Mr. Wrong Number

I was pathetic.

Jack was staying over at Vanessa’s, so not only was I making dinner for Olivia, but I was really looking forward to having her stay the night. I’d casually brought it up, expecting her to balk since she seemed to like our strict no-sleepover arrangement, but she’d shocked me by saying that she wanted to.

For some reason, inviting her to my condo as . . . whatever the hell she was now, felt like a big deal. I’d lived with her for a month, but we’d never shared the space as anything more than friends who didn’t really like each other.

Things had changed. A lot.

My phone vibrated, which meant that she was probably home. She’d been offered the job after her interview—no surprise there because it was a brilliant idea and she was a great writer—but she’d texted that she was sticking around for a while to meet the staff and tour the building.

Olivia: Just got home and I’m starving. What time is dinner?

Me: DON’T EAT.

Olivia: Well if we aren’t eating for like an hour, I’m going to nibble or I’ll starve.

Me: No nibbling. Dinner will be ready in ten minutes.

Olivia: Oh, thank God. I’ll be right there.

I’d come to the realization on my run that morning, after being sexually harassed by Liv from her balcony as I’d stretched, that things were kind of serious. I mean, technically not, since she’d yet to call me her boyfriend and still hadn’t invited me to stay the night, but they were serious for me, and I suspected for her, too. She was the first thing I thought of when I woke up in the morning, the last thing before I fell asleep. I would blow off anything to be with her, because everything was brighter when Olivia was around.

She was funny, messy, clumsy, smart, and the sexiest human I’d ever met.

The toughest thing to swallow was that neither of us had changed. Liv was exactly the same as she’d always been, but I’d never looked hard enough to see all the amazingness around the mess. And I suspected it was the same for her, too, because God knows I was just as big of an ass as I’d ever been.

“Knock, knock.” She walked in and immediately kicked off the shiny black pumps that made her legs look ridiculous. “What are you feeding me?”

“Pepperoni casserole. Tell me about the job.”

“Um.” She opened the fridge and grabbed a Vanilla Bean Blonde before hopping up on the counter beside where I was slicing the garlic bread. I glanced at her and she grinned before popping the top on the wall bottle opener and taking a sip. “I’m terrified because it sounds unbelievably perfect.”

“Money’s good?” I didn’t want to minimize the importance of liking the job, but she was so passionate about the role she’d probably work for free.

“Not Colin Beck good, but yes.” Her smile was so big it was almost a laugh. “I’ll be making more than I was at the Times and the benefits are better.”

“Atta girl.” I set down the bread knife and wiped my hands on the towel I’d set on the counter. “When do you start?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I leaned my head down and kissed her happy mouth. “That’s soon.”

“They asked when I could start, and I was half-joking when I said tomorrow, and they were all ‘awesome,’ and I was all ‘awesome,’ and it was amazing.”

I laughed with her—it was contagious—and went over to take the casserole out of the oven. “If you want to sleep at your apartment tonight, I totally get it.”

“Oh, my God, Beck, if you think you’re getting out of letting me sleep in that bed of yours, you’ve got another thing coming.”

I pulled out the bubbling pasta pan and set it on the stove. “So it’s about my bed, then, not me?”

“I mean, you’re an orgasmic bonus, but yeah—I’ve missed that king-sized dreamboat.” She took another sip and added, “Besides, you get up at like five thirty so I’ll have plenty of time to scuttle home and get ready.”

“Isn’t scuttling what cockroaches do?”

“Among other vermin, yes.” She hopped off the counter, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Do you want me to, um, get out some dishes or pour some . . . cognac or something?”

“Cognac or something?”

She rolled her eyes and opened the cupboard where the dishes were. “I don’t know what people like you do when you have dinner dates. Multiple forks and brandy snifters? Cloth napkins and flaming appetizers?”

“Y’know, Marshall,” I said, never sure if she actually thought I was a pompous prick or if she was just messing with me, “just because I have a good job doesn’t mean I’m automatically a douche.”

Her face turned toward mine and she raised an eyebrow. “Then how do you explain your jack-off corkscrew?”

Now I rolled my eyes and muttered, “Touché.”

She set the dishes on the table and it reminded me of the night she’d made spaghetti and meatballs for Jack and me. She’d been nervous and irreverent, babbling as she served the food and owl-staring at me as I’d tried the first bite, and I’d been absolutely charmed by her.

Until she’d outed herself as Misdial before the night had ended.

God, that seemed like years ago.

