Chapter Text
santa cols 🎅🏻: gm Pen 🌻
pen-settia 🌺: good morning Col ☀️
santa cols 🎅🏻: u can’t col me Col today miss Featherington
santa cols 🎅🏻: bc we have beef
pen-settia 🌺: Colin…
santa cols 🎅🏻: wdym u hung out w my sisters at the party last night
santa cols 🎅🏻: & yet i have no reCOLlection of seeing u there 😤😤😤
pen-settia 🌺: …….
santa cols 🎅🏻: is that all u have to say for urself???
pen-settia 🌺: jesus Colin 😭
santa cols 🎅🏻: 🤨🤨🤨
pen-settia 🌺: i’m sorry :(
pen-settia 🌺: it’s just my sched cleared up so last-minute
pen-settia 🌺: and then i didn’t really feel well so i couldn’t stay long
santa cols 🎅🏻: i would’ve taken care of u :(
pen-settia 🌺: your brother literally just got engaged!!
pen-settia 🌺: i didn’t want to pull focus from the celebration
santa cols 🎅🏻: Pen pls
santa cols 🎅🏻: Ben had more than enough focus on him
pen-settia 🌺: i just needed to get home to my bed
santa cols 🎅🏻: ☹️
santa cols 🎅🏻: so u h8 me
santa cols 🎅🏻: u love ur bed & u h9 me
pen-settia 🌺: i do not h8 or h9 you Colin
santa cols 🎅🏻: SO U H10 ME
pen-settia 🌺: jfc
santa cols 🎅🏻: 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
pen-settia 🌺: what can i do to rectify this offense
pen-settia 🌺: what do you want from me
santa cols 🎅🏻: my own plate of ur gingerbread biscuits
santa cols 🎅🏻: tonight
pen-settia 🌺: oh my god
pen-settia 🌺: smh you didn’t even hesitate???
santa cols 🎅🏻: u seemed eager for my forgiveness
santa cols 🎅🏻: i didn’t wanna make u wait 😉😉😉
pen-settia 🌺: you can’t just guilt trip me into making you more biscuits????
santa cols 🎅🏻: & yet i just did
pen-settia 🌺: i can just show up without them
pen-settia 🌺: have you considered that
santa cols 🎅🏻: no u won’t
santa cols 🎅🏻: bc it’s christmas
santa cols 🎅🏻: & ur heart is pure
pen-settia 🌺: 😡😡😡
santa cols 🎅🏻: besides can u blame me
santa cols 🎅🏻: they’re the world’s most perfect holiday biscuits
santa cols 🎅🏻: how could i NOT manipulate u for as many perfect biscuits as possible
pen-settia 🌺: flattery will not protect you from my wrath Colin Bridgerton!!!!
santa cols 🎅🏻: yes it will 😁😁
santa cols 🎅🏻: see u tonight Pen 😘😘
santa cols 🎅🏻: i can’t wait for my biscuits 😁😁😁
santa cols 🎅🏻: happy christmas eve 🎄
Christmas Eve is special.
As a rule, the Bridgertons celebrate Christmas on the morning of the 25th. It is when gifts are exchanged, when photos are taken in matching pyjamas, and when the Bridgerton kitchen staff put everything they have into the world’s most elaborate holiday breakfast. It’s bright and festive and punctuated by the laughter of the growing army that is Violet’s grandchildren. Christmas Day is every bit the picturesque, Hallmark-worthy Bridgerton family holiday.
But Christmas Eve has Penelope. Obligated to spend her own Christmas mornings with her mother, sisters, and their husbands, Christmas Eve is Penelope’s open window to join the Bridgertons in their festivities. She arrives every year—arms filled with gifts and gingerbread biscuits that she bakes strictly during the holidays—ready to indulge in a roast dinner fit for a royal court and drink wine with Colin and his family while they wait to usher in Christmas Day.
Colin tends to prefer Christmas Eve.
He is the first at the door when Penelope arrives. She arrives at the same time every year like clockwork, and so he knows exactly when to start lingering around the foyer, just in time to beat Eloise to the front when the doorbell rings.
This year, he paces by the window, waiting eagerly for her Uber to pull up to the driveway. When it does, he’s out the door before she’s even opened hers, which is perfect because Penelope always clunkily steps out with gifts piled high enough to cover her face. This year, Colin is quick enough to open the door for her with a grin and grab her insulated bag of biscuits.
“Maybe I should stop making these,” is the first thing she says, nodding to the bag. “You’re starting to give junkie.”
