had that slightly stringy look that middle-aged ladies got when they drank more than they ate, but her blue eyes were sharp and canny. “This is my mom,” Meg announced. “Mom, this is my boyfriend, Colby.”
Colby blinked. It was strange to hear himself introduced that way; he had to admit he’d thought there was a chance she’d try to fudge it, which made him feel kind of like a turd. “Nice to meet you,” he managed to say.
“Nice to meet you, Colby.” Meg’s mom offered a manicured hand for him to shake. She didn’t look like an unpredictable alcoholic, with her can of Caffeine-Free Diet Coke and an off-white short-sleeved sweater he thought was probably made of something expensive. Then again, he guessed his dad hadn’t looked like . . . someone who would do what he did, and everyone knew how that had turned out.
They made small talk for a while, about his drive and the summer weather and the fact that she’d once dated a guy who’d gone to law school at Ohio State. “Where are you headed in the fall, Colby?” she asked.
Meg winced. “Mom,” she said, before he could answer, “Colby works, remember?”
“Oh,” her mom said vaguely, “that’s right.” She hesitated, a pause that lasted a second too long. “What time is your father’s thing?” she asked, glancing at the clock above the window—which, Colby couldn’t help notice, didn’t actually seem to be running. “Can’t be late for a rehearsal dinner.”
“It’s soon,” Meg said, ignoring her mom’s acrid tone. “We should go get ready.”
Colby smiled politely and held a hand up before following Meg back the way they’d come and up the creaking stairs to the second floor. “Sorry,” she muttered as they rounded the corner. “I told her you weren’t in school, but I guess she was a little bit more in the bag than I thought.”
“It’s cool,” Colby said, though in truth he was already dreading having that identical exchange with her dad, and her friends, and probably her freaking mailman. This is Colby! He hauls appliances off trucks for a living but still manages to bathe himself and use tools, like a gorilla who knows sign language! “No worries.”
Meg nodded. “Watch the runner,” she said absently, pointing to the place at the top of the stairs where the fraying carpet was peeling up. “I don’t want you to break your neck if you get up to pee in the night.”
She brought him into a guest room at the end of the long hallway, which held a double bed and an antique dresser along with about a million unopened boxes from Amazon and an expensive-looking exercise bike with dry-cleaning bags draped over the handlebars. “Sorry there’s so much crap in here,” Meg said as Colby looked around for a clear surface to set his bag on; finding none, he dropped it at the foot of the bed with a quiet thump.
“Don’t worry about it,” Colby said, wanting to reassure her and not sure exactly how to do it. “I’m getting the full experience, that’s all.”
“That . . . does not sound great,” Meg said with a grimace. For a moment, she looked like she was going to add something else, then decided against it. “Okay.” She tucked her hands back into her pockets. “Um, I’ll let you get settled, I guess.”
“Okay.” Colby nodded, watching as she turned to leave. “Meg,” he blurted, grabbing her wrist and tugging her hand out of her pocket, pulling her back and pressing his mouth against hers. It wasn’t particularly artful, which didn’t keep all the blood in Colby’s body from immediately rushing straight to his dick. “There,” he said finally, pulling back and gazing at her, her eyes gone a full shade darker than he thought of them as being. “Now I’m settled.”
Meg laughed, loud and ringing. “Welcome to Philly,” she said, and kissed him again.
Twenty-Seven
Meg
Her dad and Lisa’s rehearsal dinner was that night, at an Italian place downtown with a view of the river and a gluten-free pasta option for Lisa’s kids. Her dad had been a little weird when she’d said she wanted to bring someone—after all, Emily and Mason were already coming to the actual wedding—but to her surprise, Lisa had jumped in. “Of course you can invite a friend, Meg,” she’d said, tucking her hand into Meg’s dad’s and squeezing pointedly. “The more the merrier.”
Now here Colby was, slipping into her real life with surprisingly little fanfare, pulling her chair out when they’d gotten