We lost ourselves in the food and conversation after that. Liv launched into a story about how she’d broken her heel in a sidewalk crack on the way to her interview, and then she fetched the shoe from the entryway to show me how she’d repaired it by chewing six pieces of bubble gum. She asked about my day and made me describe every detail of my office so she could picture me in it whenever we texted.

I felt a little bit like Olivia; I was terrified because it seemed unbelievably perfect.

Olivia

“Marshall.” Colin’s voice was deep and sleepy. “Let’s go to bed.”

“Hmm?” I opened my eyes and there he was, looking down at me and smiling as I was all snuggled up against his chest on the couch. “I must’ve dozed off.”

“Think so?” he teased.

I sat up and stretched. “What time is it?”

He glanced at his watch. “Five after ten.”

“Ooh, so late.”

“You’ve got a big day tomorrow.” Colin shut off the TV. “You need a good night’s sleep.”

I climbed to my feet. “Can I borrow something to sleep in? I don’t feel like going back to my place right now.”

“Sure,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me with him toward the bedroom.

It was weird, going into Colin’s room with him. I’d been in there alone many times, but following his tall body through the doorway and inside his lair was a brand-new experience.

He hit the wall switch and the bedside lamps turned on, infusing the room with warm light. Man, I loved his room. It was sleek and modern, but still had that cozy feel to it that made you want to snuggle under his heavy comforter and watch movies all day.

“Do you want actual pajamas,” he asked, pulling open a drawer, “or would you rather have a T-shirt?”

“Seriously, look at your drawers.” I walked over to him and peered over his shoulder at the clothes neatly folded in his dresser. “That attention to detail is obscene.”

“I’ll show you obscene,” he murmured, holding up a T-shirt for me. “Does this work?”

I nodded and took it, weirdly nervous all of a sudden.

But before I could overthink it, his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, glanced at the display, and said as if he was asking permission to answer, “It’s my sister.”

“Take it.”

He lifted the phone to his ear. “Hey, Jill. What’s up?”

For some reason, I found his friendship with his sister adorable.

He said, “Oh, yeah. Let me get you his number.”

Colin went out into the kitchen, so I took the time to change into his shirt and steal a pair of thick socks from his top drawer. I wasn’t sure whether or not he slept on a certain side of the bed, but I pulled back the blankets and climbed in the left side of the bed.

“Just call him and tell him there’s a tire vibration, and he’ll take care of it.”

He walked back into the bedroom, and the expression on his face shifted when he saw me in his bed. “I can’t talk, Jill. Gotta go.”

He hung up and dropped his phone on the bench at the foot of his bed. “Am I a terrible person if I tell you I fantasized about this exact thing when you still lived here?”

That made me strangely happy. “You did not.”

“Swear to God.” He pulled the sweater over his head and tossed it toward the hamper, then reached for his belt, grinning at me as he unbuckled, unzipped, and let the pants drop to the floor, stepping out of them. “Once you told me you’d napped in my room, I couldn’t get rid of the idea of you in my bed. I imagined discovering you sound asleep in here . . .”

“And . . . ?” I rolled onto my side and propped my head on my hand.

“And I’d wake you up, but you’d be in the middle of a very naughty dream.”

“Of course I would.” I was obsessed with the thought of him fantasizing about me. “You little pervert. I bet in your fantasy I thought you were part of the dream, right? So I pulled you down on the bed . . . ?”

His teeth flashed. “Something like that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this the other night when I was begging?”

“You were asking about before you moved back.” Instead of crawling on top of me like I would’ve expected—and wanted—Colin tossed his pants on the chair, climbed under the covers next to me, and switched off the lamp.

It was so . . . habitual. Ritualistic. It felt like we were a couple climbing into bed, the same as we did every other night. He turned toward me and said, “Are you going to shut off that lamp or what, Marshall?”

“On it.” I turned off the lamp, plunging the room into total darkness.

“Much better,” he breathed, his body moving closer as he pulled the comforter up and over us. The weighted blanket cocooned us together, and I felt like the air was sucked out of my lungs because one minute I was fine, and the next his hands were cupping my cheeks and he was dropping the softest kisses over my face.

Featherlight, reverent, and sweet. I looked up at his face, the eyes I could still see in the darkness, and I felt the warmth. Not the heat of sexual need—that wasn’t new to either of us—but real warmth, almost as if he really cared about me.

I took a deep breath and waited for the panic to arrive, but I think my body—brain, heart, lungs, nervous system, all of it—knew that Colin was safe and was slowly lowering the protective wall I’d carefully erected. I relaxed into the soft bedding, every muscle in my body melting into his perfect linen sheets as he literally made me shiver.

