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Colin Bridgerton wakes up the afternoon of his thirtieth birthday knowing two things - that he kissed his future wife last night, and that he cannot remember a single thing about her.
“Jesus,” Benedict says, “buy her dinner first.”
“I don’t know who she is, Ben.”
“Well, you can start getting in the giving spirit by buying me breakfast.”
“It’s my birthday weekend.”
Benedict shrugs, shoving most of a pancake into his mouth. “And Anthony and I brought you at least five drinks last night, which is why you’re in this situation.”
Colin sighs. Why he’d let his brothers arrange his 30th is a mystery - yes, they’d volunteered, and it seemed easier than calling everyone himself, especially since he’d just gotten back from Kuala Lumpur. But he’d also somehow forgotten that Benedict was sowing his wild (well, wilder) oats after breaking up with Henry, and that Anthony now had two children under three and was desperate for a break. And that Simon could drink both of them under the table. And that Daphne could drink Simon under the table. And that he should never, under any circumstance, let Eloise pour him gin.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” Benedict says diplomatically, smears of last night’s eyeliner still lingering on his temple. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Colin pours himself another coffee, more to stomp down his headache than anything else. It’s not just the hangover - it hurts. “Erm. The third pub. I beat Anthony at darts, I think. You’d gone to flirt with that girl at the bar - “
“And her boyfriend as well - “
“Good for you. Please, no details.” Colin rubs his neck. “Anyway. I’d just beaten Anthony at darts, and I went to use the loo. Well, stumbled.” He takes another swig of coffee. “I think Eloise and her girlfriend were fighting.”
Benedict snorts. “They’re not dating after last night, if they ever were.”
“Really? They were all over each other.”
“It’s Cressida Cowper, Col. I’ve never someone deeper in the closet in my life.”
Well, Benedict had been kissing boys at punk concerts since he was seventeen, so he would know. “I can’t believe Eloise brought her along last night. Penelope was there.”
“Well, being randy makes you stupid. Speaking of which, Penelope.”
Colin squints again, a few indistinct flashes coming back to him. “I think the fight also involved Penelope? Or maybe it didn’t, but it made her upset. She ran off to cry, I went to talk to her.”
Benedict nods. “Right. And then?”
…nothing. Colin’s spent most of the last morning wracking his brain, and everything after Eloise’s fight is a blank.
Except for one thing. Except for the thing.
Lips on his. Sweet, giving, soft. Tentative at first, then eager and hungry and desperate. Like lightning down his spine, in his gut, in his soul , arousing and exhilarating. Kissing until he was out of air, then breaking for a gasp before they both dove back in, because this was it . This was the kind of kiss you spent your whole life waiting for, the kind described in Penelope’s novels - the kind that normal humans, who worked and lived life and paid taxes, weren’t supposed to have. The kind of kiss that could ground a man after years of running away.
And Colin, for the life of him, cannot remember who he shared it with.
Colin sighs. “And then, I’m kissing her. Whoever ‘her’ is.”
Benedict looks oddly pensive. “And then?”
“And then I woke up on my brother’s couch with the worst hangover of my life.” (And the worst neck ache, which didn’t help. Clearly, he’d slept funny last night, because the muscle tension is killing him.)
Benedict’s suddenly quiet. Benedict is a lot of things, but he’s never quiet. “Hm.”
“Benedict,” Colin asks, “did you see who I kissed last night?”
Benedict swallows another pancake whole. “Erm. No. I was a bit preoccupied, I’m afraid. Two mouths to feed.”
Colin groans. “Ugh. Why do I bother with you?”
Benedict winks. “Because I’m your favorite brother?”
He is, god help him, but Colin will die of neck pain before he admits it. “I’m telling Anthony you said that.”
“Good luck getting him out of bed. I’ve been texting Kate, apparently he takes hangovers like a bitch.”
Considering Anthony is the most uptight person Colin knows, that doesn’t surprise him.
For a few minutes, they’re quiet, letting the grease of Sunday morning breakfast sink in. Benedict finishes up his pancakes with two to spare, and pushes the rest of the plate towards Colin without asking (yeah, Ben’s his favorite brother). Colin pours compote on the rest of the stack, idly watches Benedict text someone furiously - probably one or both of last night’s conquests, the pansexual menace - and wracks his brain again, finding nothing.
