Mr. Wrong Number

I wasn’t proud of it, but I pounded three glasses of wine while I waited for Colin to arrive.

I just needed to calm my nerves, which was weird in and of itself.

Because I was completely relaxed around Colin; I was used to being with him. But I just didn’t know if Date Colin was going to be different from Regular Colin. I’d known him for a large portion of my life, but this was uncharted territory.

The wine worked, though, and I was relaxed for the most part when I heard his knock and opened the door.

“Hi,” I breathed, incapable of more than a single syllable because Colin looked so good. Like, not just his usual handsomeness, but he looked cool. He had on slim black pants and a bomber jacket, the opposite of his usual work attire.

And he was wearing his glasses.

I sort of wanted to call off the date and just stay home. In my bedroom.

“Wow,” Colin said, looking me up and down and making my skin feel hot. “You look really nice, Livvie.”

I’d borrowed an off-the-shoulder red cashmere sweater from Dana, along with a black skirt and a pair of suede ankle boots that were to die for. Her clothes made me feel put-together and beautiful and I never wanted to give them back.

“So do you.” I looked at his belt buckle and said, “Your abs don’t look too terrible in that shirt.”

“But still disgusting, right?”

I grabbed my purse and coat from the counter. “I think I’ve made my stance clear.”

“You gave me a stomach hickey.”

“I said what I said.”

We were both smiling as we exited the apartment. I asked him, “Does Jack know we’re going out tonight?”

“No, but he was gone when I got home. I’ll tell him.” He pressed the button when we got to the elevator bank and then grabbed my hand. He laced his warm fingers through mine, spreading that warmth throughout my entire body.

I giggled.

“Something funny?” He looked down at me, his lips in a tiny smile, and I giggled again.

“Don’t you find this bizarre? Like, Jack’s friend who told me when I was in seventh grade that my crimped hair looked like burnt French fries is holding my hand.”

He gave a deep chuckle and dropped my hand. “Wait, that’s you? I’m taking out the girl who ran over her own foot with a car?”

The doors opened and we got in the elevator. “Technically it wasn’t my fault. The Dodge Colt always slipped out of gear.”

“Sure it did.”

“It did.” I put my hands in the pockets of my jacket.

Colin turned and stepped closer to me, moving us and pressing my body against the elevator wall with his as he caged me in with his arms. “Y’know, we could have a lot of fun in here, Marshall.”

“That’s pretty inappropriate for a first date,” I said, betraying my words with my hoarse voice as he lowered his mouth and pressed a featherlight kiss on my neck.

We small-talked all the way to the restaurant, and it wasn’t until we parked that I even remembered we were on a date. Colin came around to my side of the car just as I was getting out, and as soon as I stood, he slammed the door and reached for my hand.

He threaded his fingers between mine again, and butterflies went wild in my stomach as we walked toward the door, hand in hand like a regular couple. The cool night breeze made my hair tickle my cheeks, and I glanced at him and said, “This place looks pretty swanky. Have you ever eaten here?”

Colin

Had I ever eaten there?

Um, since my parents’ house was three blocks away, I’d eaten there a hundred times. My grandparents had rented the entire restaurant for their anniversary party, and the firm had their Christmas party there every year.

The chef was my uncle Simon’s golf partner.

But Liv already thought of me as pretentious, so I wasn’t thrilled for her to find out that the overpriced steakhouse was where we’d had my high school graduation lunch.

I was figuring out how to answer, when loud barking interrupted us. We both turned around, and a huge furry dog was running across the parking lot toward us at full speed, his owner yelling after him over and over. The dog’s tongue was lolling out of his mouth and he was clearly playing, but this mutt made a German shepherd look dainty.

Before I could move her out of the way, Liv let go of my hand and dropped to a squat, laughing and coaxing him with her arms as the monstrously large dog ran toward her.

“Liv—”

She screamed when he knocked her over, dissolving into cackles as he licked her and jumped all over her with his enormous paws. The dog’s wagging tail kept smacking her as he attacked, making her laugh even harder.

“Finneas!” The owner finally caught up and reached for the dog’s collar, yanking him off Olivia and leaning down to grab the leash. “Oh, my God, I am so sorry.”

Finneas whimpered, sad to be pulled away from his new friend, but sat obediently when his owner told him to.

I helped Olivia to her feet. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Her eyes were still squinting with laughter, and she dusted off the front of her skirt, looking down at the dog instead of at either of us. “He’s just the cutest thing.”

The dog owner and I shared a look, both of us wondering how she was so unfazed, before looking at Olivia, who was still cooing at the dog. She only had heart eyes for that dog.

