“Sure. What the hell.”

“Oh Christ,” Eddie muttered. “I better put the fire department on notice.”

A little dazed, a lot excited, Colbie nodded and walked away, hearing Eddie say to Spence, “You told her stuff about you. Like you live here.”

“Yeah.”

“Huh,” Eddie said. “That’s new.”

“Don’t go reading anything into it,” Spence said.

And then she couldn’t hear anything after that, as she was beyond hearing range. Just as well, since no one ever overheard something they actually wanted to overhear.

“Don’t go reading anything into it . . .”

She needed to remember that.

Spence hit the pub for lunch. As usual, Finn had the far right side of the bar open for the gang. They were a close-knit bunch, forever sticking their noses into each other’s business, fighting like cats and dogs, and yet always, without fail, having each other’s back.

Archer and Elle were there. Archer was inhaling a huge plate of nachos while Elle talked. Which was a perfect picture of how their relationship went in general.

“She’s cute, I’ll give him that,” Elle was saying. “But he’s not ready for this, and besides, she’s got an expiration date. And hello, she’s not who she seems. She can’t be.”

“Babe, he’s a big boy,” Archer said. “And he’s right behind us.”

Spence rolled his eyes and leaned in to steal a nacho. “Your reflexes are creepy,” he said to Archer before looking at Elle. “If you want to tell me I’m an idiot, do it to my face.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Archer grinned at her. “I love it when you’re mad at someone other than me.”

“I can multitask,” Elle warned.

“Don’t I know it.”

Elle stared at him and then let out a dopey smile that she never gave to anyone other than Archer. “I’m about to give the inquisition to one of your BFFs. How much do you love me on a scale from zero to burgers?”

“Burgers,” Archer said without hesitation. “With bacon and cheese.”

“I knew you were the one.” She turned on Spence. “How are you doing? You’ve been working around the clock. You okay?”

He shrugged.

“You were doing really great until a few days ago,” she said. “What happened?”

He shrugged.

She gave him a look that said they both knew exactly what had happened. And her name was Colbie.

“What can I do to help?” she asked.

The question was proof that no matter how much she drove him crazy, she was like family.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m working on it. Three nights ago, Colbie cooked me dinner and I’m going to return the favor tonight.”

Archer high-fived him.

Elle blinked. “That’s ‘working on it’? And Colbie cooked you dinner?”

“Burgers and salad. It was great, even if it was turkey burgers and salad.”

Elle wasn’t amused. “You don’t cook. In fact, you burn water.”

“Hello, Pot,” he said. “I’m Kettle.”

Archer laughed.

Elle went brows up at him and Archer quickly returned to his food.

“I don’t burn water,” she told Spence.

“Okay. So I suppose that time you pretended to make Archer dinner but really you ordered out because you’d already burned your first efforts didn’t really happen. Even though it totally did.”

Archer snorted but then turned it into a cough as he caught Elle’s eye again. “No worries, babe,” he said. “You give great takeout.”

Elle had the good grace to roll her eyes. “Fine, I’m being ridiculous, whatever. But you.” She pointed at Spence. “You’re the most private person I know, and you rented a place to a woman on first sight—without even knowing her last name, I might add. So you can see why I’m worried. If I did that, you’d kick my ass.”

“Yes,” Spence said. “But I got her knocked into that damn fountain,” he said. “I feel responsible for that. I just did what anyone else would’ve done.”

“No,” Elle said. “Anyone else would’ve paid her dry cleaning and sent her on her way. Period. Look, you’re not acting like yourself. I’m just worried about you.”

“Well, don’t be.” Spence nodded at Finn as he came over from the other side of the bar to steal a nacho. “Hey, I need a bottle of wine for tonight.”

“For?” Finn asked.

“Dinner.”

“I mean for what kind of food,” Finn clarified.

“Whatever goes with Cheetos,” Archer said, making everyone laugh because they too all knew Spence had the appetite of a twelve-year-old boy.

Spence’s phone went off with an unfamiliar number and he hit ignore, knowing it was either a reporter or someone who’d hunted down his number wanting him to invest in some crazy idea.

“You’re still being hounded?” Sean asked, refilling their waters.

Sean was Finn’s younger brother and co-owner of O’Riley’s. And an all-around troublemaker and chick magnet.

Spence shrugged. “I should probably reconsider changing my number.”

“No!” Archer, Finn, and Sean all said at the same time.

Elle rolled her eyes. “Pigs. All of you,” she said just as a text came through from that same unknown number.

Sure enough, when Spence opened it up, it was a marriage proposal—along with a picture of a pair of bare breasts. Pierced.

There was dead silence for a beat. Sean recovered first.

“See?” he finally said. “You can’t change your number, man. You need this. We need this.”

Late that afternoon Spence was in his office, two large screens working as he crunched some new formulas and numbers, when Clarissa called, giving him a blast from the past.

“Hey,” she said. “Checking in on things.”

Things being their project, of course. It used to be that she called just to hear his voice because she missed him.

Things changed.

“I’m not trying to apply pressure,” she said when he didn’t answer right away. “I really just wanted to see how you were doing.”

They hadn’t made it as a couple—100 percent his fault—but they’d managed to maintain a friendship, even with all the baggage and miles between them. She was important to him. His relationship with her, the one they had now, where they supported each other through thick and thin without the layers required of a romantic relationship, meant a lot to him. So when she said she wasn’t trying to apply pressure, he knew she meant it.

But he felt it anyway. He’d failed her, in a big way. The biggest way a man could fail a woman. He hadn’t cheated on her with another woman, but he sure as hell had cheated on her with his work.

Work was and always had been his mistress, and she’d left him for it.

He couldn’t go back and fix that. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. And he didn’t want to. She was so much better off without him.

And so was Colbie . . .

“Spence?”

“I’m here. I’m fine.” He blew out a breath and shoved his hands through his hair. By some miracle, she’d forgiven him all his many mistakes and she still loved him.

In her own way . . .

In any case, it was her pattern to call whenever she was stateside for a few days, which in itself was rare these days. “Where are you?” he asked.

“DC.” She paused. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve got some problems in the software, but it’ll come.”

“Maybe you’re working too hard.”

“No, I —”

“Spence.” Clarissa let out a low laugh. “Let me rephrase. You are working too hard.”

“You’ve been overseas. You don’t know what I’m doing or not doing.”

“Wanna bet?” Clarissa laughed again, but there was something in the sound that said she wasn’t actually amused. “I was with you, Spence, remember? For four years. I know exactly what you’ve been doing. Eating, sleeping, walking, and talking work 24–7.”




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