His lips settled on mine, and I let my fingers slide over his muscular shoulders, but instead of the wildly intense kisses I was well versed in, the ones that made me moan into his mouth, he gave me slow, drawn out, and hot. Wide, openmouthed artistry that curled my toes and made me dizzy before he descended into nibbles and nips, licking at my lips before trailing down my neck and moving south.

I got lost in shaky sighs as he worshipped every bit of me with his mouth and hands. The darkness heightened my other senses and I felt everything more. His lips on my skin, his breath on my flesh, the warmth of his strong fingers as they made me pant for him. He worked his slow magic again and again, building over and over, until I thought his thorough madness was going to kill me.

“Colin.” I wasn’t one to beg, but I would if I had to. “Come on.”

“So impatient,” he growled, moving back up my body. And when he hovered over me, I felt light-headed just looking at him. Through the darkness I could see the heavy-lidded desire on his smirking face and it took my breath away.

Because beautiful Colin Beck, with the perfect everything, looked like he’d never wanted anything more than he wanted me at that moment. His hair was sticking up from my hands, his nostrils were flared, his eyes were on fire, and in that moment I knew I was wholly his.

His fingers threaded through mine and he pushed them down, so our adjoined hands were lying on the pillow, one on each side of my head. He lowered his mouth and kissed me, a long, deep kiss that spoke of things more potent than passion.

“Colin.” I exhaled his name and wanted to tell him, but then he slid inside me, clenching his fingers around mine as he moved and destroyed my ability to form coherent words. My fingers grasped his, squeezing, as he proceeded to completely obliterate any remaining doubts I had that I was madly in love with him.

•   •   •

FIVE A.M.

It was a ridiculous time of day to be awake. Colin wasn’t even stirring yet and he ran at five thirty every day like a psychopath, so it was absurd that I was up. But I was so stoked to start my first day at the magazine that I couldn’t sleep another second.

And I was glad to have a few minutes alone without him.

Every time I’d picked up my phone to text Mr. Wrong Number since our dinner at Fleming’s, I hadn’t really known what to say, and I’d blown it off. We hadn’t been dating or anything, so it seemed oddly egomaniacal to send a bizarre type of breakup text, especially when he’d sort of done that by ghosting me more times than I could count.

But I needed to do it.

I needed to be officially free and clear, because God help me, I was totally in love with Colin. I’d tried to guard my heart and keep it from happening, but it’d been no use. I’d lain in bed for hours last night, trying to explain away my emotions, before finally realizing it was all thoughts and words.

My heart was his.

And God, it seemed like he felt the same. I wasn’t going to say he was wildly in love with me, but there was obviously something between us that he liked because he kept coming back and making me happier with every passing day.

And last night had felt . . . downright magical.

I sat down on a stool and texted Mr. Wrong Number.

Me: I know it’s early, but since you mostly just ghost me I figure it doesn’t matter.

Send.

Me: It was great meeting you and you have no idea how much our texting meant to me in the beginning.

Send.

Wait, did that sound weird, saying in the beginning? I supposed it was too late to worry about it because I’d already sent it.

Me: But I’m seeing someone now and it feels wrong to keep texting you, like I’m having a secret relationship or something.

Send.

Colin’s phone lit up, catching my eye as it charged in the dark kitchen. It was probably a reminder to be perfect or an eat-more-protein notification. He used his phone to über-organize his life, whereas I used mine as just a texting machine.

Me: Good luck with everything, and thanks for being a friend when I didn’t really have any.

Send.

Colin’s phone lit up again.

Me: Thanks for everything.

Send.

Colin’s phone lit up again.

I got up and walked around to where his phone was plugged in. I was sure it was just a weird coincidence, but I texted: Um.

Send.

My ears started ringing, my stomach dropped, and everything got blurry for a second when the notification window popped up on his phone.

Miss Misdial: Um.

Colin

I opened my eyes and reached for her, but she wasn’t there.

Holy God, Olivia Marshall woke up before me? What time was it?

I sat up and could hear her scuttling around in the kitchen. It sounded like she was pacing, probably with her lip between her teeth as she imagined everything that could go wrong on her first day. I stood and got a pair of shorts and a T-shirt out of the dresser; she needed a distraction or a pep talk, maybe both.

Might have to blow off the run that morning.

I was pulling my shirt on when I walked into the kitchen and saw her face. She was leaning against the refrigerator, her cheeks red, her eyes glassy.

“What’s wrong, Livvie?” I took a step toward her—God, had something happened with the job already?—and she held out her hand to stop me.