He gives her an exaggerated look of offense before he offers her his forearm and assists her out of the car. He grabs the rest of her things, thanks and tips the Uber driver, and sends them off on their merry way.
“That’s on you for cutting off my supply last year. I need these biscuits back in my veins.”
Penelope rolls her eyes fondly and bites back a laugh. Colin can’t help but grin, feeling infinitely pleased with himself.
Last Christmas had been hell. Christmas without Penelope’s gingerbread biscuits—without Penelope—had made it the worst Christmas of Colin’s life. And it had been a nightmare all of his own making, after he’d made an awful, deflective declaration and humiliated Penelope in front of people who never even deserved to breathe the same air as her.
But this year, they’ve reconciled. This year, they were rebuilding their friendship, and Colin was rebuilding Penelope’s trust—bit by bit, joke by joke.
As sure as the world turns, Penelope is immediately swarmed by Colin’s sisters and mother when she enters their home. He leaves her to their mercy, tucking her gifts under the tree and setting her bag on the kitchen counter. He opens it and finds two large tupperwares practically bursting with gingerbread biscuits, the same quantity she always brings to Christmas Eve. He pulls them out of the bag to reveal that at the bottom is a smaller tupperware with a label taped across and the name Colin ♡ written in permanent marker.
He opens the lid, saliva immediately pooling in his mouth as he’s hit with the sweet scent of gingerbread, cinnamon, and brown sugar.
Gregory saunters into the kitchen and lights up when he spots the open box in Colin’s hands. “Are those Penelope’s gingerbread biscuits? I’ve been waiting for—ow!”
The youngest Bridgerton brother quickly pulls his hand away from the tupperware and cradles it close to his chest, his face exaggeratedly contorted in pain. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”
Colin narrows his eyes in a glare. “Back off my biscuits, Greg.”
“They’re everyone’s biscuits!”
Colin closes the tupperware and waves it in his face. “You see that? Colin.” He points a finger firmly on the label on the lid, right where Penelope had drawn the little heart. “Co-lin.”
“How the hell was I supposed to see that? You had the lid face-down on the counter!”
“Am I interrupting something?” Penelope is standing in the threshold of the kitchen looking between the two brothers with knitted brows and heavy suspicion, seemingly trying to assess whether she wants to know what she’s just walked into.
Gregory is quick to put on his babiest pout. “Colin broke my hand!”
Penelope raises her eyebrows at Colin, who rolls his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic, I just pushed it away.”
“I’m being dramatic? You’re the one who tried to injure me over biscuits!”
“I smacked your hand at best,” Colin defends, the tips of his ears beginning to warm as he feels the judgment in Penelope’s gaze.
She shakes her head at him in what he hopes is mock disapproval. “You’re old enough to know how to share.”
Colin hugs the tupperware to his chest. “There are biscuits for sharing! These are mine. This is the batch I asked for.”
“But have you considered if he deserves those biscuits?” Gregory asks Penelope, turning to look at her with puppy dog eyes. Colin’s jaw twitches. He is the king of puppy dog eyes in this family, and the only one with authority to use them on Penelope.
Penelope smiles at Gregory before turning to Colin with her arms folded over her chest. “You have a point, Greg.” She throws Colin a pointed look.
“You’re taking his side over mine?” Colin gasps, holding his biscuits up to his heart in exaggerated offense. “On Christmas?”
Colin leaves the kitchen in a huff, ignoring Gregory’s triumphant grin, and secures his special biscuits in his room to avoid further incident.
The rest of Christmas Eve plays out as it does every year. Penelope’s biscuits are cleared out before dessert. Daphne orders too many trays of food from whatever trendy restaurant she and Simon have been frequenting as of late. Kate and Anthony break out the best wine and whiskey they’ve accumulated throughout the year. Francesca makes camp at the piano, playing an endless repertoire of Christmas carols and current holiday music, accompanied by Benedict—and now Sophie—who sing together off-key. Gregory and Hyacinth regress to childhood bickering and fish for hints of what their presents are under the tree. And Violet occupies herself with entertaining her grandchildren until they’re sent off to bed.
Eloise and Penelope are huddled on the sofa by the tree, clutching wine glasses and sharing a blanket. Colin makes his way toward them, holding a half-full bottle of wine to top them up.
He plops down next to Penelope, sidling close for warmth and to steal sips of wine from her glass.
“You couldn’t get your own?” Eloise looks at him with her nose scrunched in disgust. He leans across the redhead sitting between them to stick his tongue out at his sister.
