SEVENTEEN
“DRINKS ARE ON the house!”
A cheer went up from the gang, not just because Colleen O’Rourke—the bartender and half owner of the best (and only) bar in town—had just offered free booze, but because Brandy Morrison and Ted Standish had just gotten engaged.
Colleen hugged the happy couple once more, then went behind the bar and accepted high fives from her regulars as she pulled beers and mixed martinis, poured wine and slid glasses down the bar. After all, Brandy and Ted were her doing. That made...hmm...fourteen couples she’d set on the road to matrimony? No, fifteen! Not bad. Not bad at all.
“Good job, Coll,” said Gerard Chartier, accepting his free Cooper’s Cave IPA. He sat at the end of the bar, where the fire department was having a “meeting,” the agenda of which seemed to be O’Rourke’s list of microbrews. She wasn’t complaining. They were good for business.
“Your sorry single state hasn’t gone unnoticed,” she said, rubbing his bald head. “Not to worry. You’re next.”
“I’d rather stay single.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Trust Auntie Colleen, ever wise and all-knowing.”
“Colleen!” her brother, Connor, yelled from the kitchen. “Stop harassing the customers!”
“I’m part of our charm!” she yelled back. “Gang, are you feeling harassed?”
A satisfying chorus of no answered her. She breezed into the kitchen. “Hi, Rafe,” she greeted the backup chef, who was making one of his famous cheesecakes. “Save some of that for me, okay?”
“Of course, my truest love,” he said, not looking at her. He was gay. All the good ones were.
“Brother mine,” Colleen said to her twin, “what bug is up your ass?”
“You just gave away three hundred dollars’ worth of booze, that’s what,” he said.
“Brandy and Ted got engaged. Beautiful ring, too.”
“Your work, Collie?” Rafe asked.
“As a matter of fact, yes. They’d been eyeing each other for weeks. I gave a gentle shove, and voilà. I expect I’ll be a bridesmaid. Again.”
Rafe smiled. “And when will you work your superpowers on your own self, lovey?”
“Oh, never. I’m too smart for all that. I like to use men for purely physical—”
“Stop! No one wants to hear about your sex life,” Connor said.
“I do,” said Rafe.
She grinned. Tormenting her brother, though they were both thirty-one, was still one of the great joys in life.
“It seems like such a waste. All that, unclaimed.” Rafe gestured to her torso and face.
“She got burned when she was young,” Connor told Rafe.
“Oh, please. That’s not why I’m single. Besides, you’re single, too. It’s all part of our dysfunctional childhood, Rafe.”
“Don’t even try,” he said, adding the sour cream layer to the cake. “I was a gay boy born to Jehovah’s Witnesses and grew up in East Texas with five older brothers who all played football. It was Friday Night Lights meets The Birdcage meets Swamp People. No one can compete with me in the land of dysfunctional families.”
“You totally win,” Colleen said. “Con and I only had a cheating father and—
“Isn’t tonight your night off?” Connor interrupted.
“Yep. But I came in because I sensed, using our magical twinsy bond, that you missed me.”
“You sensed wrong,” he muttered. “Get out of my kitchen. Your posse just came through the door.”
“He has batlike hearing,” Rafe said.
“I know. It’s creepy. Bye, boys! Don’t forget my piece of heaven, Rafe. Connor, come say hi. Everyone loves you, for some reason.”
She went back out into the bar and sure enough, there were the girls: Faith Holland, her oldest pal in the world (and a newlywed, and while Colleen couldn’t claim that one as her idea,
