self-love only went so far when watching the man you’d loved for years date a variant of yourself. Especially when that variant introduced herself as Annie, then crossed her arms, drawing attention to her absolutely massive tits. 

Great. Penelope had to be a bystander to Colin dating a bigger-boobed version of herself. That didn’t have any effect on her self-esteem whatsoever. 

Not that she could complain. Or criticise. Or really even judge. Being in love with her best friend, who viewed her as a decidedly non-sexual person in his life, meant that it was impossible to let him go. Colin was everywhere, from the half-consumed jar of peanut butter he ate with a spoon while watching some true crime documentary at her flat last weekend, to the ratty V for Vendetta comics that he begged her to put on her bookshelf for safekeeping. How did she move on from her best friend? How did she get over someone so interwoven in her life?

The answer? She didn’t. She just had to try to move on. And Chris, by far, had been the closest thing she’d found to moving on, like an approximation of the man her heart belonged to without being the real thing. In another life, one where she had never met Colin Bridgerton and had instead drifted through dull experience after dull experience, the flares of passion she felt with Chris would be enough. 

Even if those flares sometimes made her blood boil with rage instead of love. 

Annie sat for a moment with the Bridgertons, answering a few perfunctory questions about herself and complimenting Kate’s dress. Somewhere along the way, she admitted she hadn’t been dating Colin long at all, meaning that when Penelope turned toward her friend, she found him shooting her an imploring glance as he sought her approval. 

She cursed under her breath. Colin always did this. Brought someone new around, let Penelope form an impression, then waited like a dog for a bone, lips twitching as his patience wore thin, desperate to know her thoughts on his current squeeze. 

But usually her approval didn’t feel like delivering a self-inflicted wound with a double-edged sword? Like telling Colin they had potential to be a compatible couple, so long as they were looking into a funhouse mirror? Penelope instantaneously recognized that she bore a strong resemblance to Annie. Which meant Penelope’s approval was for Colin to date someone like her, but not her. 

Once again. Self-love, but with a few bitter caveats. 

Colin took Annie to the bar to get a drink, and Penelope continued examining her from beside Eloise, sipping the drink Chris bought her and cursing him because he’d left her here, alone, forced to be a spectator to Colin’s polite smiles and Annie’s constantly puckered lips, as if she were holding back a laugh anytime Colin spoke. 

Penelope didn’t have to hold back laughs around Colin. Couldn’t. Colin possessed the exact sense of humor she loved, and every single joke he made left her in stitches. She couldn’t imagine suppressing her reaction to anything he said. 

Even now, from across the pub, Penelope saw Colin tell a joke, evidenced by the set of his brows and the gleam in his eyes, and Annie could only muster a soft nod, followed by a squeeze of his bicep. Penelope scowled because she could swear, swear, that the act contained a twinge of courtesy. Validation swept through her when Colin’s smile faltered for a brief moment, reverting to its usual form only when the bartender came over to get Annie’s order. 

“You seem like you have something to say, Pen.”

Penelope turned toward Eloise, who sat stirring her drink, analyzing her through narrowed eyes. Despite Eloise’s uncanny knack for being able to read her best friend, Eloise also frequently possessed some willful selectivity when faced with obvious truths that she just didn’t like. Case in point? It took three years and a book before Eloise finally cracked Penelope’s nom de plume, even though she pinned her first royalty check to the fridge like a dope. 

Penelope grabbed the vodka tonic in front of her friend and took a drink. “I don’t have anything to say.”

“Then I’ll stay quiet.”

“Impossible.”

“Excuse me?”

“El, you have strong opinions about 3D-printed objects in antique shops. I don’t believe you’re capable of staying quiet.”

Her friend chuckled. Hesitated for a moment, then clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. 

“You were glowering, is all.”

The words landed harder than Eloise likely meant, and Penelope stiffened beside her in the booth. Years of loving Colin in secret had meant that her feelings rested in her heart like a healing bruise, the pain searing only when pressed or prodded, and having his relationship with the knockoff version of herself thrust in her face felt like someone had dropped a massive weight on the yellowed injury. Eloise’s comment only amplified that pain, elevating it into something akin to burning, searing, red-hot jealousy. And managing jealousy was far easier said than done. 

Mind spinning, Penelope shrugged and spat out the first thing that she could think of that also resembled some type of honesty.

“I just… they seem so… milquetoast together.”

“Damn, Pen.”

“I don’t mean that to sound rude. They look content. But that’s just it? No passion or flirting or anything like that. And I think I always thought Colin would be with someone who challenged him a bit more.”

“How do you know she doesn’t?”

Penelope grew silent, then craned her head toward her friend, knowing that Eloise supported her points by rambling about them ceaselessly, meaning:

“Did you know she was published last year? A poem in Paris Review.”

“Oh.”

“And apparently, she has a few more lined up. Per her, not Colin.”

“That’s nice.”

“I think her ultimate goal is to have a series of poems published. A life’s work that spans over a decade.”

“Good for her.”

She didn’t mean for the words to drip with sarcasm, but Eloise dipped her head and studied her through her lashes, and Penelope scoffed, understanding her friend’s wordless retort. Colin waltzed back over with Annie, sitting across from Pen and Eloise, chiming in where he could with his family’s conversation. Annie did the same, making brief comments when possible, and Penelope respected the woman’s unwillingness to get lost in the noise, even if it was just to obfuscate some personal questions or make a mildly funny jest that wasn’t at the expense of anyone at the table. Penelope went along with it, finding Annie to be kind, intelligent, and perfectly tolerable.

That’s what Colin wanted in a partner, right? Tolerable?

After about half an hour of listening to the Bridgertons complain about their respective jobs, Colin leaned across the table, the light above them casting a shadow over his face and emphasizing the scar on his chin. 

“Chris seemed… nice.”

Nice. Chris was many things, but thus far, nice wouldn’t be a word she would use to describe him. More… mischievous. Impish. Genuine, as everyone around him was bound to know whatever he felt or thought. But not necessarily nice.

Perhaps it was just that the bar for nice sat across from her, impossible to be hurdled or even matched.

“Yeah. He’s great.”

“How long have you all been together?”

Annie stole a glimpse of Penelope as she leaned forward to whisper with her boyfriend, head drooping to the side as she gave her a look insinuating she already knew the truth behind Penelope’s relationship with Colin. The girl definitely seemed perceptive. Nerves jangling, Penelope picked at her cuticles under the table.  

“Erm… about two weeks.”

Colin pondered that, sitting up for a moment while Annie told some story about an annual concert she used to attend that she described as “a car crash set over a string quartet.” Penelope followed suit and listened as intently as she could. Forced a smile when appropriate. The more Annie regaled them with her story, the more Penelope understood why Colin would be drawn to someone that respectable. That kind. That complimentary. 

Comparison might have been the thief of joy, but she found it impossible not to compare herself to this alternate version of… well, herself. Everything Annie did amplified her insecurities, rubbing salt in the wound of her own pitfalls. Swallowing her pride, Penelope glanced over at Colin again, prepared to give Colin’s girlfriend her approval despite her mixed feelings on the matter. 

But she caught Colin already staring at her. Diligent, almost, with how his gaze pierced through her. Seemingly ignorant of her, his eyes roamed her face, hovering over each of her features, and stayed fixed on her lips for a second before breaking away, the tips of his pointed ears reddening.

She rolled her lips between her teeth and leaned forward, trying to make conversation and ignore whatever the hell Colin was on. 

“What about you and Annie? You’ve been together about two weeks, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” she muttered, followed by a quick, “good, then.”

The two of them paused, and Colin rubbed his thumb and forefinger together the way he did when he was either contemplative or anxious. 

When he finally spoke, his words sounded rushed and uncertain, and Penelope’s stomach filled with dread. 

“You know, Annie and I were planning on getting dinner tomorrow. The Rose and Crown. If you and Chris want to come.” A tendon in his jaw jumped out before he added, “I’d love to get to know Chris better. Talk to him a bit more.”

Air rushed from Penelope’s lungs, and she opened and closed her mouth as she searched for an excuse. Colin, the man she had always loved, just asked to spend more time with Penelope’s boyfriend, Chris, who admittedly had a great deal in common with Colin. All while Annie, a girl who looked like Penelope—just with an added cup size—observed from the sidelines.