Across the room, Benedict pulls Sophie to the empty space in front of the fireplace as Francesca plays the opening notes to I’ll Be Home for Christmas. They sway gently to the music as the whole family watches fondly from the sidelines, two people blissfully in their own little world, the ring on Sophie’s finger glinting against the dancing flames.
“Disgusting,” Eloise mumbles. There is no real malice in her tone, and Colin can see the soft smile she’s unable to contain as she watches the happy couple.
“Leave them alone,” Penelope whispers. Though she’s hardly trying to scold Eloise either, too mesmerized by the scene playing out in front of her.
Colin’s gaze falls to Penelope sitting beside him, unable to help watching her watch the happy couple. Her crystal blue eyes dance along with Benedict and Sophie, who are gently swaying to the music. Her mouth curls into a soft, fond smile, lips slightly parted in awe. And one of her small hands rests on her stomach the way it always does when she feels a particularly powerful emotion.
Penelope loves love. For as long as he’s known her, his best friend has always gravitated toward love stories, to romance. She drinks up his mother’s anecdotes of marriage to his father, basks in his partnered siblings’ cheesy displays of affection, watches rom-coms and reads romance novels with a melancholic longing in her eyes that makes his chest ache and his belly twist. Despite being a romantic, Penelope hasn’t had a very storied love life of her own. It befuddles him when he allows himself to think about it—how someone as incredible as his best friend still hasn’t had an epic romance of her own—how no one has ever tried to sweep her off her feet the way she deserves.
But then again, there are very few people in this world who might deserve her.
He swings his arm over the back of the sofa and rests his cheek on top of Penelope’s head. “They’re gonna be as bad as Anthony and Kate now,” he whispers into her hair. She smells like gingerbread and jasmine.
“And Simon and Daphne,” she agrees, sighing wistfully. “The proposal must’ve been so beautiful.”
“It’s a shame you weren’t there to see it,” he says. “You would’ve eaten it up. The whole family did.”
“Except for you,” Eloise chimes in, overhearing their conversation. She shifts her position on the sofa after a moment to look at him properly. “What was with you last night? You spent most of it stalking the ballroom like you were hunting for prey.”
Colin blinks in surprise. Beside him, he feels Penelope tilt her head to look at him with curiosity. “I wasn’t—”
“And then you disappeared before Benedict could even get down on his knee, only to show up once it was all over.”
Colin opens and closes his mouth once. Twice. “I was…” He wracks his brain for something to say, and glances down to the warm body by his side. “I was… looking for Pen.”
He regrets the lie as soon as it leaves his lips. Beside him, he feels Penelope tense and pull away just slightly. Dread starts to pool in his stomach.
Eloise scrunches her forehead in confusion. “I thought you didn’t know that Pen was at the party?”
Colin opens his mouth, unsure about what’s going to come out, until Penelope answers for him. “I texted him.”
He blinks again, and then watches her shift around on the sofa to set her glass on the coffee table for something to do. She shrugs at Eloise. The lie rolls off her tongue smoothly. “I told him I was there but that I wasn’t feeling well. He must’ve gone to catch up to me before I left.”
She ends that last statement in a questioning tone, and looks up at him as if she was waiting for him to confirm her assumption. Stunned, Colin only nods, and Eloise takes the exchange as completely normal, before sauntering off to Francesca to drag her to join them on the couch.
While Eloise is stepped away, Colin looks at Penelope, who is looking at her own fingers. “Pen…”
She looks up at him, her big blue eyes blinking with a look he can’t quite decipher. He opens his mouth—to explain himself, maybe, or apologize—but nothing comes out. Penelope blinks up at him again in question; and Colin is suddenly hyper-aware of just how crowded the room is, how his family surrounds them at every corner, talking and laughing and ready to jump in if their ears pick up a more interesting conversation.
Eloise returns quickly and drops Francesca on the sofa across from him, effectively popping his and Penelope’s fleeting little bubble. His sisters happily regale her with stories of the proposal she had missed the previous evening, and Penelope looks happy to move on to the next topic without a hint of giving the previous conversation any thought.
Just after midnight, after exchanging gifts with his siblings and mother, Penelope bids the Bridgertons goodnight so she can head out to her sister Prudence’s home, where she’ll be spending the night and the succeeding Christmas Day. Colin initiates the familiar dance of offering to drive for her, and Penelope insists on booking an Uber instead.
“You’re in no shape to drive,” she always says, knowing full well that he never drinks more than a glass of wine at dinner for this exact reason.
“I’m fine,” he always retorts. “And I’m wide awake.”