Even in the waning evening light I could see muddy paw prints on her outfit and a hole in the right leg of her tights. She had to have seen them when she’d dusted herself off, but she apparently didn’t care.

Seeing a cute dog was worth it to her?

I tilted my head and watched her as she baby talked to the dog. She was so alive, bursting with happy energy, that it was impossible not to smile. I felt like this moment with the dog explained a lot about her “bad luck.”

She’d always put herself in ridiculous situations, but was it stupidity or more of a sucking-the-marrow-out-of-life kind of thing? When I’d gotten dumped in college, I’d swallowed the pain and moved on, suffering in stoic silence. But when Livvie got dumped, she had a ceremonial letter burning. It hadn’t ended well, with the fire and subsequent homelessness, but I imagine it must’ve felt cathartic as hell to revel in that moment of pain.

Finneas and his owner left, and Livvie’s smile wavered a little bit as she looked at me. “If you want to skip dinner, y’know, since I’m a mess now, I totally get it. We can drive through somewhere and just head home.”

I shook my head and reached for her hand again. I was suddenly in this weird place where I always wanted a hand on her. I said, “You’re stunning, Marshall. Let’s go.”

She blinked, surprised by my comment, and then she smiled. “God, my impeccable bedding skills have really done a number on you.”

•   •   •

THAT WAS IT.

Holy shit.

The puzzle that was Olivia Marshall had suddenly shown itself to me.

Livvie spilled her red wine all over the table a mere five minutes after we’d been seated, but it was because she was gesturing wildly as she tried explaining to me exactly how her dad had given CPR to a cat who’d been struck by lightning.

It wasn’t that she’d been clumsily oblivious to the glass, it was that she was so present in her own story that she hadn’t had time to notice the expensive crystal stemware that might be in the way.

She was less shitshow and more about living in high-definition, wide-awake, full-on color. Or something more poetic than that. But once I’d seen it, I couldn’t unsee it. It was in everything she did, and it was why everyone was drawn to her the way they were.

For example, after Liv spilled her wine, she didn’t wave over a waiter. No, Olivia pulled a pack of Kleenex out of her purse and tried cleaning the mess herself. When I’d shaken my head at her fruitless attempts, laughing in spite of myself at her ridiculousness, she’d erupted into giggles at her situation.

When the waiter saw what she was doing, he was clearly touched. Because among the crowd of affluent, entitled customers all demanding excellence, here was a laughing minx who apologized to him profusely while cleaning her own mess.

After that debacle we played a game where I told her the ridiculous memories I had of her from our childhood, and she corrected me on how wrong I was and how things actually had been. She snorted at one point, smacking my pointing finger as I accused her of being the one who stole my purple Cubs baseball hat when I was in the third grade, and I was charmed to a pathetic degree.

We were both laughing when my grandparents appeared next to the table.

“Colin!” My grandmother smiled down at me for half of a second before looking over at Liv. Dammit. I swallowed a curse and stood to hug her, not happy with the timing of this little reunion.

“Grandmother.” I immediately stood up. I kissed her cheek and said, “Nice to see you.”

My grandparents were nice people, but very traditional. Serious. If a dog had barked in the direction of my grandmother, my grandfather probably would’ve driven over it with his Mercedes and complained to the maître d’ to clean up the menace in the parking lot.

“This is my friend Olivia Marshall.” I looked down at her smiling face and said, “Olivia, these are my grandparents.”

“Nice to meet you both.” She stood, and I saw my grandmother’s eyes roam over Livvie’s dirty sweater and the hole in her tights. She shook both of their hands and said to my granddad around a smile, “I see where Colin gets his great hair.”

My grandfather laughed and teased her about how the women in our family were responsible for turning it silver, and though my grandmother smiled, I could tell Olivia’s disheveled state had captured her full attention.

“We’ll let you get back to your dinner, dear.” She patted my hand and said, “Come by the house this week.”

“I will.”

As soon as they walked away, Olivia said out of the side of her mouth, “Your grandma definitely noticed the paw prints on my sweater.”

I shrugged and picked up the lowball glass of whiskey that reminded me I still owed Nick a bottle of scotch. “Who cares?”

Her eyebrows crinkled together. “You’re very mellow tonight, Beck.”

“Maybe it’s all the sex I’ve been getting lately. Makes me super chill.”

She rolled her eyes while laughing and pushed back her chair. “I’ll be right back, weirdo.”

After she disappeared our food came, and just as the waiter was filling her wineglass, my phone lit up.