What an enticing idea. Definitely not something that would put her on edge before appetizers. 

In all seriousness, going on a date alongside Colin and Annie sounded like the worst form of self-flagellation. Like staring into a crystal ball, showing a viewer their deepest desires through a haze before reminding them of the fantasy of it all and dissipating into thin air. Her mind hunted for an excuse to get out of it, desperate to avoid being a voyuer to her dream, accompanied only by brown eyes and bigger tits. 

She came up short when Colin said, “Please? We’ve never double-dated before, Pen.”

Colin smiled at her, full and brilliant and hopeful, his blue eyes pleading with her to acquiesce, and Penelope knew she was trapped. Doomed to let Colin and Chris talk about whatever, until Colin inevitably got protective or until Chris inevitably got brusque. Doomed to get to know Penelope 2.0, who wrote poetry and doled out compliments without issue and sat in the front rows of bad concerts simply to make the performers feel better. Doomed to experience a date with Colin without being on it, the creator of her own torment. 

She sighed, then relented. “Err… sure. What time?”

👫 👫

Chris was late. 

Not that fifteen minutes particularly mattered, but as Annie shifted in her seat, and as Penelope winced at him in that apologetic way that made his heart ache, Colin had to fight saying anything that might indicate any sort of preconceived bias that he had toward the man. But Colin thought tardiness was just another form of neglect or indifference, and he loathed to think that anyone would treat Penelope that way. 

Just further proof that that man wasn’t right for her. 

Annie sipped her drink, then pushed her hair out of her face, displaying a small birthmark by her left ear. Colin studied it for a brief second, then turned his attention back to his friend as his girlfriend cleared her throat. 

“So, Penelope, Colin tells me you wrote a book?”

Across the booth, Penelope nodded, remaining silent for a second too long before confirming, “Yes. I did.”

“Oh, cool. Can I ask what about?”

A blush started to bloom on Penelope’s cheeks the way it did every time someone asked her about her writing. It took him a second to realize that he was smiling at her, trying to encourage her to tell his girlfriend about herself. Made sense. Penelope, for years, had been the most intriguing person he knew, somehow both steady and spontaneous, surprising in the best possible way. She should be proud to be a renowned writer.

With her cheeks stained rose, Penelope stammered, “It—uh—it’s a romance.”

“Oh?”

“You know. Something in the vein of Emily Henry. Tessa Bailey.”

“Sounds interesting.”

Colin shook his head. “It’s so good, Annie. So good. Penelope has such a way with words.”

Annie gave him a smile that didn’t seem totally sincere, instead edging on civil. Colin’s mirth wavered for a moment, alleviated by turning back to a red-cheeked Pen. 

He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “I’m sorry. Just love your book.”

“I know. You’re being nice, but you mean it too.”

“How can I not?” He snickered, the sound evolving into a giggle as he choked out, “I mean, the scene with the settee?”

“God. I don’t know how to feel knowing you’ve read that.”

“Knowing that you have written ten thousand words dedicated to explicit sex has changed me irrevocably. I gasped at all the moaning. Gasped. And the hot air balloon scene? Phenomenal. All I could think about was—”

“Brioche!”

“Yes! And then the coat! I don’t know how you did it, but between the leather and the back swaying in the wind, you really made me envision—”

“A pirate! Oh my god, I knew you’d imagine a pirate!”

“The pirate was incredible!”

They burst into laughter, his eyes watering with glee. Beside him, Annie inhaled, and he tried to look over at her and apologize, but couldn’t stop reminiscing on Pen’s book, and the masterful way she incorporated so many of their inside jokes into her story. 

Annie sipped her drink again, then patted his leg under the table. He pulled back from Pen and shot her a contrite grimace, trying to balance entertaining his girlfriend with being entertained by his best friend. 

Finally, his girlfriend remarked, “It sounds incredibly interesting.”

Trying to remain humble, Penelope gave a small shrug, opening her mouth to say something, then freezing when Colin, in a move meant to placate, draped his arm behind Annie on the back of the booth. Something flickered across her face, if only for a millisecond, before she schooled her expression into placidity, mouth snapping shut and lips pursing into a respectful smile. Beside him, Annie’s spine grew a bit more rigid, but all he could focus on was his heart hammering in his chest, the loud thrum of his pulse drowning the clatter and discordance of the restaurant. 

Penelope practically pouted at him. Why was she pouting at him? What had he done to warrant a pout? Was she pouting because she didn’t like Annie? Had he done something wrong? He never wanted to do anything to upset Penelope, and would apologize immediately if he knew what—

“Hey, Penelope. Good to see you.”

Chris strolled up to their table, wearing that same crooked smile he had donned the night before. A roguish gleam sparked in his green eyes, and he gestured for Penelope to scoot over so he could sit beside her in the booth. 

She did not. She did comment, “You didn’t text me that you were going to be late.”

The man pulled a face. Colin bit the inside of his cheek, waiting for Chris to acknowledge him or Annie. 

Without so much as a glimpse in their direction, and with his attention fully fixed on Penelope, Chris shook his head. 

“You told me 6:15.”

Penelope didn’t hesitate. “I told you six.”

“Why would I show up at 6:15 if you told me six?”

“The tube. Traffic. You forgot.”

“I didn’t forget that you told me 6:15, no.”

Colin glanced over at Annie, hoping to share in the awkwardness of having to observe another couple fight, and instead saw her gaping at Chris, her lips curling up at the corners. 

Odd. 

Penelope scooted, remarking, “I told you six, Chris.”

“Penelope, if you told me six, I would have been here at six. When I want to see someone, I show up on time. My mother taught me to be punctual and—”

He stopped halfway into the booth, his forthright arseholiness interrupted by looking at the other couple. Hovering over the table, Chris’s harangue faltered the minute he made eye contact with Annie. Disbelief marred his features for a few seconds as he openly gawked at Colin’s girlfriend for far longer than would be considered socially appropriate. 

His voice sounded fractured when he finally garnered the ability to speak. 

“Annie?”

Colin blinked. Shifted toward Annie, only for her to mutter, “Chris?”

“Annie!”

She squealed, then practically shoved Colin out of the booth to stand and give a prolonged hug to Chris. Penelope sneered at Colin from across the table, brow twitching and arching up for a millisecond until Colin shrugged, unable to answer her silent question. He didn’t know how the two knew each other. He did know that Annie had never acted that ecstatic to see him, and that, for the first time since meeting him, Chris’s facade had dropped, sincere happiness radiating off him as he smiled into Annie’s hair. 

What the fuck?

Annie broke away first, hands staying on his arms as she raked him over. “It’s so good to see you!”

“It’s been, what? Six years?”

“Seven.”

“Seven years? God, where does time go? I feel so old.”

“You’re only what? Thirty-three!”

“What are you even doing here?”

Colin cleared his throat, breaking through the reunion to remind them that he and Penelope still sat at the booth, communicating with shrugs and grimaces as they tried to discern how Chris and Annie knew each other. Annie whirled toward him, only to whirl back toward Chris. 

Great. Colin scowled at the other man and, feeling rejected, frowned at Penelope. Her lip no longer jutted out in a pout, but it did curl up at the corner in perplexity. Which, admittedly, made him feel better. At least he had his best friend to endure this weird tension with. She paused, then smirked at him, nodding in a way that made him chuckle. 

Leave it to Penelope to brighten his spirits. 

Annie hugged Chris again, ushering Colin to scoot further in the booth so she could sit across from Penelope’s boyfriend. She patted Colin on the back as she answered the arsehole’s question. 

“I’m here with Colin.”

Chris acknowledged Colin with a single glance. Then ignored him as he concentrated on Annie, having completely forgotten his and Penelope’s quibble. 

“It’s so good to see you, Annie. I can’t believe it. What are the odds?”

Penelope took a sip of her water and nudged Chris, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth with flirtation. Hatred seethed in Colin’s chest at the sight. 

Blind to his clenched jaw, Penelope inquired, “How do you know Annie?”

Nothing. Chris’s mouth opened, then snapped shut as he studied Colin’s girlfriend. Lacking his usual arrogance, Chris seemed to flounder at the simple question. After a beat, though, he shrugged, raking a hand through his chestnut hair. 