Eventually, with the help of his siblings or his mother, she always gives in. They stuff her bags and gifts into his mother’s car and drive from Mayfair to Richmond.
It’s one of his favorite traditions.
Colin loves the drive to Richmond—loves the calming, colorful silence of the early hours between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas Eve with Penelope and his family is always a joy, but the drive after is theirs alone; just Colin and Penelope, and the all-encompassing ease that being alone together always brings.
Tonight is different. There’s a tension in the silence that eats at Colin’s nerves.
“Pen,” he starts. “I… I’m sorry about earlier.”
Penelope turns from her view of the window in the passenger seat. She takes her time to simply look at him before she speaks. “It’s okay,” she says softly. “S’not like you’ve never lied for me either.”
While that may have been true, it didn’t make him feel any less guilty. “You’re not gonna ask me why?”
She shrugs and gives him a soft, reassuring smile. “You’re allowed to have secrets, Colin.”
“Not from you,” he murmurs.
She tilts her head in that way she does when she wants to probe a thought further, but decides against it. “Okay,” she concedes. “Why?”
He takes his time, relies on the pretense of concentrating on the empty road. Waits until he has to stop at a red light before he answers.
“I was, uh… I was meeting someone.”
He winces at his own vagueness, and turns from his eyes on the road to Penelope’s seat. She has an eyebrow raised in question, challenging him to explain further.
The light turns green. He shifts the car back into drive and takes a deep breath. Pins his gaze straight ahead on the road.
He decides to start from the beginning. More or less. “I’ve been talking to someone. Online.”
“Oh… Like on Hinge?”
“No,” he says quickly, shaking his head. “It’s… more complicated than that.”
“Complicated how?”
Colin sighs, his hands gripping tighter on the steering wheel as he tries to get his bearings. Why is this so difficult?
Sure, he hasn’t told anyone about l.whistledown, but Penelope isn’t just anyone. She’s Penelope. She knows everything about him. Is the only person in his life who truly cares enough to know everything about him. To see him.
And he wants her to know. Needs her to. Because she is so much a part of him that lying to her feels almost like lying to himself.
“Do you remember that time,” he starts, “when you very justifiably cut me off?”
There’s a long silence before she answers. It hasn’t been that long ago, but they haven’t really talked about The Incident much beyond Penelope granting her gracious forgiveness.
“Vividly.”
Colin nods. “I started a travel blog on Tumblr when we stopped speaking. It’s not like my other writing. It’s anonymous, and mostly just for me to talk to myself and post landscapes.”
He steals a quick glance at her from his periphery and sees her face has lit up, piqued with curiosity for this whole catalogue of his writing she has yet to read. Colin bites back a smile. She has always been his most faithful reader, and his most trusted editor.
“And I kind of… met someone while being active on there.”
He pauses for a moment to search for the right words. “Her screen name is l.whistledown. You know, like those regency paperbacks you used to love? Anyway, we started talking about writing and we kind of just… clicked. We got really close. I think you’d like her, actually. You two have a lot in common.”
He peeks over to Penelope’s side when she doesn’t say anything. Her gaze is fixed on the road in front of them. He follows her lead.
“Anyway, she’s based in London and we’d been talking for a while, so I invited her to the masquerade last night.” He looks over again. She remains unnervingly silent. “Pen?”
At the sound of her name, Penelope seems to snap out of a trance. “Sorry,” she shakes her head. “I was waiting for you to finish your story.”
“Oh,” he says. “That’s… that’s mostly it. I invited her to the party, but I still haven’t met her.”
“She didn’t show up?”
He shakes his head. “No, she did. I’m pretty sure I saw her at the party, but she—well, she ran away.”
The car fills with silence again. Colin feels his anxiety build the longer it stretches, the longer it takes to hear Penelope’s voice. She gets like this when she’s looking for the right words, when she’s worried about stepping on the wrong eggshell; and he immediately starts wracking his brain to figure out which one she’s trying not to crack.
They come to another stoplight, and Colin slows the car to a halt before the light even turns red. “Pen?”
Penelope blinks. Once. Twice. She twists her fingers on her lap before she turns to him and smiles. “That’s quite a story.”
Colin chuckles. “You sound underwhelmed.”
Penelope shakes her head and takes a moment to consider her next question. “Why did she run away?”
“I don’t know,” he sighs. “I haven’t had the chance to ask her yet.”
“Well that’s disappointing."
He laughs. “It really is. I didn’t even get to see her face. Just caught a glimpse of her costume in the distance before everyone started unmasking.”