Instead, he thinks about the clues he does have. He thinks of the lipstick residue on his lips this morning, the pair of breasts he’d felt pressed against him last night, the soft curves of the mystery woman’s hips. Then, he stops himself from going down that route, before he gets too horny to function. God, he would’ve ravished that woman in the pub if she’d let him, right in front of his siblings and -
Hold up.
“Ben,” he asks, “Penelope was there last night, right?”
Benedict stops texting. “Yes, she was.”
Well, that settles it. The solution on a silver platter, right in front of him the entire time, waiting for him to notice.
“Colin,” Benedict says, surprisingly seriously. “I know you’re probably panicking right now. But trust me, everyone is going to be -”
Colin gets up and tosses two twenty-quid bills on the table. “I’m not panicking, Benedict. Penelope was there last night. And if I kissed anyone, my best friend is going to know.”
When he gets to Penelope and Eloise’s flat, they’re both crying.
“Shit,” he says, frozen in the doorway and nearly dropping his spare key, “is this a bad time?”
Eloise shoots him a glare. “The worst.”
Penelope gives him a wave. “Hi, Colin.”
Eloise kicks Penelope in the shin. Penelope shoots her a look. What is going on here?
“Did you two have a fight last night after I blacked out?”
Penelope freezes. “You blacked out?”
“Not the whole night. Just…most of the third pub. And everything after.” Colin shrugs. “Which is kind of why I’m here. Can I come in?”
Eloise and Penelope share a look.
Colin holds up a takeout box. “I brought a breakfast sandwich.”
Penelope nods at Eloise. Eloise grimaces, gets up, and reaches out to accept Colin’s peace offering, eyeing the takeout box like a hungry shark.
“Come in. Kettle’s on.”
Colin sits down gingerly. Normally, he feels right at home in Eloise and Penelope’s flat - it somehow feels cozier than any of his sibling’s places, and when he’s in London between trips, he crashes on their couch more often than not. But today, the atmosphere is so stilted, it feels hard to breathe.
For god’s sake, Penelope’s not even looking at him. What on earth is going on?
“Okay, El, I’m sorry, but I have to ask. What the hell happened with you and Cressida Cowper?”
Eloise takes half of Colin’s sandwich, plates half for Penelope, and proceeds to devour hers like Gollum. “Nothing anymore.”
“I told you,” Penelope says delicately, “you can talk to her. Don’t do anything stupid on my -”
“Pen, no.” Eloise practically shoves the sandwich-half at Penelope. “Absolutely not. She was a fucking bitch to you, and your feelings are not disposable.”
“But you like her. And you know she only said that because - “
“I don’t care,” Eloise says. “I know she only said it because she’s too much of a coward herself, but she still said it. You’re hurting. I’ve known you since we were eight , Pen. You will always come first. Especially over some girl who thought scissoring me twice meant she could treat you like a cunt.”
Colin coughs. “I am still here, you know.”
Eloise glares at him. “Yep.”
“Jesus,” Colin says, “did I take Cressida’s side last night or something? You keep looking at me like I’m the problem.”
Eloise takes a giant bite of her sandwich, muttering around it. “Maybe you are.”
“Eloise.”
“What?” Eloise says, shrugging at Pen. “I’m not saying shit.”
Penelope sighs. “Did you seriously black out last night, Colin?”
Colin groans. “The last thing I remember was beating Anthony at darts.” He pauses, weighing the pros and cons of talking about this with his sister in the room. “Actually, not quite the last thing - Eloise, could Pen and I have the room?”
Eloise and Penelope share another look. Colin’s starting to feel like there’s telepathic communication he’s missing out on.
“Sure,” Eloise says. “I have to go unlike all of Cressida’s Insta posts, anyway.”
The way she very slowly puts the dish away, Colin feels like he’s being surveyed.
“Thanks for the sandwich. And Colin?”
“Yeah?”
Eloise sends him another death glare. “Don’t be part of the problem.”
She leaves, slamming the door behind her.
“Good god. Cressida really got to her, huh?”
Penelope picks at her nails. “She was…cruel. To both of us.”
“Both of you?” Colin’s anger flares. “She brought you into this?”
Penelope sighs. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well I do. If someone’s rude to my best friend - “
“Colin,” Penelope snaps. “Don’t. Please.”