“Annie was my little sister's best friend starting in secondary. Roomed together at uni too.”

Penelope politely followed with, “Oh?”

“Yeah. She and Olivia were inseparable.”

Annie interrupted then. “It’s been forever since I talked to Olivia. How is she?”

“Married, shockingly.”

“No!”

“Eloped with a burly, botanist boxer. A bit standoffish, but seems okay. Is also a stepmother, funnily enough. How’s your little sister?”

“Felicity is good. Married too. Mum has started asking me about moving in together. Got a flat off Mount Street.”

“And is your family still… well…”

Annie chuckled at the non-question, dropping her head and hiding her amusement before staring back at him again. “Yes, they are still, well.”

Chris winced. A twinge of jealousy flared in Colin’s chest, seeing as Annie always deflected his attempts to get to know more about her family beyond basics about her littlest sister. Under the table, Penelope kicked him, and he kicked her back to tell her to stop making wordless barbs about what they were witnessing. 

She kicked him again and asked, “So you all… used to be friends?”

“Well—”

Colin’s girlfriend waved a hand and chimed in. “Not necessarily. Though I did meet him before I met his sister. Who was my roommate at uni after meeting in secondary.”

“How did you two meet?”

The table fell quiet. Colin gestured across the table at Chris, trying to fill the space with something decidedly less strained and more lighthearted. But the man said nothing. Did nothing. Just reddened in the face, green eyes dropping to examine the fork set in front of him. Trying to alleviate just some of the weird energy circulating between the four of them, and quickly realizing that his idea to go on a double date with Penelope sounded better in theory than in practice, Colin waved at a waitress, hoping to get through the next couple of hours as quickly as possible.

The waitress ignored him and went back to the kitchen. Internally groaning, Colin returned his attention to Chris, seeing contrition and panic scamper across his face. Colin didn’t quite know why until epiphany dawned on him, leaving him with nothing but pity and the tiniest amount of pomposity. 

He hid that. Figured, if he wanted to get to know the guy better, that approaching his lack of memory with anything other than sympathy would be the opposite of beneficial in that endeavor. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t fathom forgetting the information Chris had clearly forgotten. He wanted to be nice, wanted to do what he could to make a decent impression on Penelope’s boyfriend. So, as the seconds ticked by, he tilted his head toward Annie, trying to coax her into divulging the information that he wanted while stopping Chris from squirming in discomfort. 

His voice dropped an octave when he spoke. “Pen and I met when she ran into me in the hall at school. Right outside Ms Fletcher’s room. She didn’t even see me there—”

“I was reading!”

“---and bumped into me, knocking all of my stuff out of my hands and onto the floor. Papers flew. Pencils scattered. And I remember she wore this yellow dress with pink flowers—”

“You remember my dress?”

“---that got—yes, of course, I remember your dress, Pen—that got stained by my jelly pens, and she started crying about it. I felt so bad that I couldn’t worry about picking up all of my stuff. I never did find my algebra homework, by the way.”

He grinned at Annie, then turned toward Penelope, seeing her face drawn up in contemplation. A tremor made her voice wobble when she finally responded.

“What do you mean?”

“About what?”

“You didn’t find your algebra homework?”

“Oh. That. No. Never did. Couldn’t prioritize equations over someone crying in front of me. Just took the zero and a scolding from mum.”

That same look from all those years ago crossed her face, and Chris and Annie sat quietly observing him and Pen as they stared at each other across the table. Penelope tended to get weepy anytime he spoke about how they met. Like she couldn’t help but be visibly moved by care and nostalgia. As if he could ever forget such an important day, one that has made his life infinitely better with every minute he spent in Penelope’s presence. He nudged her under the table with his foot again, reassuring her as best he could with two bystanders sitting at the table with them. 

Someone sighed. Colin turned, seeing Annie studying him with narrowed eyes and Chris, from across the table, doing the same. Unlike Annie, however, Chris’s scrutiny contained a bit more assumption and a bit less fondness, and Colin repressed his desire to roll his eyes. 

Arsehole.

Penelope inhaled, and her lips stretched into a wobbly thing that resembled a smile. She tilted her head toward her boyfriend, eyeing him for a moment until asking, “So, Chris, how’d you meet Ann—”

“Welcome to the Rose and Crown, what can I get you?”

👫 👫

Penelope had never seen her boyfriend like this. Chris usually had a way of being both infuriatingly charming and inadvertently grating, someone with equal ability to aggravate and allure. Chris, on a good day, could outcharm even Colin, but Colin, on a bad day, could never get under her skin the way Chris managed to on a relatively frequent basis. 

Perhaps that was what bothered her most as the two of them tried to get through this double date. 

Gone was the man who goaded her with dulcet smiles and a boyish gleam in his eyes. Gone was the man who perpetually maintained a casual, calm, and cool demeanor. Gone was the man she knew as her boyfriend, with all his barely tolerable forthrightness and his sense of humor he called cheeky and she called harsh. Now, he had been replaced by a person who floundered and warmed just at the mere sight of Penelope 2.0 seated across the way. 

Once the waitress left, Chris’s gaze flitted between Annie and Penelope, his attention wavering between the two. She could see, in the way his expression softened and the way his lips curled at the corners, just how much Annie had piqued his interest. Which, awesome. Now, not only was her best friend on a date with the better version of herself, but her boyfriend couldn’t pry his attention away from Penelope’s long-lost lookalike as well. 

Wonderful. 

She bloody hated double dates. 

Colin, across the way, jostled his leg, and Penelope inwardly wanted to scream. Their eyes met again, and a flash of concern, mixed with another emotion she couldn’t quite name, crossed his face. The tips of his ears burned when he looked back at Chris. 

Her boyfriend reached over and plucked the garnish off her drink, chewing the orange slice methodically before looking over at her. “Truthfully, I… don’t remember how we met.”

Something swirled in her chest at the level of detail that graced Colin’s story in comparison to the abject lack of anything from Chris. Shocked, Penelope forced a smile. 

“It’s okay. I don’t remember how I met a lot of people.”

He shrugged. Tried to remain unaffected while obviously being very affected. Penelope pressed her lips into a fine line, uncertain as to what to do, until:

“It was a windy day. And I was wearing this hat that got blown off my head. Which, ordinarily, fine. Whatever. It was an ugly hat, anyway. But my little sister had recently signed up for riding lessons. And Chris’s family was apparently notorious for making all of their kids take riding lessons; hence, he was there with Olivia. Not that I could have known that. But the wind took my hat off my head and straight into his face. Which caused him to fall off his horse and into the mud at the stables.”

Annie finished speaking without so much as a smirk. Just recounted the events like she’d found them in a book. Penelope watched her lean forward and take a sip of her drink, then scan the table like she hadn’t made the tension exorbitantly worse by giving the story of how they met. 

Beside her, Chris’s spine grew rigid. “You remember that?”

“I remember you laughing even though I ruined your breeches.”

“I laughed?!”

“Oh, come on. You’ve always been so nice.”

Nice. There was that word again, looming over her head, taunting her as she struggled to figure out what the hell her issue was. Couldn’t Annie see that the pinnacle of nice sat next to her? 

Penelope debated between shooting an inquisitive brow at Colin and adjusting to get a better view of Chris’s reaction. She opted for the latter. Then did the former when she saw Chris giving a lopsided grin to Annie, his head in his hands and his eyes full of admiration. 

“You remember. That’s what’s nice.” Without breaking away from her, he quieted, adding, “And nice is nice. Better than when you kept calling me charismatic to my sister.”

Annie giggled. A waiter walked by carrying a sandwich piled high with some sort of meat, and Penelope waited to see Chris’s eyes follow the dish. But the man didn’t even flinch. Chris. The hungriest guy she knew. Didn’t break away from Annie. For the sandwich.

Perturbed, Penelope squinted at Colin. His foot nudged her under the table in response. Her hand reached under the table, smacking his knee, and jollity twinkled in his eyes as he tried to keep his composure. 

Annie stared back at Chris with challenge in her eyes. “What’s wrong with charismatic?”

“Nothing. Just. Seems a bit superficial.”

“I hardly think my young self considered superficiality when calling you charismatic.”

