Mr. Wrong Number

THANKSGIVING DAY

“She always recovers from her messes, though.” My mother stood in the kitchen in her stupid pumpkin sweater with my grandma and my auntie Midge—both in stupid pumpkin sweaters—and discussed me as if I weren’t right there in the living room with the rest of the family.

“Your mess-recovering abilities are second to none.” Jack gave me a smirk from where he was lying on the floor, and kicked my leg with his Nike. “So impressive.”

“Shut it.”

“He’s right, Liv,” Will said, grinning. “Unmatched.”

“Hilarious. You both look like idiots in your sweaters, by the way.” I wanted to ditch the family and go play in the backyard with the boys, but since it was Thanksgiving, I’d agreed to stay inside with the adults and “visit.”

“You don’t look cool in yours, either,” Jack said to me before saying to Will, “Liv has been so damned cranky lately.”

“She seriously punched me yesterday and she wasn’t playing,” Will chimed in.

“Can you morons be quiet, please?” I leaned forward to better hear the TV. We were watching a DVD my dad had burned of Thanksgiving episodes of a bunch of shows, and Friends was currently on. I tuned all of them out for most of the episode until I heard Will say Colin’s name.

I kept my eyes on the TV as Jack said, “Yeah. He’s taking a promotion in Chicago.”

“He’s selling the condo?” Will asked.

“Yeah. It’s the best unit in the building, so it’ll sell in like a day.”

“When?”

They both looked at me. Holy shit, I’d said it out loud?

“Hello?” I waved my hands for them to hurry and answer. “When is he moving, Jack?”

“Not that it’s any of your business anymore, but I think he’s starting next week and staying in a hotel until he finds a house.”

I blinked and felt a little light-headed. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me.”

Jack squinted. “You hate him. Why would he tell you?”

“I don’t hate him.” I stared at the TV without actually watching. He was leaving? He was leaving and wasn’t even going to tell me, like we were strangers? I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“C’mere,” Jack said to me out of the side of his mouth, glancing over at my mom with shifty eyes like he didn’t want her to hear.

I moved down to the floor and sat beside him. “What?”

“Don’t get dirty, Liv,” my mom yelled, scowling and stirring something on the stove. “We still have to take the picture.”

How the hell would I get dirty? “I won’t, Ma.”

I brought my attention back to my brother, who said, “I’m pretty sure he’s leaving because of you. You wrecked him.”

“I wrecked him?”

“Shhh—Geez.”

We both glanced over at the kitchen, but thankfully Auntie Midge was ranting about potatoes and botulism so no one had heard my little freak-out.

I lowered my voice and said, “Is that what he told you?”

He shook his head. “He never told me anything, but I’ve known him forever and I’ve never seen him like this. Not even when he proposed to Daniela and she said no.”

I rolled my eyes and forced myself not to picture his face.

“He told his sister that he can’t stand to live in the same city, much less the same building, as you, knowing he can’t be with you anymore. He said it’s killing him.”

“Shut up.” My heart started pounding in my neck. “He’d never say that.”

“Swear to God. Jillian texted me the other night because he said it when he was wasted.” He pulled out his phone, scrolled for a minute, and then showed it to me. “She wanted to know if I knew anything.”

I glanced down. She’d said it, word for word.

“Oh, my God.” I got up and adjusted my sweater. “I have to go.”

“What?” my mom yelled from the kitchen. “Where are you going? We eat in an hour.”

I looked around and everyone was staring at me. “I, um, I have to go talk to someone.”

“Oh, for the love of God, Olivia, it’s Thanksgiving.”

“I know, Ma.” I grabbed my purse from the floor. “I’ll be back.”

“We’re taking the family picture soon. What can’t wait until tomorrow?” She looked at Auntie Midge and then said to my dad, “Fred, tell her this can wait until tomorrow.”

“It can wait until tomorrow,” he muttered, not bothering to open his eyes.

“It can’t wait.”

“What the hell, Liv?” Will asked. Even though he was a grown-ass family man, he still got all annoying when someone dared to do something he couldn’t.

Like leave on Thanksgiving.

“Language, William,” my mother scolded, feigning horror even though I knew she wielded the f-word like a dockworker when she was alone with my dad and thought we couldn’t hear her.

“I have to talk to Colin before he leaves.” I gave Jack a look that made Will say, “Holy shit, do you have a thing for Colin Beck?”

I blinked as the entire house seemed to pause and wait for my answer. My dad even opened his eyes.

I just nodded.

“Oh, honey,” my mom said with a pitying smile, “I know the boy is handsome, but I don’t really think he’s your type.”

“What?”

“He’s just very type A, always has been. Driven, motivated, successful . . .” She trailed off as if that explained everything.

“What’s your point, Ma?”

She just raised her eyebrows.

“I’ll have you know that we were actually together for months before I dumped him.”

“What?” Will nearly yelled it. “I call bullshit.”

“Oh, Livvie,” my mother said, sounding disappointed that I was lying like an overimaginative toddler.

“You seriously don’t believe me?” I pulled out my keys and said to Will, “Screw you.”

“Language,” my mother gasped as my dad muttered, “Christ almighty.”

“I’m leaving now,” I said, running toward the door, irritated by my family but too desperate to get to Colin to care. I got in my car, put it in reverse, and flew out of the driveway, terrified he was already gone.