Colin doesn’t think he’s ever heard Penelope raise her voice in his life. “Okay.”
The silence hangs. Penelope picks at her half-sandwich, barely touching it. She’s pale, silent, out of sorts. Normally, conversation with Penelope flows so freely, Colin talks ‘till his throat hurts.
She’s the brightest star he knows, and Cressida Cowper has reduced her to this . The thought makes her see red.
“If you want to talk about something else,” Colin says cautiously, trying to respect her space, “I have a mystery to solve.”
Penelope smiles. That’s his girl. “If it’s about where all the money in your wallet went, you brought shots for the whole bar.”
Colin blinks. “No. Tell me I didn’t.”
“Top shelf,” she says around a grin. “That’s when the bartender cut you off.”
Suddenly, Colin has a blurry memory - his lips are sore from kissing and there’s someone under his arm. It’s her . It’s his mystery dream girl, and he’s throwing his credit card down, high on her touch and yelling, I want everyone to feel the way I do right now! Round’s on me!
“Huh. I think I sort of remember that.”
Penelope freezes. “Oh.”
Goddamnit. Her smile is gone.
“Penelope,” he says, “I know I kissed someone last night.”
Immediately, he knows it’s the wrong thing to say.
“Yeah,” she says, tucking her knees up against her chest, looking small and broken and like she’d rather burst than be here. “You did.”
Even sad, she’s so fucking pretty.
God, he feels like he’s been fucking up since he walked in the room this morning. His head pounds and the stupid crick in his neck hurts and he’s tired and dehydrated and on top of all that, he can’t say anything without making Pen or Eloise look like they’re on the verge of murder and/or tears. What did he do last night to piss both of them off like this?
…oh.
Oh, no.
“Fuck,” Colin says. “I think I figured it out.”
Penelope looks up at him, tears in the corner of her eyes. “You think -”
“I don’t remember. But by process of elimination - fuck.” Colin groans. “No wonder the vibe in here is so weird this morning. Fuck.”
Penelope opens and closes her mouth a few times. “Do you regret it?”
“Now that I’ve figured it out? Yeah. Worst mistake of my life.”
Penelope nods. “Okay.”
There’s a long silence. Penelope sniffles.
“You should…you should probably go, then.”
“Yeah.” Fuck it, he’ll stay on Benedict’s couch for the next few weeks. The asshole owes him for breakfast, anyway. “I’ll - yeah.”
He’s grabbing his bag and heading for the door, stewing in his own failure, when he hears a quiet sob and realizes that he should really say something.
“Pen,” he says quietly. “I know both of you are furious at me right now. And it’s for good reason. But I just - I hope I can make it up to you both one day. You, especially. I don’t want this to hurt our friendship, even if Eloise decides to rip my spleen out.”
Penelope doesn’t even reply. God, he’s an asshole.
Then again, losing his best friend is probably what he deserves for kissing Cressida Cowper.
“You kissed WHO?”
“Jaan,” Kate hisses, “the baby is sleeping.”
Right on cue, baby Edmund lets out a shrill wail from upstairs. Kate tuts and mutters something in Hindi.
“Sorry, darling,” Anthony says, kissing his wife’s hand. “I’ll get him.”
“I’ll do it,” Kate says. “Stay here and do the dishes, so you can tell your brother what an idiot he is.”
Colin gulps at his sister-in-law’s death glare, and idly wonders how Anthony managed to marry the only woman in the world more intimidating than him. (Granted, it had taken a failed engagement to get there. To her sister. But still.)
“Come on, Colin,” Anthony says, looking more out-of-sorts than he has since Edwina left him at their rehearsal dinner. “You heard my wife.”
They’re quiet for a while, Anthony washing while Colin dries. It’s why Colin always comes to his oldest brother in times of crisis - he is the stoic contrast to Gregory’s teenage angst and Benedict’s manic energy, an easy rock to cling to when seas get rough.
Colin wonders where Anthony goes when his world’s rocked. Probably Kate. There’s a reason they’re good together, despite all the pain it took them to admit it.
“And you’re sure it was Cressida?”
Colin looks up from drying a serving spoon. “I’m pretty sure. I don’t remember, but…there’s no other reason Pen and El would be so angry at me, right? And every other woman at that party was part of the family.”