“I hardly think your young self knew I associated charisma with superficiality.”

“Oh, the trials and tribulations of universal adoration. Whatever will you do?”

Penelope sucked in her cheeks at that. It didn’t take someone who knew Annie well to hear the admonishment in her tone. Annie, in just a few comments, had effectively scolded Chris like a child, all without lifting a finger, then went back to sipping her drink like she hadn’t a care in the world. Penelope avidly had to fight commending the woman for her spunk. Frankly, her brazenness to put Chris in his place made her all the more fascinating, and Penelope whipped around to see her boyfriend’s reaction to the reprimand, knowing how he acted after any sort of disagreement or spat they shared. 

Chris said nothing. One eye narrowed more than the other. His jaw twitched. But, above all else, Penelope could detect subtle hints of amusement in his demeanor. The glimmer in his eyes that made them appear greener than ever. The faintest hint of redness on his cheekbones, accentuating their sharpness. The way his hand tossed through his chestnut curls, making them less sculpted and more flouncy. 

Just as confusion and rage curdled in her gut upon seeing how Annie’s line of questioning had left him so entertained, Chris leaned back, wrapping an arm around Penelope’s shoulders, and Annie let out a noise that sounded oddly similar to a growl. The noise made Colin purse his lips, his gaze moving to study his girlfriend from his periphery. 

A silent conversation played out between him and Penelope, the two of them debating why his girlfriend growled and what to do about it, just as she heard Annie ask, “How’s your brother-in-law?”

A scoff breathed out of Chris, followed by a smile. “Which one?”

“Fair. You did say Olivia was married. Though I meant Alexandra’s husband, Henry.”

Chris gulped his beer, licking off the foam mustache while maintaining eye contact with the girl across from him. “To be honest, I didn’t think you’d remember Henry.”

“Of course, I remember Henry. Striking blue eyes, that one. You know, he entered the family around the same time I did, what with him dating Alex. And he actually made a point to talk to me back then anytime he saw me.”

“I didn’t know Henry did that.”

“Most people didn’t. I think both of us were just overwhelmed with you lot.”

Chris laughed. “Henry is great. A girl dad, actually.”

“Oh?”

“Amie runs that man wild.”

Penelope nearly chimed in there. Chris had never mentioned being an uncle. Talked about his family with so much love and tenderness that it was practically a tangible thing, but also didn’t discuss details or individual people with Penelope. He held his family both in high regard and close to his chest, and Penelope had not yet become privy to knowing much about his mother or siblings past the basics. 

A harmonious pair of snickers rang out beside her, and she and Colin stared at each other as each of their dates laughed with the other. Colin wiggled his brows. Penelope scrunched her nose. Both felt too enraptured by what they were witnessing from their respective partners to say anything that would break the reunion. Not that they needed to. Moments like this made her cherish the fact that she and Colin had been friends for so long and had, as a result, developed such an implicit understanding of one another. Penelope didn’t have to verbalize anything to understand how uncomfortable Colin was, simply based on the crease between his brows and the constant movement of his thumb and forefinger.

Entranced, Chris beamed when he finally spoke, and Colin’s tongue protruded on the inside of his cheek. He only did that when trying to determine how to intervene with something. 

“I’m glad you had other people you fit in with back then.”

“I mean, 'conversed with occasionally' and 'fit in with' are two quite different things, but noted. Henry's poise among the disarray was at least soothing.”

Chris drew Penelope closer as he spoke. “I’ll have to tell him I saw you.”

“Tell your whole family. I’ve missed seeing them. I still see their names pop up on my feed. Actually, I read about your mother’s annual charity gala last month.” 

“I’ll tell mum to give you an invite next year. We would love to see you there.”

“I mean, I did go to one, years ago. Told my mum I wanted to wear green, but…”

Chris shook his head, and Penelope couldn’t tell if the action stemmed from a lack of recall or from fully understanding why her words trailed off into nothing. She and Colin glanced at one another, and Colin lightly brushed Annie’s hand, sitting beside her drink on the table. 

“But… what?”

Annie rolled her eyes. Patted him on the arm, then withdrew her hand entirely. Chris shot Penelope a look that meant whatever Annie had to say wouldn’t be good.

That didn’t stop her from saying it. “Oh, my mum bought me a green dress, alright.”

“Meaning?”

“It was St. Patrick’s Day green. Complete with gold and white accents. And with my hair—”

“Oh, god.” 

It bubbled out of Penelope before she could help it. Everyone’s eyes darted over to her, and embarrassment crawled up her spine before she followed with, “People don’t realize that there is such a thing as a bad green on a redhead.”

Annie’s arms flew up in indignation. “The leprechaun comparisons are inevitable!”

“And there is never such a thing as a complimentary comparison to a leprechaun.”

“No! There’s not!”

“All it takes is one, too, and the evening is ruined.”

“You get it,” Annie affirmed, nodding and finishing her drink. She pushed it out in front of her, opening her mouth to say something and stopping only when Chris beat her to it. 

“Would you like another drink? I’m happy to go get you one.”

The table fell quiet. Someone across the pub shouted an expletive at the television. Colin’s eyes darted between Chris and Penelope, his shoulders growing tense with irritation. 

Annie swallowed. Cast a quick, apologetic look at Colin, followed by a brief wince at Penelope. Chris hummed expectantly, causing Annie to gape at him.

“I—I mean, if you’re offering?”

“I am. What would you like?”

“Vodka lemonade? Grey Goose? With a splash of soda water?”

“Of course.”

Chris said it with a smile, genuine and saccharine and uncomfortably playful. His green eyes glinted under the light of the bar, made brighter by the storm rolling in outside the pub, and his hair, which he usually styled anytime he met Penelope, had become disheveled by constantly raking his hand through it. Annie crossed her arms again, blinking back at him with amber eyes and awe.

Not knowing whether or not she should be offended, Penelope looked at Colin, seeing steam practically roll out of his ears. Then, the coil snapped, and the tension broke, and Colin pointed at Penelope’s mostly empty drink. 

“Pen, what do you want? Chris and I are going to run to the bar.”

Suppressed anger boiled in Colin’s eyes, taking them from a pretty denim to a stormy night, and he grit his jaw briefly enough that the faded pink of the scar on his chin. Ice clinked as she handed him her glass, and she forced a smile and blurted out the simple order that he’d known for years. 

Colin winked at her before he walked off with Chris, and her stomach fluttered at the sight. 

👫 👫

Colin didn’t quite know if the buzzing in his head could be attributed to the noise of the pub or the irritation ringing in his ears at Chris’s audacity. 

By the time they reached the overly glossy bartop, he practically vibrated with anger, his fingers jittery as he rapped them against the edge to burn some of his pent-up energy. Grey clouds loomed outside, and the threat of rain mirrored the storm of emotions brewing in Colin’s chest. Chris, beside him, kept casting glances back toward the table, and Colin couldn’t tell which one of the girls continued to pull his attention. 

That just infuriated him more. Colin shouldn’t have to question whether or not Penelope’s boyfriend was interested in her. Hell, Penelope shouldn’t have to question that. And Chris, with his intense, green-eyed gazes and intrigue about Annie’s life that masqueraded as insouciance, simply didn’t seem to grasp that his girlfriend was the fucking best. 

Penelope deserved better than that. 

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth before starting, determined to stand up for his slighted friend. 

“So, Chris, I—”

“Your story about how you and Penelope met was cute.”

The compliment seemingly came from nowhere, and Colin stammered a bit before responding. “I… erm… thank you?”

“You remember so much about that day. Even the color of her dress.”

“Yes, well… she’s my best friend.”

“I can see that.”

Affront blazed in his chest with the remark, and Chris turned again, this time letting his eyes linger a bit more on Annie as the two girls trepidatiously chatted with one another. Colin rolled his eyes and shook his head. 

Chris didn’t see him. Didn’t do anything, other than narrow his eyes and let his lips quirk up at the corners. 

“It’s good to see Annie after all these years. My sister will be chuffed I ran into her.”

Biting his tongue, Colin just nodded. Chris, to no one in particular, continued rambling.