I glanced toward the house and saw a crowd of faces watching me, all jammed into the square of my parents’ front bay window. I knew I should wave, or feel bad for ditching them on a holiday, but I put the car in drive and took off.

I had to get to Colin, and nothing else mattered.

•   •   •

I TOOK A deep breath and knocked again.

It was my third round of loud knocks, but there was still no answer.

Come. On.

Was he gone already? Had I missed him? I wondered if Jack knew how I could find him in Chicago if he’d already left. I knocked again and then pulled out my phone.

Maybe the thing that brought us together—and tore us apart—could get through to him.

Me: Tell me exactly what you’re wearing, Mr. Wrong Number.

I slid down the wall and sat on the carpet of the hallway, without a plan but absolutely unwilling to consider what his absence meant.

He couldn’t leave. He couldn’t.

After a good five minutes, I texted: I am out in your hallway, wearing the sexiest top you’ve ever seen.

I sent the message, and then I took a selfie of the dumb sweater and sent it.

He didn’t respond, and after ten more minutes, I stood and ran my hand over his door. I blinked back pools of heavy tears and tried one last time, just in case. There were still no sounds from within, so I cleared my throat and rested my forehead on his door.

“It sounds bizarre, but I didn’t realize until today that I’ve forgiven you for the whole thing. As soon as Jack said you’re moving to Chicago, nothing else mattered but seeing you and begging you not to go.”

I blinked back the tears and added, “Unless you’re dying to go. Then I’ll just beg you to text me a lot and let me visit or something.” I straightened and muttered, “Shit. He’s probably not even home.”

“He’s home.”

My head snapped around and there was Colin, two doors down in the hallway and walking toward his apartment in a black North Face jacket. His cheeks were red like he’d been outside for a while, and he was looking at me with a stoic face, no warmth at all in the blue eyes I’d been having dreams about for a month. My stomach dropped, and I struggled to think of words as he held me in his cold stare. I’d practiced on the way over, but the only thing I was able to come up with was “Were you really going to move to Chicago without telling me?”

I hated that my voice cracked when I said it.

“Why would I tell you?” He looked down at my stupid pumpkin sweater but didn’t say anything about it. “Does it matter?”

I nodded.

His eyes narrowed. “What does that nod mean?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what, Marshall?” He gestured for me to get on with it. “Help me understand what is happening here.”

I put my hands in my coat pockets. “I’m trying to apologize.”

“By nodding at me.”

I nodded.

“Listen, I don’t know what you want from me here.” His voice was gravelly as he scratched his eyebrow. “I screwed up and you walked away. I told you that I loved you and you told me I was a joke. So now that I’m moving, you’re back . . . ? What am I supposed to do here?”

I had no answer, so I just shrugged listlessly.

“This is great, Liv, that you’re suddenly mute, but I can’t do this anymore, okay?” He shoved his hands in his pockets and said, “I know it was my own fault, but losing you turned out to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Everything sucked, everything reminded me of you, and I was so fucking sad all the time that I couldn’t even stand to be around myself. I can’t keep living like this, hoping to see you in the elevator or daydreaming like a lovesick puppy that we might run into each other at Starbucks. I love you, Olivia, but this is killing me. I have to get away from all of this.”

My heart was pounding. “You still love me?”

He shook his head. “Stop it. That’s not the point.”

“Oh, my God, it is, too.” I was flat-out crying now and I didn’t care. “I love you, too, and everything has been awful for me, too. Ask anyone. I punched Will the other day for saying I was acting like a pouty baby.”

He tilted his head. “You did not.”

“I really did. And my mother is probably going to show up here any second now because I ditched Thanksgiving dinner to come find you.”

“What?”

I rolled my eyes. “Jack said you were moving, so I just left. And we hadn’t even taken the family picture yet.”

“You ditched Thanksgiving dinner?”

I nodded and said, “I’d do it again if it meant stopping you from leaving.”

“Holy shit, I was right.” He stared at me, his jaw flexing, and it looked like he could see into my soul or something.

“About what?” I asked.

His mouth softened and he looked at me like he was figuring out a puzzle. “When we went to Fleming’s and you let that dog knock you down in the parking lot, I realized something. You aren’t a hot mess at all, Livvie. You’re just this . . . this . . . human tornado who is so alive, so filled with the energy of the moment, that there occasionally is a little collateral damage.”

I opened my mouth and had no words—for once.

“But all the damages are worth it. They’re but a small price. I wish I lived in the moment like you do.” He took his hands out of his pockets and stepped closer, and his palms slid over my cheeks. “You have no idea how much I admire that about you.”

“Colin.” I looked up at his handsome face and wasn’t sure any compliment had ever meant that much to me in my entire life. “Are you saying that I’m your hero? That I’m the wind beneath your—”

He stopped my words with a kiss, one of his Colin specials that left me grasping at his shirt while he reminded me how good it’d been with us. As if I needed reminding. He lifted his lips just long enough to say against mine, “Say it again.”

I felt like my heart was going to burst. “I love you.”

He grinned down at me. “Again.”

“I love you, Colin Beck.”

“I love you, too, Marshall.” He cupped my face and gave me the sweetest, hottest kiss, the kind of kiss that wrapped itself around you and made you feel foolishly, deliciously, unbearably loved. I let myself sink into it, no longer afraid.

I wanted to dive into every fathomless ocean with him.

And even after the smoke alarms started wailing because I passionately slammed Colin against the fire panel, he didn’t stop kissing the holy hell out of me.