“Penelope’s not our sister,” Anthony points out.
Colin sighs. “No. But she lives with El, and she’s my best friend, and she’s been spending Christmas with us since she was nine.”
Anthony raises an eyebrow. “And?”
Colin wipes another spoon. “Pen’s her own thing, Anthony.”
Besides, if he were going to kiss Penelope, it wouldn’t be drunk at a bar. It would be wide-awake and sober, somewhere she deserved - in a garden under moonlight, the kind of grand romantic gesture she wrote about, but joked on author’s panels that she’d never be able to find.
God, where did that thought come from?
Colin swallows. “Anyway.”
It’s just melancholy, is all. Melancholy because usually, him and Pen text constantly, and she hasn’t replied since he left the flat this afternoon.
“Truth is,” Anthony says, “I can’t tell you if you’re right or not. I stepped out after your darts victory to call Kate. Apparently, it was some drunken nonsense about how you’ve all grown up.” He gives a sad half-smile. “But I do know that if you kissed Cressida, you’ve got a lot of groveling to do. Especially to Penelope.”
“I’m trying,” Colin says, bending over to put a dish away. “It’s just hard when - ow.”
Apparently, bending over to shelve a dish made his goddamn neck flare up again.
“You alright?”
“Yeah.” Colin straightens up. “Slept poorly on Benedict’s couch, apparently. Although it’s funny, the last time I had tension this bad, it was from crouching to fit in a tuk-tuk.”
“Ours is much more comfortable,” Anthony says. “Couch, not tuk-tuk, I mean. Stay as long as you need.”
He’ll have to pay in babysitting, since it’s gala season for the Sharma Foundation, and Anthony is expected to be arm candy while his wife makes the CEO rounds. But Colin loves his nephews, and at least it’s better than Benedict reenacting Challengers in his thin-walled one-bedroom. “You’re my favorite brother.”
“No I’m not,” Anthony laughs. “But I’m easier to live with than Benedict. Now come on, let’s swap, so you don’t hurt your neck again.”
They do, and Colin’s washed three more dishes before it hits him. “Wait. You said you stepped out after we played darts?”
“Yes?”
“So how did you know that Cressida was cruel to Penelope?”
Anthony looks confused. “What are you talking about?”
“When you said I especially had to apologize to Penelope. What did you -”
Colin’s stupid neck flares, and he hisses in pain.
Maybe Anthony saw the fight on his way out. It’s probably not important. “Never mind, actually. Do you have paracetamol?”
Twelve hours later, filled with food, sleep, and slightly less neck pain, Colin prepares to start groveling.
Thirteen hours later, he gives up, because he has no idea where to start. Eloise had always been a tricky giftee - she wasn’t a reader, didn’t buy new clothes, and got all her furniture secondhand to minimize her carbon footprint. She’d been playing the same Stardew Valley save for almost two years, so he couldn’t even try a new Switch game. Penelope is easier: he knows what books she’s reading, what galas she needs gowns for, which bakery makes her favorite French croissant. But bringing gifts for only one apology partner isn’t kosher, and besides, bribing them with presents feels wrong. This isn’t like when he’d knocked Eloise’s DS into the pool as kids; this was a fundamental betrayal of something his sister (and his best friend, apparently) held dear. He’d need to either buy both of them a continent, or try something else, and freelance travel writing didn’t pay much.
hey daph, he texts idly, watching the clock switch from nine to ten am. howd you apologize to simon?
Daphne responds so promptly, Colin can almost hear her. I used my words.
Well, he thinks, that’s spectacularly fucking helpful.
Say ‘I’m sorry’, and mean it, she follows up. It’s the least that Penelope deserves.
Jesus christ, what horrible things had Cressida said to Penelope while he was wasted? And how much of an idiot had his drunk self been, to respond to them by snogging Cressida instead of kicking her to the curb?
It’s ten am, and he’s sitting on his brother’s couch because he still doesn’t have his own flat, and Penelope hasn’t replied to any of his messages for twenty hours, and he’s thirty. So he gets up and walks.