“Annie and I used to talk a decent amount back in the day. Mostly at parties or when Olivia had her over, but still. She was always nice. Pleasant. Though Olivia always swore she might be the only person she knew who had a sharper wit than her.” Chris turned toward Colin then, meeting his eyes, following with, “How’d you all meet?”

Skeptical, Colin wavered for a moment. “We… uhm… met at a coffee shop.”

“Really? Which one?”

“Gunther’s, I believe.”

“You believe, or you know?”

Through clenched teeth, Colin mustered, “I know.”

Chris examined the table again, green eyes fixing on both girls. “I never really pictured Annie dating much.”

“Why?”

“She never dated much in uni. Granted, I haven’t seen her in years. But she always seemed so… uninterested.”

Not sure what to say, Colin broke away, planning out how to tell Chris off for his poor treatment of Penelope while flagging down the bartender. A second passed, and pubgoers clamored around them, and Colin rubbed the scar on his chin, waiting to see if the man had anything else to say. 

Out of nowhere, Chris whirled around toward him. “I believe I may envy you.”

“Why?”

Chris shrugged, his features softening. “I don’t remember how Annie and I met.” 

”Oh,” he conceded, following with, “I figured you didn’t.”

“You figured what?”

“That you didn’t remember.”

The rejoinder came out acidic and defensive, and Colin immediately hated the wave of superiority that crashed over him, hearing his mum’s reproach in his head as self-loathing took its place. Chris smirked, unaffected by the jab while casting another nostalgic look at Annie, smiling before delivering his reasoning with a honeyed backhand and a sincerity that reduced Colin’s ire to pity and ash.  

“I don’t remember how I met any of my friends, Colin. At least, not with the detail and precision you wove into your story about Penelope. I mean, you remember the teacher and the algebra homework. Your friendship must be quite extraordinary.”

He said it with frivolity, with kindness, but a mischievous twinkle sparkled in his eyes, and Colin’s cheeks grew hot at the sight. Chris stared at him with the same expression his family did anytime he talked about Penelope, only with less exasperation and more assumption. Tolerating those looks from Benedict and Daphne was one thing, but having Chris, a man he didn’t know, treat him similarly made his throat burn with a maelstrom of emotions. This man didn’t know him. Didn’t know about the intricacy of his friendship with Penelope. Didn’t know about the silent language they shared. Didn’t know that Colin could tell when she was happy because of the way her eyes would glimmer prettily or that she wore her hair down on days she wanted to show off its copper color. And just because he had known Colin’s girlfriend in his youth, and just because he hadn’t seen Colin’s girlfriend in years, and just because this whole evening was turning out to be the most awkward, convoluted, gut-wrenchingly terrible double date ever, didn’t give him the right to judge or slander Colin’s relationship with his best friend. 

The bartender came over, and Chris faltered, shuttering the carefully crafted devil-may-care persona to put in the exact order Annie mentioned with haste, right down to the soda water. Dumbstruck, Colin placed Penelope’s order, even specifying the gin she liked and the squeeze of lime that she did not openly ask for. Chris added a smug smile to the mischievous twinkle, and something in Colin snapped. 

“What?!”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You certainly thought it.”

“I think a lot of things. I think finger sandwiches are the superior teatime food. I think—”

“Oh, come off it.”

“—My elderly neighbor should stop hitting me in the shins with her cane. I think—”

“Perhaps that is deserved.”

“—All of my sisters are all wholly smarter than any of my brothers. I think a great deal of things.”

Colin huffed. The bartender brought over their drinks, sliding Penelope’s in front of him with an apathetic flourish. Aggravated, Colin gritted his teeth, hesitant to say anything further lest his words be interpreted incorrectly by the arsehole in front of him. 

A low hum rumbled out of Chris, and he shifted, hair catching under the low light of the pub. Colin studied the angles of his face, the sharpness of his chin, and the shadows cast by his prominent cheekbones, watching the man’s attitude morph from presumptuous to something else far less guarded and far more vulnerable as he observed the girls. The silence stretched uncomfortably, and Colin shifted his weight on his heels, condensation from Penelope’s drink beginning to bead on the glass. In truth, the longer he spent with the man, the less he could see the validity in his sister’s comparison. Colin had no desire to learn about the man’s interests. Couldn’t care less where he’d been in Greece or where he liked to eat in London. Even physically, as he analyzed the man, tall and well-built seemed to be the only links, tethering two men who, otherwise, had very little in common. 

Chris inhaled, and Colin pursed his lips, oscillating between following through with standing up for his friend and allowing Chris, who clearly didn’t expect to see Annie, some time to let his emotions settle. He opted for the former. Knew his love and friendship with Penelope trumped just about anything, and would regret his silence the minute Chris did something that didn’t meet his standards for how Penelope deserved to be treated. Channeling some of the man’s overabundance of confidence to say what he needed to say, Colin puffed his chest out, ignoring the wistful gleam in the other man’s eyes. 

“Hey.”

Another hum, this one more inquisitive and less condescending. Colin waited. Counted to four before Chris’s attention moved away from the table. Then took a sip of Penelope’s drink, flinching at the cloying sweetness posing as liquid courage. Chris raised his brows at the act. 

Colin ignored that and pushed forward. “So, yes, you are right, Penelope is my best friend. And being Penelope’s friend, I just want to make sure she is treated well, and—”

“Treated well?”

“Yes, treated well.”

“Are you insinuating I don’t treat her well?”

“I feel like failing to offer to get her a drink supports that insinuation.”

“Do tell me then, how do you define ‘well’?”

The man’s defensiveness made Colin smirk, and something protective sparked at the base of his spine, causing Colin to shove away his niceness for the only person he could fathom being mean for. Chris’s reaction merely bolstered Colin to stand up for his best friend by delivering a final blow to this arsehole she called a boyfriend. 

“I just want her to be treated the way that I think she deserves to be treated. That's all.”

He half guessed his words would strike a chord with the man. Would cause him to stomp out of the pub and out of their lives and back to whatever universe he came from. But no. With panache, Chris whipped back toward the table, green eyes glowing with mischief as he stared at Penelope. Something else blazed in his eyes when he whirled around toward Colin. 

“You want to make sure Penelope is treated well?”

Unsteadied by the man’s change of tone, Colin nodded. Set his jaw in a way he hoped communicated his seriousness on the matter. A wry laugh crept out of Chris, and the audacious man reached up and gripped Colin’s shoulder with a smile. 

“Colin, a piece of advice?”

“From you? No.”

Chris’s smile broadened. “A piece of advice. The only person who will treat her the way you think she deserves to be treated… is you, mate.”

Chris gave his shoulder a firm squeeze, then took Annie’s drink back to the table, leaving a stunned Colin in his wake. 

👫 👫

The men sauntered off, and Penelope, now free from having to bear witness to Colin date with a doppelgänger of herself, leaned forward to try to gossip with the other girl. 

“So who speaks to the other first?”

Annie immediately snickered. “Not sure. Colin will be more sly about whatever it is he wants to say. He has a way about that. Chris is a bit more… forthright. But in a playful way.”

“Chris does have a proclivity for waggishness.”

“He does. Which is why it’s so interesting that he’s usually so nice, too.”

That word popped up again. Nice. Penelope didn’t quite understand why she couldn’t see what others did. Half the time, Chris made her want to scream. Turned her into someone who made barbs that were slightly too pointed and gave glares that were slightly too sharp. Why did Annie insist on calling him nice?

Penelope latched onto that. “Who will be nicer to the other?”

Annie hesitated, then surveyed Penelope out of the corner of her eye. It wasn’t clear why she faltered until her lip twitched; the woman was assessing, parsing through words to figure out the best way to placate or engage, as if holding back for fear of being seen. 

From what, Penelope didn’t know. 

Finally: “You tell me? I think you know better, since I haven’t seen Chris in so long.”

Penelope rolled her lips between her teeth. “Colin will be nicer. He lets anger simmer. Avoids confrontation unless it’s for something or someone that truly matters.”

“True. He’s very kind.”

Nice. Kind. Synonyms, for all intents and purposes. But the way she said one in relation to Chris, and the other in relation to Colin, intensified Penelope’s perception of the true nature of Colin’s relationship with his girlfriend. Annie was fine. They were fine together. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Just… fine.

Which felt completely, totally, and utterly wrong for Colin.