And in her hand was my phone.

“Why do you have Misdial messages in here?” Her voice cracked and she blinked fast. “I keep trying to figure it out, but nothing makes sense. How in the hell would you get my messages?”

I felt my insides drop as her face begged me for a feasible explanation that I did not have.

I said, “Why do you have—”

“Don’t you dare pull the cheating boyfriend bullshit line and ask why I have your fucking phone, Colin. Have a shred of decency here.”

She was right, but I had no idea what to say. “I know this is going to sound crazy, Liv, but I am actually your wrong number.”

She just stared at me for a minute, unmoving, like she was trying to reconcile the facts. “I think you’re forgetting that I met my wrong number. So unless your name is Nick and you know how to break dance, you aren’t him. Try again.”

Shit. How the hell could I make her understand? I said, “I swear I’m telling the truth. Nick met you for coffee because I asked him to. Can we sit down and talk about th—”

“No!” She dropped my phone onto the counter and crossed her arms. “Just make me understand what this is all about.”

“Hell.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m your wrong number. It was a total weird coincidence for both of us; I was as shocked as you when I found out. I tried ghosting you and ending it but—”

“Oh, my God . . .” She stared at me. “When did you realize it was me?”

No way was I answering that. “I don’t know, Liv, a while back—”

“Tell me.” Her voice was deep and low, like it was holding back a wall of emotion as she said through gritted teeth, “Because we both know that you remember the exact second you found out.”

“Liv—”

“When, Colin?”

“The night you made us spaghetti and meatballs, okay?” I stepped closer, needing to make her understand. “I was—”

“Wait. That was months ago.” She stepped away from me, her eyes darting around as she attempted to catch up. “You knew that long ago? Holy shit. You didn’t ghost me, you liar. You texted me all the time.”

“No, I—”

“You texted me when I was on a date, you texted me when you were on a date, you texted—” She broke off with a gasp. “Oh, my God! Have you been reading every single message I’ve sent when I was talking to myself?”

I opened my mouth but she kept going, her eyes wild as everything came back to her. “And is that why we had such great sex from day one? Because I’d talked about it with Wrong Number so you just dialed it up because you already knew how to get me off?”

“Liv, no—”

“Our first time was on the kitchen counter!” She was exploding, but anger didn’t take any of the hurt out of her face and it was killing me. God, I just needed her to understand.

“That was just a coinci—”

“Oh, my God.” She smiled and let out a hollow laugh, but her eyes were filled with tears. “I bet you felt like the king when you read that you were the best sex of my life. Oh, my God, this must’ve been hilarious for you.”

“It wasn’t. Shit. This isn’t how it was.”

She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “So tell me how things went down with Nick. Did you tell him you were already screwing me so you couldn’t mess it up with honesty and needed a fill-in?”

As I watched her cry, I knew it was never going to be okay. “God, no. Liv—”

“No.” She walked over to the doorway and grabbed her purse and shoes. “Don’t call me that like we’re close. I’m not Liv to you anymore.”

I moved toward the door and put a hand on it. “You have to let me explain.”

“No explanations, remember?” She shook her head and swiped at my hand to remove it from the door. “We said when we got bored we could just walk away, right? Well, I’m bored.”

I swallowed down a knot of fear in my throat as I heard the finality in her words. I leaned down so our faces were at the same level; I needed her to see me. “We both know that’s not true.”

“Really?” Her eyes narrowed and she said, “All I know is that I had a relationship with some random number, and then he catfished me by pretending he was someone else while also using my messages to get in my pants. Get out of my way because I have to get ready for work.”

“Please. God.” I didn’t want to beg, but I felt desperate when I said, “Just let me explain.”

“I don’t even care, Colin. Goodbye.”

She slammed the door behind her when she left, and I felt like she took all the oxygen in the apartment with her.

Olivia

“Sometimes vendors come in on Fridays. Last week, they said it would be Chick-fil-A.”

“Yay, right?” I smiled at Bethanne, the other girl going through new-hire orientation with me, and tried not to let our lunch break get at my emotions. After sobbing through the shower that morning, I’d steeled myself. That asshole wasn’t going to ruin my first day, so I forced him out of my mind and focused on the new job.

Of course, it wasn’t helping that he’d been blowing up my phone all morning until I finally had to turn it off. His initial text had confused me at first because it came from Wrong Number, but then I remembered that was Colin’s actual number.

Prick.

“Yeah, I swear I could eat it for every meal.” She pushed her long blond hair back and said, “So do you have any kids? Husband? Boyfriend?”