Colin’s not athletic like some of his siblings, but he’s not sedentary. Anthony swims, Daphne kickboxes, Eloise does roller derby, and Colin walks. It had started during his gap year, staring at the hostel ceiling and jet lagged out of his mind, and figuring that even the sketchiest street was better than being this bored. When he traveled, he’d walk for hours - wander side streets and back streets and not-streets, hike to waterfalls and cliffs and ruins, soaking up every moment of life he could. It used to excite him. It still does sometimes, when he stumbles across a spectacular vista, or a back-alley cafe that pours the best coffee in Istanbul. But most of the time, all it does is remind him that he spends most of his time staring into other people’s windows, and he still doesn’t have his own.
He’d called Penelope about it last year, sitting in a park in Osaka, watching a young couple lift their toddler to touch the cherry blossoms. The kid’s face was radiant, but it was nothing compared to her parent’s; if their daughter was discovering light, they looked at her like she was sunshine itself.
I don’t think I know who I am, Pen, he’d said. I’ve spent the last five years going everywhere, and I still haven’t figured it out.
You want something, right?, Penelope had replied. Wanting things makes you a person. Doesn’t matter what they are.
Colin had looked at the couple and their child and thought, I think I want that. But when he’d opened his mouth to say it, nothing had come out. It was too much, somehow, even though he’d shared so much with Penelope over the years she could probably replicate his brain.
That’s why he’d walked, in the past year or two - not for the thrill of discovery, but to share his discoveries with Pen. She’d always been his friend, but some switch had flipped lately, and now it was difficult to go a day without her. She’d been the one he’d been most excited to see on his birthday; she’d been the one he’d spent the whole first half of the night with, laughing together in a booth until Daphne dragged her away. And Daphne had impeccable timing, because he’d been about to tell Penelope that he didn’t have another ticket booked to leave after the party, that he wasn’t sure he wanted one. That he was right on the verge of something, something he could taste on his tongue; that he’d looked in the mirror, realized he was almost thirty, and decided to chase what he wanted, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what that was.
And now he is thirty, and instead of finding his dream girl, he’d spent his birthday kissing the wrong person and breaking Penelope’s heart.
Colin checks his phone. No new messages. Of course there aren’t.
He realizes that it’s been an hour, and his feet are starting to hurt. He’s not entirely sure where he’s walked to - it’s London, certainly, but not a street he recognizes. Judging by the cars parked on the curb, the neighborhood is definitely rich, so he shouldn’t loiter.
He sees the sign advertising “Bookstore and Cafe” just as his stomach growls.
Inside, the place is a little too curated for Colin’s liking, a rich man’s pet project dressed in the illusion of neighborhood authenticity. He’s been to real antique bookshops (including one in Scotland, where he’d picked out a first-edition Austen for Pen’s twenty-sixth), and this place is half IKEA. Still, it’s comfortable enough, and the cafe has tea and pastry. Colin buys two muffins, just for good measure, and high-tails it to the romance section. He likes photographing Penelope’s novels in shops and sending them to her; maybe that will prod her to respond.
“Excuse me,” he says, clearing his throat politely at a body blocking the way through the history section. (In its commitment to the aesthetic, this place had decided to give its shelves half a meter of wiggle room, which is great for Instagram and horrible for actual customers.)
“Sorry, just let me -”
Oh, god no.
Cressida Cowper drops her armful of lesbian history books in shock. “Colin?”
“You didn’t have to give me your second muffin.”
“Eat it,” Colin says, stuffing his face with his own. “We need to talk.”
Colin doesn’t know Cressida well, but even he knows that few people get to see her like this. Her hair is down from its usual extravagant updo, she’s wearing no visible makeup, and her outfit could generously be described as “athleisure” and cruelly described as “depression”. Colin doesn’t feel sorry for her, but she looks so bedraggled, someone else probably does.
Cressida picks at her muffin. “Eloise told you the details, I’m guessing.”
So. They’re getting right into this, apparently. Colin puts his empty muffin wrapper down. “No, actually. I just know that you made Pen cry.”
Cressida blinks. “Did you black out?”
Colin sighs. “Almost everything. I know there was a fight, and I know that I kissed…” he swallows. “Someone.”
Cressida laughs cruelly. “And people call me a bitch.”
Colin’s done pretending. “That’s because you are one. At least you didn’t kiss -”
“She’s been in love with you for years, you know that?” Cressida finally snaps. “Since primary school. And yet I’m the bitch for pointing it out.”