Penelope chewed the inside of her cheek. “You said you hadn’t talked to Chris or his sister in years?”

“I haven’t. Just,” she waved a hand in the air, dropping it while adding, “lost touch.”

“Any reason why?”

“Not really. Though he probably thinks it lines up with me overhearing him tell his brothers he would never marry me. I think I only saw him once more after that.”

An all too painful memory clawed out of the recesses of Penelope’s mind. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Told him I didn’t ask him to. He got really flabbergasted and embarrassed. His brother tried to cover for him by driving me back to my dorm, too. But Chris did nothing more than gape at me like a fish.”

“Good for you. I ghosted Colin last time he said mean things about me.”

Annie, having drifted away from Penelope to face the men ordering at the bar, whipped back toward her. “You ghosted Colin?”

“I did.”

“And he handled that…?”

“Rather poorly.”

A guffaw tore out of the girl across from her, and Annie covered her mouth with her hand upon hearing the sound. “I can only imagine. What made you stop ghosting him?”

Another memory. This one full of warmth and adoration, too genuine to ignore. Penelope exhaled. 

“He apologized. Not profusely or on his knees or anything. Just. Became the boy who I ran into in the hallway all those years ago.”

A faint sound of acknowledgement rumbled out of Annie, and she ran her hand through her hair, fingers catching on a tangle in one of her auburn curls. Penelope watched, feeling that familiar pang of self-love and self-loathing as they coalesced into a messy swirl of jealousy and admiration. The thing was, Penelope felt like she had actually misjudged Annie. Rather liked her, all things considered. In another life, she thought they could even be friends. 

Then she remembered that Annie was dating Colin, and all bubbly thoughts of friendship ground to a halt. Penelope didn’t particularly care about Annie’s reconnecting with Chris. Didn’t particularly care about Chris offering to get her a drink or pivoting all of his attention to talk to her. But Penelope did care about Colin. Loved Colin. And knew that jealousy would always blaze in her chest so long as Annie remained Colin’s girlfriend. 

The men, across the pub, appeared to be engaged in some sort of minor quibble, and Penelope watched Colin roll his eyes and shake his head at something Chris said, just as she predicted would occur. 

Sometimes she hated being right. 

“So, you’ve known Colin for thirteen years?”

Penelope twisted away from her unrequited love and toward the alternate version of, well, herself, seeing gold flecks and mirth sparkling in her brown eyes. She understood the question to be polite, borne from manners and not from interest, and forced herself to smile back at Colin’s girlfriend.

“Fifteen, actually. Met when I was eleven.”

Annie nodded. Sat for a moment, studying the men out of the corner of her eye. Another silence fell over them, broken up only by the table beside them roaring in laughter and the drinkware clattering at the bar. 

“I can tell he cares for you.”

Heat rose on Penelope’s cheeks. “What makes you say that?”

“His story. It came from a place of love.” 

She said it with detachment, like it was an objective fact not to be doubted or debated. Penelope didn’t know how to tell her that she agreed. At this point in their friendship, Penelope didn’t doubt whether or not Colin loved her; on the contrary, she firmly knew he did. Actions speak louder than words, than intentions, than quick flings with girls that either look nothing like her or way too similar to her. And Colin, time and time again, demonstrated his love through his actions.

No, Colin’s love for her had never been something she had questioned. But the type of love he harbored for her simply did not match the type of love she harbored for him. It was what made loving him so complicated. He loved her. He just wasn’t in love with her. 

The bruise throbbed, and Penelope shifted, concentrating on the other bit of Annie’s meaning. Colin’s story stemmed from love, yes, but Annie had given a similar recounting, detailing bit by bit how she and Chris had met over a decade before. 

Which meant…

Oh. 

Any feelings Penelope had of envy or intrigue or even self-esteem melted away, leaving nothing but sympathy. Penelope had known, for years, the pain that came with unrequited love. With mentally giving another person your heart, then watching them fail to even realize they even had it at all. 

Unsure what else to do, Penelope fidgeted with her hands under the table. “Colin is just sentimental.”

“Is he?”

“A sap, really. Genuinely a good guy.”

Across the bar, Chris gripped Colin’s shoulder, and Penelope could see his face morph from annoyed to perplexed to something she couldn’t decipher from afar. Her boyfriend started wandering back, leaving her best friend gaping at him. Knowing she had seconds left alone with the other woman, she added one more thing, drawing Annie’s attention back to her and away from her childhood love. 

“Colin always tells stories like that. With tenderness and ferocity. Just has a way of delivering a speech so assuredly, fervently, and loudly that it’s impossible not to like him.” 

Then, for good measure: “I am glad you are with him.”

Annie nodded, tracking Chris as he came up to the table with her drink. This time, however, he gestured for Annie to scoot over, and Penelope frowned at her boyfriend, vacillating between making a snide comment and pouting over his not sitting next to her. 

Then Colin strode up, taking a sip from Penelope’s drink with an inscrutable expression. Frozen and rendered speechless by not being able to read him for the first time in forever, she scooted, allowing him to sit next to her. She breathed in his cologne, reveled in the warmth radiating off her body, and tried to ignore the bizarre sensation of watching her boyfriend sit next to another woman while she sat next to her best friend. 

It felt wrong. It felt even more right. Penelope settled next to Colin, squeezing his knee for reassurance. 

Chris’s eyes flitted between the two of them, lingering on Colin for a millisecond too long, then darted back over to Annie. 

“What were you all talking about?”

Without skipping a beat: “Writing.”

“Writing?”

Annie nodded, and Penelope, metaphorically extending an olive branch, remarked, “Yes. Annie and I were talking about our writing.”

Chris lit up, twisting toward Annie with shock. “You’re a writer? You used to write in that journal all the time, so I suppose that makes sense. But, still. What have you written?”

Clearly trying to remain humble, but also wanting to be proud of her work, Annie puffed her chest out a bit. “I actually had one of my poems published last year.”

“Really?!”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Paris Review.”

“Oh my god, that’s… I’ll have to tell Olivia.”

A boom of thunder crashed outside, and Chris tugged at the collar of his shirt, stealing a glance at Penelope, then looking away with a twinge of guilt in his eyes. Penelope nearly told him that he didn’t have to feel remorse about liking Annie more than her. The minute he laid eyes on Annie, she could see the writing on the wall. She and Chris had an expiration date, and some intrinsic part of her knew that that day was today. 

Beside her, Colin had grown silent. Had yet to give any input on the conversation. Instead, he sat silent, blinking as if he were in a daze and concentrating on the mint spring sticking out of Penelope’s drink. Under the table, she squeezed his knee again, and he tensed slightly. Rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and glanced at Penelope before focusing on her drink again, this time with wide eyes and red-tipped ears. Uneasy about the sudden shift in his behavior, she scanned her friend for something, anything, that might give away what happened between him and Chris. Some reason that explained why Chris now sat next to Annie and why Colin kept stealing glimpses of Penelope before averting his gaze. 

Nothing. Colin, blushing like a schoolboy, did nothing. Dread settled in her stomach, heavy and sickening, and she peered over at Chris, unaware or uncaring of Colin’s change in mood. His attention had become wholly fixed on Annie, vulnerability seeping into the crease between his brow and the shadows under his cheekbones. Everything about him felt softer, less like her boyfriend and more like a man she did not recognize, a variation of Colin meant for anyone other than Penelope.

She’d been a fool to think she could settle for an approximation of the man she loved. Similarities aside, she loved Colin for his depth and naivete. For his tendency to cry when angry or apologize with so much sincerity that it healed whatever part of her that needed healing.

Chris’s voice softened. “Paris Review sounds a lot better than anything I’ve done.”

Waving a hand in the air, Annie tried to be flippant about her own accomplishments. “Oh, it’s not—”

“No. It’s something. And proud of you. And, dare I say, a little jealous? I’ll have to read it.”

“I didn’t even tell you what it was called!”

“Don’t underestimate nosiness and the power of will.”

He said it with enough charm that Penelope rolled her eyes. Annie shook her head, nudging him with her shoulder. 

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What have you been up to? It’s been seven years. Surely you have been doing something.”

Diffident, Chris shrugged. “Not much. Other than blowing through my trust fund. Just got back from Cyprus—”

“Aphrodite’s birthplace.”