It was Olivia.

Texting Wrong Number.

From the ladies’ room.

Olivia: I need to talk to you. Can I call you later?

I double-checked that my phone was on silent and put it in my pocket. What in the hell? She was out with me but thinking about Nick? Texting Nick from the bathroom?

I knew Mr. Wrong Number wasn’t an actual person and that Nick wasn’t attached to the number, but my gut burned at the thought of her wanting to talk to him.

Olivia

I rubbed my lips together and put the gloss back in my purse. I felt better now that I’d put Mr. Wrong Number on notice, and now I could go enjoy the rest of the night without feeling so guilty.

Because from the second Colin had grabbed my hand by the elevators at our building, I’d felt like a snake. Nothing was going on with Mr. Wrong Number, but it felt wrong to have a secret textual relationship that he didn’t know about.

The truth of the matter was that even though Colin might just be a “fun fling,” if he were doing the same thing—if he had his own Misdial who he talked to on the regular—well . . . that would not be okay with me.

Even though technically we’d never talked about exclusivity.

I was sad to lose Mr. Wrong Number because he’d really meant a lot to me since I’d come back to Omaha, but the combination of the no chemistry with Nick and the out-of-this-world chemistry with Colin left me without any doubt that it was the right thing to do.

Before leaving the bathroom, I scrubbed the paw prints off my skirt and sweater and removed my tights, tossing them into the garbage can.

Done and done.

When I got back to the table, Colin’s eyes dipped down to my legs and he smiled. There was something about the way he noticed little things—my missing tights, how early I liked to eat dinner—that made me feel like I mattered to him.

Even if only temporarily.

Colin seemed a little quieter when I came back. He was still charming and entertaining, but I felt like something was a little off.

Maybe he didn’t get along with his grandparents and seeing them had upset him.

Maybe he was embarrassed that they’d seen him with a girl who looked like she’d been dumpster diving. I wanted to break this weird feeling, so when we got in the car, I turned toward him in my seat.

“Okay. Question. Did you ever think about me before I moved in with you guys?”

He gave me a weird look out of the corner of his eye. “What?”

I giggled and looked out the window. “Let me give you an example. Even though I hated you because you were a jerk, there was a time your senior year when you crashed at our house. I had to go into Jack’s room at like five in the morning, looking for my charger, and there you were.”

He glanced over at me and just shook his head slowly.

“You were sound asleep on the air mattress, wearing just your boxers, and, well, this klutzy nerd about had a heart attack.”

He slid into one of his deep chuckles that warmed me from the inside. He squinted his eyes at me and said, “You little pervert!”

“Guilty. I can still remember exactly what those plaid boxers looked like.” I grinned. “Now you go.”

“Not a chance.” He hit the blinker and slowed as he merged onto the east ramp. “I plead the Fifth.”

“Oh, come on—give me something. There wasn’t one tiny moment of attraction in all of our years?”

“Not doing this,” he laughed.

“Well.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Now I wish I hadn’t been quite so forthcoming with mine.”

He tilted his head and laid on the gas, making me smile as that slinky little car moved forward like it’d been shot out of a cannon. He said, “Okay, well, remember when you got kicked out of the dorms?”

“I still have nightmares about those fire sprinklers.” I turned in my seat and said, “Wait—did you think I was hot when you came over for dinner?”

“Settle your ass down.” He grinned at me and then looked back at the road. “When I came over to your house for dinner, there were two things about you that I’ve always remembered. One, college turned you into the most incredible smart-ass. You finally had a comeback for all the shit I threw your way.”

“Ooh, sexy.”

He chuckled, knowing I was disappointed. “The second thing was that you rolled your eyes after literally everything I said.”

“You seriously don’t have any little confessions about finding me hot?”

He laughed again and I could tell I’d cheered him up—he thought this was hilarious. But I couldn’t believe he’d never once looked at me sideways. He explained, “I thought your eyes were very green when you rolled them. And you had the longest eyelashes.”

“Stop. I don’t need your compliment charity.”

He gave me a whole minute of silence before saying, “So you’ve spent all these years picturing me asleep in my underwear.”

“You wish,” I said, mortified.

“You literally said those words, Livvie.”

“Says you.”

“What is happening here?” He laughed out the words, and I was a little shocked to realize that going on a date with Colin was really fun. We morphed into our usual banter until we exited the interstate, and then he got quiet. When he finally pulled in the underground garage and drove into his spot, he said, “Listen. About this thing we’re doing.”

“I’m not moving in with you, Colin,” I teased. “We’ve already done that, and I need my space.”