“How do you know it was her, then?”
He shrugs. “I knew what her costume would be. She tried to match with me, if you can believe it. But I s’pose other than that I can’t know for sure. She was pretty far away. The only thing I got a good look at was her hair.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Long blonde hair.”
Penelope wrinkles her nose and smirks. “Oh no, you hate blondes.”
“No, I hate male blondes. Women and non-binary blondes are perfectly valid.”
“Even Cressida?”
“Well, except Cressida.”
Penelope laughs, just as the light turns green. He rolls his eyes and looks ahead to hide his own amusement.
Colin actually has nothing against blonde men. He hates one blonde man—Penelope’s ex-boyfriend, the scientist who’d abandoned her for a three-year research trip just as she had convinced herself she was ready to move in with him.
He fucking hates that blonde.
“So I saw her,” he says, continuing his story. “Chased her down, and then she just… disappeared. That’s why they said I was acting weird the other night. I was looking for l.whistledown.”
They’re only a few streets away from the Dankworth residence now. As their time together slowly comes to a close, Colin finds himself almost bothered by the fact that Penelope doesn’t seem to have as many questions for him as he thought she would.
He turns onto Prudence and Harry’s street and slows the car to a halt, shutting the engine off to park in front of the Dankworth house.
Penelope doesn’t immediately exit the car, never fully ready to join her family inside. It’s the final part of their tradition. When they arrive outside the house, they extend their time alone together by waiting until the very last moment to exchange their gifts.
He waits patiently as Penelope rummages through her bag and pulls out a rectangular box, perfectly wrapped with crisp edges and a blue bow. He takes the box with a grin, already giddy to find out what’s inside.
His fingers smoothly slide under the tape around the edges, careful not to tear Penelope’s hard work. When he opens the box, he finds some batteries, film rolls with different exposures, and a camera in its original leather and velcro case.
He opens the case to find a Canon point-and-shoot film camera—the same camera model his parents used when they were children in the 2000’s.
“I figured you’d like that better than an SLR,” Penelope explains. “It’s lighter. More travel-friendly.”
“Pen,” he breathes, “this is… incredible.”
He reaches for her across the center console without a second thought. Wraps his arms tight around her shoulders and presses a kiss to her temple.
“I’m glad you like it,” she says jokingly, her voice muffled against his neck.
When they pull apart, Colin reaches into his pocket to pull out his gift. It’s a much smaller box, with the wrapping not nearly as clean as hers, but his heart thumps with excitement in his chest anyway.
Penelope is as agonizingly and unnecessarily careful unwrapping her gift, sparing no thought to Colin’s lungs as he holds his breath in anticipation.
“Oh,” Penelope breathes. “Colin, it’s beautiful.”
In her hand is a silver bracelet embedded with pieces of seaglass. There are nine pieces—collected from each coast he’d visited in their time apart—in different colors: some blues for her eyes, greens because they’re her favourite, a yellow one for the dresses she used to wear in their childhood, and a rare red stone that was almost the exact same shade as her hair.
When he explains this to Penelope, she flushes all the way down her neck. Tears well in her eyes.
“I…” she sucks in a breath to stop herself from crying. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you don’t hate it?”
The joke has the desired effect. Penelope laughs, bright and bubbly in a way that cuts through the stillness of the chilly Christmas night, pushing away any tears she might have spilled. Warmth crawls up his chest at the sound. He gives her a shy, crooked smile.
“Of course I don’t hate it,” she says. “Thank you, Colin. I love it.”
He beams, and she begins to reach for him for an embrace like he did earlier, but he stops her. “There’s another gift in the box,” he explains. “Well… it might not technically count as a gift, but it’s for you.”
She looks down at the box with curiosity and finds another silver piece glint along the edge of the box.
She pulls it out and holds it up to the dim light. “A key?”
He nods. “To my flat.”
Her eyebrows knit together in confusion. She tilts her head. “You don’t have a flat.”
“I do now.”
He waits for her to put the pieces together, watches the notch between her eyebrows smoothen, savours the way her eyes slowly grow larger and larger. “You bought a flat?”
He nods.
“What for?”
“For a place to live.”
“But you’re always away.”
“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, “now I wanna stay.”
Penelope, with a fresh batch of tears in her eyes, scans his expression for a very long time. Colin watches her eyes move across his face, intent on analyzing every inch, every micro-expression.