“---Which is as sunny as everyone says.”

“Have you written about it?”

Chris froze then. Panic and shame flashed in his eyes, and his voice rose when he asked, “You’ve read my blog?”

Annie grew a bit timid, a blush crawling up her neck and onto her cheeks. “Er… yes?”

“How? When?”

“You do know a blog is public domain?”

“Yes, but—”

“Olivia shared it on her Instagram a few years ago, too.” 

“Olivia didn’t have the right to do that!” he snapped.

Sensing his palpable defensiveness and irritation, Annie conceded, “I’m sorry for having read it? I meant no offense. It’s become a regular part of my reading cycle.” She took a sip of the drink, adding, “It’s quite good, you know.”

It didn’t work. Insecurity and anger swirled together, tugging at Chris’s features in a way Penelope could only describe as unattractive, despite the man’s obvious good looks. Part of her didn’t quite understand the aversion to having his writing seen by the world. Chris sent her a link four days ago, asking if she cared to read his latest entry. But another part of her, the part of her who understood the intimacy of writing and of sharing that writing with others, knew that having strangers read your writing felt a lot less intimidating than allowing loved ones to do the same thing. 

Annie tsked. Turned toward her now taciturn boyfriend, and gave a strained smile that Penelope recognized all too well as frustration. 

“Colin, have you been to Cyprus before?”

Still acting a bit distracted, Colin fiddled with the napkin on the table, ripping the paper into tiny strips and lining them up one beside the other. Penelope appreciated Annie’s attempt to pull him into the conversation, particularly with something the two men had in common, but couldn’t stop wondering what might have happened to make Colin act this… strange. 

Ultimately, she came up with a single conclusion: Chris had made some out-of-pocket remark to Colin. The way he had time and time again to Penelope. The way he just did to Annie. Chris had said something that hit Colin a little too hard, something that skipped right past cheeky and straight into mean. Penelope tried to convince herself she liked Chris’s forthrightness, but now, seeing the effects of it so clearly, all of her false persuasion came crumbling down. 

She didn’t like Chris’s forthrightness. Didn’t like how frequently he got under her skin. And she certainly didn’t like whatever he’d said to reduce Colin to this blubbering mess. 

Penelope would go to the ends of the earth to protect him. Always had, and always would. 

She clenched her jaw.

Colin peered up at Annie, at his girlfriend, then scanned the table, evaluating everyone’s reactions and stopping when he saw Penelope, hesitating until looking across the table.

“I—err—actually wrote an article about Cyprus a couple of years ago.”

Chris, still with anger and something less confident in his tone, exclaimed, “You wrote an article about it?”

“Yeah. I am a travel writer for Kingdom Magazine.” 

Chris grew quiet. Annie nodded politely at Colin. 

“Did you enjoy your time there?”

“I did. Cyprus is quite pretty. I think the water there reminded me of home.” 

The words sounded indifferent, nothing like what Penelope had come to expect of Colin when he talked about travel, and Penelope, noticing Chris’s shift and lack of disclosure about what he did, spoke up.  

“Chris, when are you going to update your blog about Cyprus?”

She knew, based on the way Chris sucked his cheeks and crossed his arms like a petulant child, that the comment prickled just the way she intended. 

“I have a few entries drafted up.”

“About anything in particular?”

“I was thinking the food.”

“Oh, Colin raved about the seafood there. Solid choice. I remember that article being particularly good.”

Feeling aggravation stew in her chest, Penelope grinned. Raised her brows as if to challenge the man across from her, seeing if she could get under his skin the way he apparently loved to get under hers. Chris frowned, his gaze narrowing as he clenched his fist on the tabletop. Annie gave him a sympathetic grin. 

“I’m sure your next entry will be wonderful, Chris. I loved the way you described the Adriatic. Comparing its temperature to bathwater was brilliant.”

The compliment sounded par for the course for Annie. Penelope fought her instinct to sneer when Chris looked at his lifelong friend with hesitancy and a touch of admiration. 

That’s when Colin did something unusual. 

With a tremor, Colin’s hand reached over and grabbed her own. Traced over her thigh, and interlocked their fingers together, fumbling for a minute until settling into place. 

Stunned, she glanced over at him, seeing a neutral face that gave away nothing. Her thumb skimmed over the back of his hand, feeling the grooves of his knuckles and the scars from years of cuts and scrapes. His hand felt impossibly rough and soft, large enough to engulf her own while fitting perfectly together, and her blood heated in her veins at the newness of the act, at the riskiness of the endeavor that he chose to take here, on their double date from hell, as they navigated layers of tension and history and a gamut of weird dynamics with their respective partners. 

What the fuck was he doing?

Penelope glanced over at Colin again. He gave nothing away, remained stoic except for the reassuring squeeze he gave her. 

“And your entry about the snow on Mt. Olympus! Great. Very visual.”

Annie’s voice brought her back to the present. Chris, with his bottom lip between his teeth, tried to remain casual. 

“It was alright. Not as prestigious as being published.”

Not sure if his comment stemmed from commendation or self-degradation, Penelope watched as Annie whirled over toward her. “Have you read it?”

She shook her head. Forced herself to give a contrite smile. Truth was, Penelope had tried to read his work. Skimmed the descriptive writing with an open mind, trying to remember that Chris was not Colin, even if they had been to the same places and done the same things. But she couldn’t stop comparing it to her best friend’s, and felt the proper thing to do would be to stop. Colin was her favorite writer. Always would be. 

Chris’s face fell into something akin to shock and hurt, which sounded eerily similar to irate when he spoke again.  

“You haven’t read my blog yet? Not even an entry?”

“No. You sent me the link four days ago.”

“That means you’ve had four days to read it.”

“It also means I’ve only had four days to read it.”

Chris grew quiet. Colin toyed with the edge of her nail, his touch light enough to tickle. Everything about the act felt exploratory, tentative, testing the boundaries between established and unfamiliar, and she ignored her heartbeat pounding in her ears. She knew she should comfort her boyfriend. Should do something other than luxuriate in having Colin’s hand in her own, even if it was just to soothe or reassure. But she did nothing. Just sat, accepting the inevitable, certain that she was witnessing the end of her relationship in real time. 

Her boyfriend’s gaze narrowed at her across the table, anger no longer roiling off of him. Instead, his eyes glistened, and Penelope knew, just from a couple of weeks with him, that she’d hit a soft spot. 

That didn’t stop hurt and vitriol from seeping into his tone. 

“Has Colin published anything since we’ve been together?”

“Why do you care?”

“I mean, you read his stuff and not mine—”

“Of course, I read his stuff. He’s the best travel writer I know. He’s the best—”

“How would you know? You apparently have nothing to compare it to, since you haven’t read my blog.”

“Colin had a publishing deadline and asked me to edit his article.”

Trying to suppress her anger about the ridiculousness of this whole situation, Penelope focused on Colin’s hand in her own. Let her mind hone in on the scar on his index finger, on the faint dusting of hair on his knuckles. She found a callous on Colin’s thumb, and she gently grazed over it, marvelling at the warmth and imperfection of it all. 

Colin’s breath hitched when she did. Chris didn’t notice. Just stared at Annie’s half-drunk cocktail in front of her, processing Penelope’s admission with a furrowed brow.  

Her boyfriend recoiled slightly away from everyone else before speaking. “So you read his stuff instead of mine?”

“I needed to. Otherwise, he would miss his deadline. And I won’t let him miss his deadline.”

She said it factually, like the explanation should be obvious. An awkward amount of time passed as Chris glared at her, eyes intermittently flitting between her and Colin. 

Annie patted him on the arm. “You will have to tell me about your other siblings. Sybilla? Georgiana? Ed—”

“I should go.”

Chris stood, ignoring Colin’s protests and Annie’s surprise. Penelope watched, unable and unwilling to stop him, knowing their relationship had run its course, and instead gripped Colin’s hand more firmly. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he looked at Annie, pressing his lips into a fine line. 

“I didn’t—” He started, shaking his head instead of finishing his statement. 

Annie reached a hand out toward him. “You didn’t what?”

“I have to go.”