He ignored my joke completely and said, “Regardless of how casual it is, we’re seeing each other exclusively, yes?”

“Um . . . are you asking or telling?” I honestly didn’t know what his answer would be, but he seemed intense about it and that made me feel . . . I don’t know . . . some kind of way.

“You went on a date the other night.” He put the Audi in first gear before letting out the clutch and pulling up the emergency brake.

“Well, that wasn’t a date date,” I fumbled, feeling guilty about Mr. Wrong Number. “And we weren’t—”

“I know.” He looked over at me, and I saw his jaws clench slightly. “But I didn’t like it.”

My heart kicked up as his eyes pulled me in. He’d been jealous? Over me? I tucked my hair behind my ears and said, “I’d never even met—”

“I didn’t like it.” The smell of his cologne found its way to my nose and filled me with hot memories of his skin as he looked into my eyes.

“Well.” I cleared my throat, shaken by whatever the hell was happening, and said, “Let’s agree to be exclusive until we’re done with this, then.”

His lips curved into a smile, but it didn’t hit his eyes. “You always have to add the ‘until it’s over,’ don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Fine.” He turned off the car and opened his door. “Little shit.”

That made me laugh again, and as we stepped into the elevator, I grabbed his hand and slid my fingers between his. That made him look down at me in surprise, and his face was so sweet I kind of thought I was going to melt.

The second the elevator doors closed, Colin’s mouth was on mine and he slammed my body against the wall with his. Not hard enough to hurt me, but deliberate enough to make me instantly weak in the knees. His big hands held my face, his fingers partially in my hair as his mouth did its thing.

Sweet holy heaven, I was defenseless.

His hard body pressed against me and I dug my hands into his hair, needing as I breathed him, tasted him, felt him in every nerve ending in my body.

“Mm . . . button.” I pulled my mouth free but that just made him bite my neck, which made me moan, “God, isn’t there an elevator stop button, Col?”

He lifted his head long enough to say, “You want to stop the elevator?”

I looked into his eyes, and he looked disoriented and disheveled and absolutely delicious.

I just nodded.

Which made his nostrils flare and his eyes ignite.

And then the damned elevator dinged.

I jumped out of his arms and ran a hand over my hair as the doors opened and yes, we were still just in the garage. A man in hospital scrubs smiled at us as he got in and pushed the button to my floor.

Awesome. Apparently we were neighbors.

I looked down at the floor as the elevator went up. If I looked at Colin I’d either laugh, shrivel up in embarrassment, or just jump on him, witness be damned. Not that I particularly cared what my doctor neighbor thought of me, but my terrible clearly-about-to-have-sex-in-the-elevator neighborly first impression was a symptom of a bigger problem.

I couldn’t say no to Colin anymore.

No matter what I said about us, all he had to do was touch me or kiss me or flirt in that deep, sexy tone, and I would follow him into a fathomless ocean and I literally couldn’t swim. (Ask my mother—she was still pissed that she’d paid for five years of childhood swimming lessons where I’d refused to go in the deep end. That was her legendary beef with me.)

But it wasn’t just that Colin had the upper hand in this whole fling, it was that I had no hand.

Not even a strong pinkie finger.

I glanced up and he was leaning against the wall, just staring at me with a look so scaldingly hot that my muscles all turned to jelly. I swallowed before returning my gaze back to the floor.

This just wouldn’t do.

I looked at the illuminated elevator numbers out of the corner of my eye—two more floors.

And as we rode up those last two floors, I came up with a plan of protection.

See, the problem, in my opinion, was that all of it was too much at once.

If it were just sex, I could handle it because it was purely physical.

If it were just a date, I could handle it because it was purely fun.

If I kept them separate, I thought I could somehow manage to keep feelings from growing too big and overtaking everything else. I was already in way deeper than I should be, but with a little tweaking, maybe I would be okay.

Colin

We stepped out of the elevator behind the guy, and I wondered if he’d been able to feel how badly I wanted to wring his fucking neck. Technically he’d done nothing wrong, but Liv had just told me to stop the elevator.

She’d wanted to have sex with me in the elevator, and I’d damn near dropped to my knees when the power of her nod landed a killer punch to my midsection.

“I had a great time tonight,” Olivia said, smiling over at me as we walked down the hall toward her apartment.

“Same,” I growled, barely able to talk from how badly I wanted her.

When we got to her door, she took her keys out of her purse and turned toward me, so her back was resting against the door. “Thanks for the incredible dinner. Text me later, okay?”

I was confused for a second, but then I saw the telltale blink.

