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Allison was disappointed in herself for not guessing this first.
“Two,” Ethan went on. “Dressage.”
“The thing with the horses?” Colin asked.
Ethan nodded. He dragged his hand through the strands of long blond hair that had come loose from the knot at the back of his head. “And three.” More counting fingers. “I play chess. Extremely well.”
Kara turned to Colin. “You guess.”
Colin took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “It has to be the dressage thing.”
Ethan smiled smugly. “Incorrect.”
“Then what was the lie?” Allison demanded. He seemed like the kind of person who would treat chess with the gravity of a football fanatic. And Allison knew, deep down in her bones, that the first one was true.
“I play checkers, not chess. It’s actually more complicated in its simplicity.”
Allison turned to Kara and held up both her empty flutes. “Are there more of these?” If she was going to be forced to bond with Windbag, she needed to be drunker.
By the time she returned with a fresh round of martinis, they’d all learned that Mandy liked to cross-stitch swears onto flowery patterns, Link baked artisanal breads to go with his beers, and Alex crocheted stuffed animals to sell on Etsy. Each fact gave Allison a new appreciation for these people she sat with for hours every week in class. It broadened who they were, made them more than students who seemed older, more intelligent, and worldlier than Allison. They all had things about them to which she could relate.
Allison liked that more than she’d expected.
As she settled back onto the couch, Kara announced it was her turn. “The theme is animals.”
Allison took one, then two sips of her martini as she deliberated. It sloshed, sweet like candy, around her teeth and tongue. “Okay.” She set the plastic flute on the end table and sat up straighter. “Here we go. I’ve swum with dolphins twice.”
There was her lie. She’d only done it once, when her aunt Janice took Allison and her mother to Hawaii for her mom’s fortieth birthday.
“I have a Corgi named Monty.” The most important truth.
“A goat once followed me home from a petting zoo.”
The moment the words left her mouth, Allison regretted them. Colin would know that was a truth. He’d been there when it happened.Damnit.
His eyes fell heavily on her face.
Damnit times two.
Allison refused to look his way, even as her skin warmed beneath the touch of his gaze.
“I’ll guess.” Kara placed her drink carefully on the mantel. In the time it had taken Allison to drink three martinis, she’d nursed half of one.
She bit her thumbnail as she studied Allison. But before she could respond, Colin did. “You don’t have a Corgi.”
His voice tugged Allison’s attention to him, a puppet on a string. Its tone was raw, scraping, the words coming from deep in the back of his throat. Staring at him now, she saw he hadn’t shaved, a light shadow of blond stubble darkening his jaw. It looked good. Exceptionally good.
Suddenly her mind dragged her back to all the times she’d run her hands over those bristly cheeks, felt them scratch against her neck as he nuzzled her close.
Damnit times three.Allison sucked down half her drink, then made a sound like a buzzer as loud as she could, as if that might drown out her thoughts. She needed to get rid of them, somehow. “Wrong,” she said.
Kara cleared her throat. “I was thinking it was—”
“What happened to Cleo?” Colin had witnessed a few FaceTimes with Allison’s mom back in the day, and pictures of the pit bull had papered her walls all through undergrad.
“Cleo is my mother’s dog. Monty ismine.”
Allison injected as much force as she could into her words. He needed to stop this line of questioning before people started to realizethey knew each other. Having to explain their history to everyone would not keep it in the rearview mirror.