The way she takes it all in twists something in his chest and his stomach. Colin has been travelling consistently since he dropped out of university at the age of 20; and has not stayed in London for longer than a month in half a decade. For the last seven years, he has been chasing sunsets, crashing waves, hiking peaks, and making a living out of his own wanderlust as both a freelance travel writer and an influencer.
And in exchange, he’s missed weddings, funerals, birthdays, his youngest siblings’ adolescence—milestones that his family has jokingly given him grief for more than once over the years. He has taken those jabs in stride, carried the anxiety of being left behind in his siblings’ lives, all because Penelope was there to encourage him to keep going. She pushed him to pursue roads less taken, showed genuine enthusiasm in his unconventional achievements, and never resented him for his absence—even as she hugged him at every airport drop-off like she was afraid to let go.
So he traversed the world and back, moved fast enough to evade planting his feet on the ground. He went on every adventure available to him; until sometime a year ago, after he’d lost his one real tether to London, they stopped feeling like adventures at all.
Colin knows what she’s searching for—hesitation, doubt, any sign that this isn’t something he completely wants, that he’s fulfilling a wish or playing a role for his family—and he knows that even the faintest hint will mar her excitement.
She won’t find any. She doesn’t.
Before he knows it, Penelope is practically jumping across the console to pull him into her embrace. Colin steadies her, his laughter muffled in her hair as he holds her as close as their positions will allow.
“Welcome home, Colin,” she whispers. He swallows down tears of his own.
“I wanted you to be the first to know,” he explains when they let go. “Well, the first after Anthony. He’s the one who helped me find the place.”
“I’m honored,” she says, and holds the key up. “So is this really for me? Or was this just to add drama to the announcement?”
“It’s your copy,” he grins. “Anthony doesn’t get one.”
“Now that’s an honor,” she grins back.
They spend a few more minutes together in the car where Colin tells her all about the new flat—the charming neighbourhood and the nearby bakery that she would love, the massive living area and the reading nook he planned to set up for her, and the spare room-turned home office where he was considering installing two desks.
Penelope shares in his excitement, eyes shining as she promises to visit as he moves in before the New Year. She hugs him one last time before she leaves, whispering a final "Merry Christmas, Colin,” before she opens the car door and steps out into the cold.
Just before she means to close the door, she pauses. She stands there for a few moments, staring at nothing, before she turns to look at him and asks, “that woman you were talking about earlier. The, uh, l.whistledown person. You said it was complicated. Why?”
Colin stares at her, unsure what to answer. He opens and closes his mouth three times before the he finally figures out how to use words again.
“I, uh… I guess because I haven’t met her in person yet,” he shrugs. “I guess I’m not really sure why it feels complicated, but it does. Ask me again next time?”
Penelope looks at him for a long moment before she eventually nods her head. “Next time.”
l.whistledown: Merry Christmas! 🎄
wordsunknown: merry christmas!!! 🎅🎄
l.whistledown: having a good one so far?
wordsunknown: yup!!
wordsunknown: just spending time w the fam
wordsunknown: u?
l.whistledown: same
l.whistledown: the spending time part, i mean
l.whistledown: being in close quarters with my mum isn’t something i’d classify as “festive”
wordsunknown: oof 😬😬😬
wordsunknown: my condolences
l.whistledown: thank you
l.whistledown: it’s just one day
l.whistledown: i’ll survive 🫡
wordsunknown: did she get u a good present at least??
l.whistledown: haha no
l.whistledown: just a bunch of her old dresses from the 80s 🙃
wordsunknown: wtf???
l.whistledown: ikr 😭
l.whistledown: she tried to pass it off as gifting me “vintage”
l.whistledown: but she didn’t even give me the nice pieces 😩
l.whistledown: and they still smell like a musty old wardrobe 😭😭😭
l.whistledown: i would’ve preferred if she’d gotten me a gift card
wordsunknown: no offense but
wordsunknown: ur mum sounds like a piece of work
l.whistledown: none taken
l.whistledown: because she is 😂
wordsunknown: u know who does have a good gift for u tho
l.whistledown: ???
wordsunknown: 😁😁😁
wordsunknown: (me. it’s me)
wordsunknown: i have a gr9 gift for u
l.whistledown: fr????
wordsunknown: yes
l.whistledown: omg
wordsunknown: & u’d already have it
wordsunknown: if u hadn’t run away the other night
l.whistledown: ……….
wordsunknown: 👀👀👀
l.whistledown: 😭😭😭
l.whistledown: i’m sorry 🥺
wordsunknown: it’s ok
l.whistledown: is it?
wordsunknown: isn’t it???
l.whistledown: what does that even mean 😭
wordsunknown: idk sksksksks
wordsunknown: it just felt like the thing to say
Colin sighs, setting his laptop down on the bed next to him.