The biting on the corner of her lip.

She was nervous.

But the hell of it was, I didn’t know what she was nervous about. Was she nervous I’d be mad she wasn’t inviting me in? I wasn’t mad, but disappointed didn’t even come close to describing how I felt.

Or was she still nervous about our relationship? Was her skittishness the driving factor here? I swallowed and looked at the freckles on her nose, wanting to figure out exactly how she ticked.

“Yeah, I’ll text you.” I moved a little closer to her then, but only kissed the top of her head. “Thanks for dinner, Marshall.”

•   •   •

WHEN I GOT to my condo, I threw my keys down on the counter and pulled my phone out of my pocket. What a night. Who would’ve thought Olivia Marshall would be capable of turning me inside out? As soon as I thought that, a message lit up my phone.

Olivia: Stellar date, Beck. Really choice. (wink emoji)

I laughed and didn’t even know how to respond. Agreed. The choicest.

“Dude, did you see the end of that game?” Jack, who I hadn’t even seen all sprawled out on the couch, got up and grabbed his beer. “Crazy.”

I couldn’t even remember what game had been on that night. Once I’d picked up Liv, nothing else but her was on my radar. “I missed it. What happened?”

“Won with a walk off in the twelfth.” He dumped his can into the recycling bin and went over to the fridge. “What’d you do tonight?”

I immediately felt like trash as I pictured Olivia in the elevator. “Not much. Just grabbed a bite.”

“For fuck’s sake, Beck.” Jack rolled his eyes at me over the refrigerator door and said, “You can tell me if you were with her.”

“Yeah.” I sighed and dropped down onto one of the stools. “I was with her.”

“No shit,” he muttered. “You’re dressed like a douchebag on the prowl. If you weren’t with her, I would have questions.”

“It’s called style. You should try it.”

“I do just fine without your bullshit tailoring.”

“Listen.” I dragged a hand through my hair and hated feeling like such a lowlife. “You do know that in my whole life, until she came back and moved into the building, I never, ever thought about making a move on your sister, right?”

He closed the door and brought two beers over, hopping up on the counter and handing one to me. “I know.”

“I still don’t know how this happened.” I took the bottle and couldn’t even remember bratty Olivia anymore. The only Olivia I could picture now was the one who’d rolled around in the parking lot with a dog the size of a wolf, with a laugh that ran down my spine like a fingernail. “Swear to God. But I am so fucking sorry.”

“Col.” Jack popped the bottle top on the wall and said, “Livvie is a huge pain in the ass, but she’s an adult. She can do whatever she wants.”

I was still shocked that he was being understanding about the whole thing. We sat there for a few minutes, just drinking our beer, and then I thought, What the hell. I tried to sound casual. “So, what was that Eli guy like?”

Jack started laughing. “Oh, my God, you are so adorable I want to pinch your fucking cheeks. Look at you, all insecure about the ex.”

“I’m not insecure about the ex, you shit. I’m just curious.”

“Sure. Okay.” He did his stupid little half smile, clearly not believing me. “No one really knows what happened with that dude. She met him right after she moved to Chicago and fell madly in love, full-bore Olivia-style. Moved in with him like three months after they started dating.”

I hated Eli.

“He was nice enough, I guess. They seemed good together the few times I visited, but then again I pretty much just talked to the guy about beer.”

“Of course you did.”

He gave a little laugh and took a drink. Then he said, “Livvie thought they were going to get married. I talked to her a few months before she moved back, and she was all excited because he was working on some secret project with one of her colleagues. She thought it was a whole big proposal deal, that maybe they were planning for some epic romantic thing to happen at her office.”

Shit. She told Mr. Wrong Number that she’d been cool about her boyfriend working on something with her coworker, and then he’d cheated with her.

Ouch.

“The next time I talked to her was when she called and said her building was burning down and she needed a place to stay. So . . . your guess is as good as mine.”

Poor Liv. I mean, obviously I was glad she hadn’t ended up with that prick, but that had to have hurt, thinking you were getting a proposal when you were actually getting cheated on.

“What was he like?”

“Fucking sweet as hell you are.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so insecure in my entire life. Just be yourself, sunshine, and she will love you as much as I do.”

I started laughing. “You’re such a dick.”

He grinned before saying, “You got no worries. He had a beard, bad hair, and shitty taste in music.”

Why did that make me feel better—what was I, a fourteen-year-old boy? “What’d he listen to?”

“He had a Felston playlist on Spotify.”

“Felston?” I made a face—we hated that shit. “What a pussy.”