And then Chris fled, a desperation in his tone that Penelope knew would be made worse by her saying anything. Annie, with a slack jaw, observed him with panic in her eyes, sitting up on her knees as he opened the door and walked out into the imminent storm. 

Colin said nothing. Penelope, comprehending why Chris had left, waited to see if he would come back, say something that got under her skin, or that amplified Colin’s weird shift in behavior. But a full minute passed, and the door to the pub remained closed, and a few raindrops just began falling out of the sky. 

Annie turned back toward Penelope and Colin, downing her cocktail and grabbing her things. 

“Err… Colin… Can I message you later?”

She left before he could answer. Practically sprinted away, only coming back to grab her coat and smile at Penelope. Then took off, running after Chris, her story about their first meeting replaying over and over in Penelope’s mind, a story borne from love and far too detailed to no longer matter.

Penelope wished her well. 

Colin chuckled. “Odds that she texts me?”

“Eight percent, give or take.”

“I think I say take.”

“Really?”

Colin turned, raising a single brow. His eyes were full of mirth and incredulity and something else Penelope couldn’t quite name. For the second time that evening, should freaked unable to read Colin Bridgerton, a feeling that that caused her heart to pound and her stomach to flutter.

She smiled. He squeezed her hand under the table. 

👫 👫

Annie hated that old habits died hard.

Her mother, bless her, would likely never stop assuming that her third daughter would always be on the shelf. Made comment after comment about the money they would save on in-home care while Annie tolerated compliments that landed like wasps. Realistically, Annie thought she could come home, married, with an absolute meteor of a diamond on her finger, and her mother would still wait for the other shoe to drop. 

Felicity, on the other hand, habitually held out hope that she would be a maid of honor within the year. Clapped and grew absolutely giddy upon hearing about any given date Annie found on Hinge. Annie would just pat her little sister on the back, explain that meeting men from the internet generally required disclosure for basic safety, and then endure Felicity’s ramblings about the difference between aubergine and plum in a color scheme. 

Even herself. Annie tried for years to give up licking her lips any time she felt nervous. Researched a myriad of different ways to help her stop pressing snooze at least four times every morning. Tried, for ages, to kick buying an eclair every time she got a coffee at Gunther’s, until pivoting and gaslighting herself that an occasional sweet treat was perfectly fine, even if she went to Gunther’s at least twice a week. 

Old habits died incredibly hard, which was why today, when faced with the man that she had initially fallen in love with years ago, she tried to feign nonchalance. Tried to remain impartial. Tried to act like she still didn’t dream about green eyes and roguish grins, even after all this time. 

But trying and succeeding were two completely different things. And Annie, despite her best efforts, felt herself falling into the same patterns from seven bloody years ago.

She hated that it had been that long, and yet, sitting across from him at that pub, every inkling and ounce of her former love for the man came rushing back, ignorant to her boyfriend beside her or the girl on Chris’s arm who just made her want to snarl like a wolf. 

No, love didn’t care about propriety or time. And it certainly didn’t care about circumstance. 

Perhaps that was why, nearly a decade after meeting him for the first time, Annie found herself hustling after the man on the street, feet pounding against the pavement as she ignored other passersby. 

She decided to say something when she saw his hand come up and swipe at his eyes. Even from afar, she couldn’t bear the thought of him being sad alone. 

“Chris!”

He whirled around, eyes red and hair askew. Despite that, he offered her a kind, lopsided smile, the same smile he had all those years ago, and Annie’s heart hammered in her chest at the sight. 

She pointed at his face while huffing from practically running to catch up with him. “See?”

“See what?”

“Nice.”

He chuckled. Inhaled. Hollowed his cheeks, exacerbating the sharpness of his cheekbones. Annie stared at him for a moment, letting the wave of memories crash over her. Years of taking him in from a distance, of being relegated to corners with Olivia or meals with his family, only to garner an occasional glimpse and a rare tidbit of conversation, had left her on shaky footing, unsure how to navigate any conversation with the man before her. In some ways, she felt like she learned more about him today than she ever had before, after that horrendous encounter technically considered a double date. 

She sighed. Whipped back toward the pub, now a block away, then turned toward the sky when thunder rumbled above her. Then, she looked at him again, taking in the emerald green eyes that had haunted her wildest fantasies for as long as she could remember. 

“I just… it was good seeing you today, Chris.”

“And you, Annie.”

Fiddling with the zip on her bag, she nodded, ignoring the sparse few raindrops falling on her. A couple of seconds passed as he rocked on his heels—once, twice, thrice—and Annie debated where she went from here. What do you say to a man you used to love, and in many ways never got over?

“Well, I guess—”

“You said you published your poem.”

It wasn’t a question. The urgency of the statement caught her off guard, and she blinked back at him in surprise. 

“I… erm… yes?”

“That’s… amazing. Fuck. What’s it called?”

“The Wallflower?”

A grin cracked across his face, and her heart fluttered in her chest. “Is that meant to be a question?”

“It’s meant to express curiosity as to why you want to know.”

A hand playfully covered his chest as he gasped, his exaggerated facial expression doing nothing but reminding her why she had loved him for so long. 

Seven years. It had been seven years since she’d seen him. But what was time when faced with the one you loved? 

He leaned down toward her, his long lashes accentuating the vividness of his eyes. “Do you not think I am going to read this as quickly as possible?”

“Uh… oh?”

“Oh or uh oh?”

“Both.”

He shrugged. A few raindrops clung to his hair, darkening the chestnut color. “You did say you’d read my blog.”

Annie crossed her arms. Admitting she’d read his blog hadn’t been an invitation for him to read her work. And the thought of the person who had been the long-term recipient of her affections having insight into how she wrote and thought sounded terrifying. 

Eyes still red-rimmed, Chris softened, then grew almost sheepish. He averted his gaze to the pavement. 

“I probably shouldn’t have stormed out of that pub.”

“No.”

“But I just kind of felt… I don’t know… unaccomplished.”

“I don’t think that’s fair to yourself. Or your blog.”

“No?”

“Chris, your posts are really good. There’s a reason I keep going back to it over and over again.”

It took a moment for the words to lodge, and Annie could visibly see them sink in, becoming one with him and reshaping him in the tiniest of ways. As rain drizzled down upon them, Chris smirked, and Annie realized that it was bashfulness, almost disbelief, and an instinctual reaction to a scrap of praise. 

Her heart went out to the man. No wonder he didn’t like being called charismatic.

“I can send you the link to the poem, if you want?”

He frowned, lips tugging down at the corners, and she nearly wisecracked that it made him look like a caricature of sadness. 

His tone still sounded jovial when he asked, “You aren’t going to stay for a live reading?”

She squinted. Rain began coming down harder, and Chris did nothing. Just gave her that same pleading gaze that made her stomach swoop. 

“You’re really going to read this now?”

“I am.”

“I don’t think I want to be present for that.”

“I’ll do my best to do it justice.”

Something about the timbre of his voice, the smoothness of the edges, mixed with the gentleness of sincerity, cleaved through her, like he somehow, after all this time, maintained a shred of genuine interest in her life. Thunder cracked, and Chris grabbed her arm, leading her under an awning and out of the elements. 

Annie swallowed and examined the pavement, toeing at a crack between them. “Chris, I—”

“Come on, stay. I can tell you about the black eye Olivia’s stepdaughter gave her.”

“She gave her a black eye? What did Olivia do? How did she react?”

“It’s Olivia. Retribution is embedded into her DNA.”

She tried to think of a witty rejoinder, something that would make laughter dance in his eyes or, god forbid, evoke one of the stunned coughs that he let out when truly shocked. Instead, he bent down, offering her a hand and a smile. 

“C’mon. Stay.” He inhaled, volume dropping to add, “I dare you.”

Annie was usually immune to childish ploys like dares. Brushed them off with a shake of the head and a scornful purse of the lips. But this was Chris, the man she’d loved since before she knew what love was, the man who played off falling in the mud as if it had just been fate or destiny or some unseen force instead of Annie’s bumbling mistake. 

She looked at the hand. Looked back up at him, seeing sensitivity and imploration and, despite the chaos of their date, niceness blazing in his green eyes, turning them a pretty shade of emerald that she couldn’t break away from. 

Annie sighed. Then reached out and took Chris’s hand.