Colin’s brain short-circuits.
It reminds him of a concert in Madrid years ago, the most intense he’d ever attended. He’d been in the mosh pit, drunk out of his mind, and at a certain point he’d been pushed right up against the stereo. The bass had literally rattled his bones, until he’d lost his thoughts in a haze of sensation, the world nothing but movement and noise. And then, the set had ended, and the band stopped. It was like someone dropped a flashbang into his skull, shocking him back into his body - suddenly, his ears were ringing and his feet were sore and his throat hurt and his head pounded.
Suddenly, everything was quiet, and his body reminded him what actually mattered.
“That’s…that’s what you fought about?” He gulps. “That Pen…that Penelope is…”
“Of course,” Cressida sneers. “You know that, right? It’s cute of you to keep her around.”
Keep her around. Like Pen was some unwanted stray cat Colin fed out of pity. His vision goes red.
“Shut your goddamn mouth,” Colin snaps. “Penelope is twice the woman you’ll ever be, considering you can’t even decide what you want with my sister.”
Cressida flinches.
“I’m trying,” she says, quietly. Defeated. Her small stack of lesbian history books weighs down the counter.
She is. No matter what happened last night, or what revelations are currently bouncing around in his skull, Colin is sure that he didn’t kiss Cressida.
Which leaves only one option, and a crick in his neck.
“Cressida,” he asks quietly, “who did I kiss last night?”
Cressida gives him a disdainful look.
“I think you already know.”
“Eloise, let me in.”
“No.” Somehow, Colin can see his sister stomping her feet, even though the door’s closed.
“Come on, El. It’s important, I swear - “
“Did I fucking stutter? Piss off.”
“Eloise,” Colin says patiently, watching one of El’s neighbors pass and give his giant bouquet of flowers a strange look, “I’m standing here pounding on your door like a lunatic.”
“Then stay there,” Eloise says. “Camp out all night. See if I care.”
“The landlord will.”
Eloise huffs out a sigh as the lock unlatches. Victory.
“Colin,” she says, standing in the doorway, looking more exhausted then she sounded, “don’t you think Pen’s been through enough?”
Colin’s had the whole wait at the flower shop, then the whole cab ride here, to feel like an idiot. But coming from Eloise, it hits him twice as hard. The idea that he’d really been oblivious to Pen’s feelings - feelings so blatant, even Cressida Cowper had known about them - for not just months, but literal years . It makes him sick, even more than the hangover.
Sick, and desperate to make it up to her. And to prove the suspicion he’s been wrestling with ever since Cressida sneered at him.
Eloise snaps in front of his face. “I don’t know where you just went, but you looked guilty. So I’m giving you one more chance to talk before I kick you in the balls. I do remember tae kwon do.”
Colin gulps. “I - “
Behind Eloise, someone else pokes her head into the living room. “Eloise? Is that the Deliveroo - oh.”
Penelope is small and delicate in her nightgown, curls ragged and face puffy from crying, and two revelations hit Colin like a truck. First, that she’s beautiful. Dropped-jaw, drop-dead, Renaissance painting beautiful. She’s soft and sweet and sinful, with curves that he wants to grab onto and never let go. It should surprise Colin, but as the shock settles in his bones, it feels…comfortable. Like coming home to a house with a different coat of paint - just new enough that it feels like a new room, but just familiar enough to feel warm and welcoming, like a place he could live in forever.
And second, that she’s short.
Colin barks out a laugh. Eloise and Penelope both jump.
“Are you high?” Eloise spits.
Colin catches his breath. “I thought I kissed Cressida Cowper.”
Eloise rolls her eyes. “So the answer is yes. And I thought Benedict was bad when he got really into indica.”
“I’m sober, El,” Colin says, stepping inside without being invited. “Finally. And I panicked last time because I thought I -” he takes a deep breath, because Penelope looking that hopeful, and wearing that little, is weakening his ability to reason. “Okay. I should start from the beginning.”
“You should start with a glass of water,” Eloise says. “Pen, are you okay with this?”
Penelope doesn’t seem to acknowledge her. “So when you said it was…that the person you kissed, it was the worst mistake of your life…”
“I was talking about a six-foot repressed lesbian, yes.”