He has no idea what he’s doing.
Post-lunch on Christmas Day offers a nice, sleepy lull in the Bridgerton house, and upon picking up on the beginnings of that state, Colin had been quick to excuse himself and check his messages. He hadn’t spoken to l.whistledown since the night she ran away from him, so he felt an immense wave of relief when he opened Tumblr and found she had sent a greeting.
He stares at the ceiling, still pondering Penelope’s question from the other night.
Why does this feel so complicated?
He hears his laptop ding, and the urgency with which he immediately reaches for the device is almost Pavlovian.
l.whistledown: i feel like i owe u an explanation
l.whistledown: scratch that, i /know/ i owe u an explanation
wordsunknown: we don’t have to talk abt this now
wordsunknown: idw make u uncomfortable on christmas
l.whistledown: no no i want to
l.whistledown: i’ve felt terrible since that night
He turns away from his laptop to glance at the ceiling again and consider his next move.
wordsunknown: ok
wordsunknown: why did u run away?
Despite agreeing to the conversation, he shifts away immediately, willing a distraction to fall into his lap as he waits for her to send her explanation. He comes up empty, and instead painstakingly counts the notifications.
His laptop dings once, twice, and on the sixth ding, he finally checks it again.
l.whistledown: i thought i could do it, i really did
l.whistledown: but when i got to the party it was just so…….
l.whistledown: overwhelming
l.whistledown: u never mentioned ur family was like
l.whistledown: a big deal and knew so many people
l.whistledown: not like that’s a bad thing ofc
l.whistledown: ugh this whole explanation is getting away from me
l.whistledown: anyway, i got to the party
l.whistledown: and i was overwhelmed and overstimulated
l.whistledown: so while i was psyching myself up waiting for u
l.whistledown: i kind of just….. started spiraling
l.whistledown: what if u see me and ur disappointed
l.whistledown: what if we start talking in person and the conversation doesn’t flow like it does here
l.whistledown: HOW would we even talk at a party as loud as this
l.whistledown: and then i realized ur whole family was there……
l.whistledown: was i gonna meet them? would it be weird to meet them?
l.whistledown: do they even know about me?
l.whistledown: did i want you to tell them about me??
l.whistledown: my mind just kept going and going and going
wordsunknown: and going????
l.whistledown: lmao
l.whistledown: good to know ur still there 😭
l.whistledown: anyway by the time i saw u
l.whistledown: at least i think it was u
l.whistledown: it was u, right? the guy looking at me when i was on the balcony?
wordsunknown: yea that was me
l.whistledown: ok phew
wordsunknown: lol imagine if it wasn’t me
wordsunknown: & i had actually just been chasing some random blonde woman that night 😭
l.whistledown: LMAO
l.whistledown: and i had actually been chased by a random pirate
l.whistledown: just 2 separate cases of someone being chased at ur family’s party 😭
wordsunknown: 😭😂😭😂😭
l.whistledown: 😭😭😭
l.whistledown: anyway
l.whistledown: as i was SAYING
l.whistledown: by the time u showed up
l.whistledown: i had gone through all these thought spirals in my head
l.whistledown: it wasn’t just one extensive bad thought but a like
l.whistledown: a build-up of a bunch of little bad thoughts
l.whistledown: that kind of just broke when i saw you
l.whistledown: and i panicked
l.whistledown: so i ran 😭
l.whistledown: Colin……? 😭😭😭
wordsunknown: i’m here
wordsunknown: i’m just
wordsunknown: thinking
l.whistledown: thinking that u hate me now
wordsunknown: hey!!!!
wordsunknown: woah!!!!
wordsunknown: hey!!!!!!!
wordsunknown: i don’t hate u why would i hate u
wordsunknown: i completely understand ur like
wordsunknown: reasoning
wordsunknown: i guess i’m just
wordsunknown: disappointed???
wordsunknown: & like
wordsunknown: ur not the only one who feels self-conscious
wordsunknown: abt the whole meeting e/o thing
wordsunknown: i was nervous too
wordsunknown: obvs not nearly as nervous as u were but
wordsunknown: i’m afraid too
wordsunknown: that i’m gna disappoint u
l.whistledown: ??????
l.whistledown: how could u possibly disappoint me??
