Mr. Wrong Number(3)
Today he looked like he’d just come back from a run. His damp T-shirt hugged his über-defined everything, and some kind of tattoo snaked down his right arm.
Who did he think he was with that, The Rock?
Colin had one of those movie-star faces, with the perfect bone structure and a killer jawline, but his blue eyes had a mischievous spark that offset the beauty. Rowdy eyes. I’d fallen in love with that face briefly at the age of fourteen, but after eavesdropping on a conversation where he’d referred to me as the “little weirdo” at age fifteen, I’d taken an extreme right turn into loathing and never looked back.
“What are you doing here?” I walked around him to where the Keurig sat on the smooth counter, and I pressed the power button. The cool air reminded me that my backside was totally exposed in my idiotic vanity plate underpants, but I’d be damned if I let him think that he had the ability to faze me. I forced myself not to tug on the Cookie Monster pajama top as I searched the cabinets for coffee, telling myself that it was only a butt as I said, “I thought you moved to Kansas or Montana.”
He cleared his throat. “In the cupboard next to the fridge.”
I glanced over at him. “What?”
“The coffee.”
He was such a know-it-all. He’d always reminded me of an East Coast mobster, the way he knew everything and was always right. So I lied and said, “Well, I wasn’t looking for coffee.”
He quirked an eyebrow and leaned against the breakfast bar. “You weren’t.”
“Nope.” I bit down on my bottom lip and said, “I was actually looking for, um, for tea.”
“Oh. Of course.” He gave me a look that told me he somehow knew that I hated tea. “Well, it’s in the same cupboard. Next to the fridge.”
Holy God, how could this be happening? Am I seriously talking to Colin Beck in my underwear?
“Thank you.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes as I walked over to that cupboard, wanting coffee so bad I could cry. There was one kind of tea in there, Earl Grey, and all I knew was that I’d hate it as I pulled out a K-Cup and took it back over to the machine. “Where’s Jack?”
“Um.” I felt his eyes on me as he said, “He’s at work.”
“Oh.” So why are you here?
“He said you’re staying for a month.” He leaned his tanned forearms on the counter—how the hell did he have sexy forearms, for God’s sake—and started messing with his running watch. “Right?”
“Yep.” I grabbed a mug from the counter, filled it with water from the sink, and removed the lid of the near-empty reservoir on the Keurig. “Does my brother know you’re here, by the way?”
That made him look up from his wrist. “What?”
I leaned closer to the coffee machine and started pouring. “Is he expecting you?”
He made a sound in his throat that was a mixture between a cough and a laugh before saying, “Holy shit—you don’t know that I’m his roommate, do you?”
Oh, God. He couldn’t be serious, right? I searched his face, desperate for him to be messing with me, even while knowing he wasn’t. But before I could get more of a read on his expression, he waved his hands in my direction and barked, “Water. Watch the water, Liv.”
“Shit.” I’d missed the reservoir completely and poured water all over the counter. I grabbed a towel and tried wiping it up, but the bar towel wasn’t absorbent in the least and only served to push the water from the counter to the floor.
While that arrogant jerk watched with an amused grin on his face.
“You don’t have anything better to do than watch me mop up my mess?”
He shrugged and leaned into the counter like he didn’t have a care in the world. “Not really. I like what you’re doing with your hair these days, by the way.”
“Is that right? Do you?” I gave him a mocking smile that felt more like the feral baring of teeth. “I call this my moving-in-with-Colin hairstyle. Looks and feels like a dumpster fire.”
“Speaking of fires, I’m curious, Marshall. How the hell did you manage to burn down an entire apartment building?” He tilted his head and said, “I mean, you’ve always been a bit of a train wreck, but burning love letters on a wooden deck like some kind of pyro is next level, even for you.”
I tried to swallow but my throat was pinched.
Not because that jackass thought I was an idiot; he’d always thought that. My misadventures were a guilty pleasure for Colin, like a train wreck reality TV show that you didn’t want to admit you watched but always binged on when you came across it.
I was his Sister Wives.
But the fact that he knew the tiny details of something that’d just happened the day before yesterday, in a city eight hours away, meant that Jack had told him. And my brother had clearly told him more than just a vague my-sister’s-been-displaced-by-a-fire sort of disclaimer since he mentioned the love letters.
He’d shared with him the awful details.
The cheating boyfriend, the wine-and-letter-burning ceremony on the deck, the four-alarm fire . . . everything. I wanted to vomit at the thought of the two of them, laughing their asses off as Jack regaled him with the tale of my latest tragedy.
The words it wasn’t my fault hovered on the tip of my tongue, wanting to be shouted. I wanted to scream that statement to every person who was reading the story in the paper, clicking on the link, or watching the reporter grin and mockingly enunciate the words love letters.