“She says she’s ‘heteroflexible’,” Eloise says, shoving a glass of water into Colin’s hand.
Penelope sighs. “We’re pretty sure that’s a phase. Colin, why are you here?”
Colin chugs half of his water, suddenly aware that he might not want a dry throat soon, and holds the flowers out. “Erm. These are for you.”
Eloise and Penelope share another look.
“I’m going to Francesca’s,” Eloise says.
“Erm, are you sure - “
“Whatever’s going on between her and Michaela, they’ll live,” Eloise says dismissively, frantically stuffing her favorite UNESCO tote with her Switch and a change of underwear. “Or maybe Fran’ll finally figure it out and we can add her to the Bridgerqueer group chat. Which would be a win.”
“But El - “
“Pen,” Eloise says, “do you want me to stay? Because I don’t know what’s happening, but I think it’s not the worst-case scenario.” She gives Colin’s bouquet a meaningful look. “And I think that if it goes well, I should be out of the house.”
Penelope freezes. Colin lowers his arm.
“Go to Fran’s,” Penelope says quietly. “And tell her I said hi.”
Eloise shoulders her bag. “Can do. And Colin?”
Colin gulps. “Yeah?”
Eloise narrows her eyes and shows her teeth.
“Don’t fuck this up.”
Colin nods. “Yes, ma’am.”
Eloise snorts. “Idiot.”
Eloise slams the door behind her, and then it’s just him, Penelope, and a too-big bouquet of flowers, all the words they’ve never said filling up the space.
Penelope takes the bouquet from his hands, eyes full of wonder. “You got me gardenias.”
“I remembered you liked the smell. And that you hate yellow flowers, because they remind you of your mum’s decor.” Colin clears his throat. “Um, I also had the florist put some bluebells and baby’s breath in, for variety, and also because they had this whole ‘language of flowers’ card, and it said that bluebells meant humility, which are supposed to represent me, because I’m an idiot. And the baby’s breath - well, it’s probably premature, but it means -”
“Colin,” Penelope says, smiling for the first time in days, “take a breath.”
Colin does. It smells like gardenias.
“I’m going to go find a vase,” Penelope says.
“What did Cressida say to you last night?” Colin replies, unable to stop his mouth.
Penelope cradles the flowers, suddenly nervous. “Do you really want to know?”
“I got you those,” Colin says, “because not knowing’s been eating me up, Pen.”
Penelope can’t make eye contact with him anymore.
“She was trying to flirt with this man at the bar,” Penelope says slowly. “And Eloise was - I shouldn’t have said anything, but Eloise is my best friend, and I know there’s something between them, and she was right there. So I asked Cressida what she thought she was doing, and why she couldn’t talk to Eloise about it.”
Colin takes a deep breath, the scent of gardenias tickling his nose. “And?”
“And,” Penelope says, “she got mad, and said that she wasn’t taking advice from me. Because I’d been in love with you for years, and you’d never...”
She trails off. Colin closes his eyes, and sees red anyway.
He remembers it now. Sort of. Leaning against the bar next to Eloise and Cressida, Pen tucked against his side, listening to them banter. Listening to the banter escalate into a fight. Eloise yelling at Cressida. Cressida yelling at Penelope - maybe he’d take pity on you, if you lost a few stone .
Penelope crying and running away. Colin sprinting after her, to a dark corner of the bar near the bathrooms, near where he’d just beaten Anthony at darts. Colin grabbing her face and wiping her tears and feeling bowled over, all of a sudden, with the weight of how beautiful she was, refusing to let her turn away from him, refusing to let her leave.
Cressida Cowper, he’d slurred, is an idiot, and she’s wrong .
“Penelope,” he says, stepping close. “Can I try something?”
He’s always been on the tall side, but right now, he towers over her. He does his best to stay back, keeping his hands near his sides. To let her run, if she needs to.
She doesn’t. Instead, she nods.
Colin crouches down to kiss her, and the moment he bends over, his neck hurts.
“I knew it,” he mutters, laughing at the pain.
He kisses her again. He has to. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to stop, now that he knows how it feels. The crick in his neck is nothing, all of a sudden, because it brought him here.
“I knew it. It’s you. It’s always been you. Pen.”
Penelope drops the gardenias on the floor, and as he presses her against the wall to kiss her again and again and again, Colin can’t even complain about it.
