“I’m sure he does.”
“So what’s your problem, then?”
“I’m trying to have a rational conversation here.”
“Yeah, and I haven’t seen you in ten years, and you just waltz into my bar and start insulting me and bossing me around. I do know about your uncle and how sick he is, because guess what? I visit him. I like him. I bring him magazines and cookies, and he likes my dog.”
“You have a dog?”
“Yes, I do, so just...you just, um, put that in your pipe and suck on it.” Smooth, O’Rourke. She tried to look haughty and dignified. “Maybe I happen to think that Bryce needs someone to help him through this difficult time.”
“Maybe he has other things to deal with.”
“And maybe I’m right and you’re wrong.”
He tilted his head to one side. “I’m getting the sense that you’re still mad.”
“I’m not.”
“Leave my cousin alone, all right?”
“Make me.”
He rolled his beautiful (damn them) eyes and walked over to Bryce, hugging him.
Humph. He hadn’t hugged her.
“Let’s stop being stupid, shall we?” she muttered to herself.
Lucas said something, then smiled. Shit, that was a good smile. Hardly ever saw it, that was the trick. She, on the other hand, smiled like a pubescent monkey or jackal or hyena or some other animal that smiled a lot. “What do you think?” she asked Victor Iskin, a regular at the bar who had a well-documented love of animals. “Do hyenas smile more than monkeys?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“Do I look like a hyena right now?”
“Can’t say that you do, dear.”
“Colleen! Leave the customers alone!” Connor called from the kitchen.
Lucas and Bryce were leaving, thank the sweet Christ child.
Her hands were shaking. She heard an odd sound; it was her, sucking air.
“Who was that?”
Colleen gave herself a mental shake. “Hey. Paulie. How’d it go?”
“I knocked him down, stepped on his hand, spilled a drink on his head, yanked his arm, hurled him into the bar and then hid.”
“That’s good,” Colleen murmured.
Paulie frowned, then looked at Colleen more closely. “Who was that? The guy you were talking to. He looked familiar.”
“That’s...that’s Bryce’s cousin.”
“Oh, man, I remember him! Lucas, right?” Paulie ran a hand through her hair. “You were together, weren’t you?”
“Yeah.” She closed her eyes.
“Well, shit. Are you still in love with him?”
“No!”
“Are your special places tingling?”
“Excuse me? No. No, that’s...of course not. I mean...he broke my heart. First love and all that crap. A long time ago.”
“Yeah, well, I’d give anything to have Bryce look at me the way Lucas was looking at you.”
“We were fighting.”
“I’d give anything to have Bryce fight with me that way.” Paulie raised her eyebrows.
A change of subject was definitely needed. “Okay, so tonight’s Bryce encounter didn’t go as planned,” she said. “The good news is, you got his attention, right? That’s the first step.”
“The first step in his filing a restraining order against me, maybe.”
“Oh, come on. Bryce probably doesn’t know what a restraining order is.”
“He’s not dumb, Colleen.”
Colleen winced. “No, you’re right. Sorry. Anyway, you were memorable, so it’s not all bad.”
As she and Paulie talked, there was another voice in her head. Common sense, call it. Don’t fall for those eyes again. Don’t notice his hands, or his mouth. Those are just tricks. We’re not doing this again.
Already, it felt like she was in a whole lotta trouble.
THE FIRST TIME she ever saw Lucas Damien Campbell, Colleen fell in love.
Not that she was a believer in that kind of thing.
Even at the tender age of eleven, when her mother had sobbed through yet another sappy romantic comedy, Colleen pointed out the fact that the characters had known each other for only six days, so it was a little hard to buy into the whole everlasting soul mate philosophy. In seventh grade, Tim Jansen sent her a letter full of hyperbolic compliments (“your eyes are shinier than a mirror,” which Colleen thought was creepy and hoped wasn’t true) and anguished love (“I feel like my heart will explode when you smile at me”). She patted his hand and said he probably should take up a sport to channel some of that energy.
High school was no different, though the boys abruptly grew taller...despite the abundance of hormones, despite her abiding love for Robert Downey, Jr., Colleen remained above the fray. No, she’d rather hang out with her brother, laugh at his friends, and watch Faith and Jeremy, the perfect couple, with fondness and a satisfying bit of melancholy. By the time she was a senior, virtually every boy in Manningsport had asked her out and received a kindly “no.” Love—especially the sloppy, frenching-in-the-halls type—was not meant for Colleen Margaret Mary O’Rourke.
“What do you mean, you’re not going to prom?” her mother asked one night around the family dinner table. Con was going with Sherry Wong, a mathlete like himself. “Hasn’t anyone asked you?”
“Nine guys have asked her, Ma,” Connor offered, taking another shovelful of mashed potatoes.
“It’s not for me,” Colleen said easily. “Drama, rayon dresses, crepe paper, the inevitable tears. I’ll pass.”
“That’s my girl,” Dad said with an approving nod. Connor sighed, and Colleen could feel his mood drop several degrees. It was no secret that Colleen was their father’s favorite.
People like them, Dad said once in a while, were too smart for that. Just what that was, Colleen wasn’t sure, but she was flattered to be included. Her father’s approval was everything. Connor was smart, too—smarter,