wordsunknown: i should ask u the same thing 👀
l.whistledown: 🥺
wordsunknown: sorry 😟😟
wordsunknown: but yea ofc i’m afraid of disappointing u
wordsunknown: bc like
wordsunknown: as u already kno
wordsunknown: no one takes me seriously irl
wordsunknown: well except for my bff
l.whistledown: and me
wordsunknown: & u 💛💛💛
wordsunknown: but yea
wordsunknown: i was worried that when we meet the convo would get awk
wordsunknown: & u’d be disappointed & think that
wordsunknown: maybe i don’t have as much substance as u thought i did
wordsunknown: & u’d stop taking me seriously too
l.whistledown: omg never 🥺
l.whistledown: i of all people know that first impressions can be misleading
l.whistledown: i never give a good first impression 🫠🫠🫠
wordsunknown: nonsense
wordsunknown: u give a gr9 first impression
wordsunknown: u impressed me immediately
wordsunknown: it was gr10
wordsunknown: 😘
l.whistledown: i never give a good first impression //in person//
l.whistledown: u still haven’t met me in person 🫣🫣
wordsunknown: CAN i still meet u in person?????
l.whistledown: …………..
wordsunknown: no look i see where i went wrong now
wordsunknown: first meeting at a party was a bad idea
wordsunknown: we can meet someplace u pick
wordsunknown: where ur comfy
wordsunknown: someplace quiet
wordsunknown: & not overstimulating
wordsunknown: where we could actually /talk/
wordsunknown: i mean
wordsunknown: only if u want to ofc
wordsunknown: i’m not trying to pressure u i swear
wordsunknown: pressuring u is the last thing i want to do
wordsunknown: i just want u to kno that
wordsunknown: i am more than willing to try this again
wordsunknown: if u are
wordsunknown: but!!!!
wordsunknown: if it’s too soon i’ll back off
wordsunknown: just say the word
wordsunknown: & i won’t bring it up again
wordsunknown: at least not for a long while hehe
l.whistledown: ………..
wordsunknown: ………….?
l.whistledown: you really still want to meet me?
wordsunknown: yes
wordsunknown: ofc i still wanna meet u
wordsunknown: i really really wanna meet u
Why is it complicated? Colin ponders this as he waits for her reply.
Three things are true.
One. He feels a very real, very true kinship with l.whistledown. From their first conversation, they shared a connection that he thinks he might have only felt once before. She listens to him and understands his ramblings in a way that very few people in his life do. And despite the fact that he might sound insane, despite the fact that he has never seen her face or spoken to her in person, he genuinely believes that he knows her.
Two. Their conversations have begun to take a flirtatious turn as of late. He’s not sure who might have initiated it, but he was definitely enjoying it, and she was definitely flirting back. The progression felt natural, inevitable almost. After all, how could two people who feel as connected and drawn to each other as they do not feel tempted to explore more?
Three. Telling Penelope about her had felt strange.
Was it because he had never told anyone about l.whistledown before? Colin knows why he hasn’t told anyone. He knows how his family and friends would react—the jokes, the skepticism, the wholly unnecessary concern for his safety and self-esteem. They’re all unwarranted, he believes. And he simply does not have the threshold to deal with their questions and comments until he’s met her in person. Until he’s sure.
Was it because he had told Penelope then? He knew she would handle his secret with more care than if he had told anyone else; and if he were being honest, he should have told her about l.whistledown sooner. The whole reason he and l.whistledown became friends in the first place was because of her, because he was so lonely without his best friend that he had been forced to reach out into the ether, and been lucky enough to find someone who saw him in the ways Penelope did, who mostly filled the void Penelope had left behind.
It wasn’t that he viewed l.whistledown as a replacement for Penelope, no. Their similarities had certainly helped—their similar interests, their similar writing styles and sensibilities. But Colin believes that if she had been a replacement, their conversations would have petered off once he and Penelope had made amends. Instead, their connection has grown stronger, and even grown side-by-side with his rekindled friendship with Penelope. Slowly but surely, l.whistledown was cementing a place in his life that almost rivaled his best friend’s importance.
He could have two best friends, couldn’t he? Maybe that was it. Maybe he is simply worried that Penelope might get the wrong idea, that because his attachment to l.whistledown had been formed in her absence, that it meant she was being superceded in his heart. Maybe, if he makes it clear to Penelope that her importance to him is unrivaled, talking to her about l.whistledown will feel simpler.
He turns these three thoughts over and over in his mind as he waits for what are likely mere minutes, but are starting to feel like hours.
His laptop finally dings.
l.whistledown: okay
l.whistledown: yes
l.whistledown: let’s try this again
l.whistledown: when are u free?