Before I could even flounder for a response, she said, “I got engaged a week ago today.”

She shoved her huge square diamond at me. “Look at this thing.”

“Wow,” I said, forcing my lips up into a smile. “You marrying Jeff Bezos?”

She giggled. “He did good, right? But I don’t even care about the ring. I just want to spend every day forever with him.”

“Aww.” I swallowed—or tried to—but my throat felt like it had a rock lodged inside of it.

“It’s so cliché to say I’m marrying my best friend, but God, I just adore him.”

“Nice.”

“Like, I want to hang out with him twenty-four seven, all the time.”

“Enough, okay?”

“What?”

Shit, I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. The words had clawed their way out of me, and I hadn’t been able to stop them on time. I pulled on what felt like a smile and said, “Kidding.”

“Oh.”

I nodded and thought I was smiling.

She said, “Ohmigod, what’s wrong?”

I shook my head. I tried to tell her it was nothing, but it sounded like a moan or a cow braying.

“Oh, sweetie, what is it?”

I couldn’t see. Holy shit, tears had made the world—and the break room of Feminine Rage—float away from my line of sight.

“Will you excuse me?” I got up and tried to escape to the bathroom, but I tripped over a chair at the next table that I couldn’t see and tumbled to my knees as the chair crashed to the ground loudly beside me.

“Shit,” I muttered, scrambling to my feet as fast as I could before I died of mortification.

But I got up too fast and couldn’t see the tray-carrying man to my right through my blurred vision, so I sent his tray sailing into the air when I popped up and headbutted it with a loud bang, causing macaroni to rain down upon the man and me.

I gave up hope for salvaging my dignity and literally ran toward the restroom, though the pools of tears that’d taken up residence in my eye sockets were so unrelenting that I had no idea if I’d entered the men’s or the women’s room.

Not that I gave a shit at that moment.

Once I locked myself in the bathroom, I looked at my reflection in the mirror and wanted to punch Colin Beck in the face as hard as I could. My first day on the job and not only did I have macaroni in my hair, but I had the black sludge of both eyeliner and mascara running down my face.

And even after doing an incredibly thorough job with half a roll of toilet paper, I looked like a person who’d just escaped a traumatic accident. Especially since there was also a huge red knob on my forehead from that guy’s lunch tray. I desperately wanted to just wait it out in the bathroom until after the bell rang, but then I remembered that this wasn’t high school and I needed to get my hysterical ass out there if I were going to keep my dream job.

God, I really hated Colin.

•   •   •

BY THE TIME I got home from work, I had no more tears. I’d been in a lethargic funk all afternoon and I just wanted to collapse. But when I went up to my room, the sight of that bed made me want to vomit.

A smart person probably would’ve been content with the fact that they’d at least scored a kick-ass bed from that asshat.

I was not a smart person.

I wrestled that mattress off the bed, sweated and groaned as I navigated it down the stairs, almost passing out by the time I got in the elevator with it. Thankfully a nice guy was already in there and asked if I needed help, so he and I dragged it up to Colin’s door. He started to prop it against the wall across from Colin’s condo, but I shook my head and told him it needed to block the doorway.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“It has to.”

After he moved the mattress, I said, “Thank you so much for your help.”

He looked at me like he thought I was batshit crazy and said, “Forget about it.”

I repeated the same thing with the box spring but without a helper, and by the time I was finished, I was covered in sweat. I hoped Jack wasn’t the one who had to come home and deal with it, but the bed that prick had bought was no longer my business.

It wasn’t until midnight that I remembered I’d shut off my phone, and as soon as it powered up, I saw message after message from Colin come through. That made my body find another store of tears, dammit, and I was just done. Without reading any of his texts I sent: For the love of God, if you ever cared about me at all, please stop texting. I can’t do this.

He immediately responded. Just let me come down and talk to you.

I closed my eyes as the tears burned.

Me: I guess I’m blocking you, then. Bye.

I cried as I blocked him because it felt supremely final. It was closure, the circle of life as I shut down the original Wrong Number from ever texting me again.

But because I was a glutton for punishment, I spent the next few hours rereading our transcript from the beginning. Who needed sleep anyway? But Gawwwd, there were so many embarrassing things I’d texted to Wrong Number, things I never would’ve wanted Colin to know.

I was beyond angry and disgusted with him, but worse than that, I was devastated to lose him. It probably meant I was weak, but all the little inside jokes and easy banter we’d shared had blossomed into something huge and full, and now they were gone.

It was like that line in You’ve Got Mail.

“All this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.”