After all, he has a lifetime to buy her flowers.
“Hey, Pen?”
Penelope stirs against his chest.
Colin feels a little guilty for waking her. They’d tired each other out, and she needed rest, considering the plans he had for her in the morning. (There were a few flat surfaces in the apartment they hadn’t christened, and they had time before Eloise got home.)
But he needed to talk to her, sober and clear-headed. Alcohol might have stolen his memories of their first kiss, but he wouldn’t let a single one after be forgotten.
Penelope snuggled closer to him. “Mm. You’re warm.”
He runs a hand through her hair. It’s gorgeous. She’s gorgeous. He’d fucked up so much, and somehow, he still got to have this. “Do you remember when I called you from Osaka?”
Penelope looks up at him. “At six in the morning? Of course I do.”
“It was six in the - shite.” Colin curses under his breath. “I forgot about time zones.”
Penelope hugs him closer. “You always do.”
Colin traces a few of the freckles on her back. “Not anymore.”
Penelope looks up.
“Colin…”
“You told me,” he says, “that wanting things makes me a person.” He runs his finger over the shape of another freckle constellation, consoling himself that one day, he’ll know them all. “I thought about it. And I think I want to stay here for a while.”
Penelope sits up. “What will you do?”
“I have the blog,” Colin says, feeling the plan come together as he speaks. “All of my writings, there’s a book in there somewhere. And if that doesn’t work, I have a camera. There’s plenty of pictures to take, and people pay for good ones.”
“But Colin,” Penelope says, “you love traveling.”
Colin purses his lips. It’s too soon to say it, even in his romantic mind.
But she has to know, right?
“I love a lot of things,” he says instead, and kisses her again.
He wondered if he would get used to it, after a while - if the rush he felt from kissing Pen was only because it was the first time. It hasn’t stopped, even after a night. He hopes he can test that theory forever.
“I love a lot of things,” he says, when they finally break apart. “But only one of them makes me feel like this.”
Penelope pushes him down and kisses him senseless, and Colin laughs into her mouth, wipes the tears from her eyes, and welcomes the rest of his life.
“No, Colin,” Anthony sighs, pushing him up, “you cannot invite your fiance to your stag night. That goes against the entire point.”
Colin scowls at his brother. “But this is the same bar!”
Simon elbows Anthony. “He’s right, you know.”
Anthony groans. “ Bugger.”
Michaela puts her lager down. “Same bar as what?”
Right. In the year her and Fran have been together, Michaela’s ingratiated herself into the family so thoroughly, sometimes Colin forgets that she’s not caught up on Bridgerton lore.
“I kissed Penelope for the first time,” Colin says, slapping the table, “here. Two years ago. And now she’s going to be my wife. She’s my wife , Michaela!”
Gregory rolls his eyes, and Colin pretends not to notice him mouthing along to “my wife”. “We know, Colin.”
“Don’t mock him,” Michaela says, laughing around her beer. “It’s sweet. Most men I know hate their partners, but this is a whole bloody family of wife guys.”
“And wife girls,” Gregory says, elbowing Michaela.
Michaela coughs. “Um, we’re not married, Greg.”
Colin snorts, because if Fran doesn’t have a ring on her finger within a year, Benedict’s heterosexual.
Speaking of, actually. “Where is Benedict? He was supposed to be getting me another - “
“ Colin,” Benedict says, shoving Michaela and Gregory over to collapse into their side of the booth, “Colin. My brother. My second-favorite sibling, my partner in crime, unfortunately straight sage of the ages. I need your help.”
“Weren’t you supposed to bring all of us another round?” Anthony asks patiently.
“Whatever,” Benedict says. “Colin . There’s a birthday party going on in the other room, and all the people are wearing masks, and I was chatting this girl up - sorry, person, they had a they/them pin, I think they’re nonbinary - and we kissed, and it was incredible -”
“Oh no,” Anthony mutters, in the voice of a man who’s seen all of this before.
“- and then they got a call on their phone and looked really stressed out and left, and I didn’t get their number, and they’re gone! ”
Colin blinks. “And?”
“And,” Benedict says, “Colin, I get it. I get it. I get what you said about Pen now. That person isn’t just a person. That’s the love of my life!”
“And,” Colin says, “you have no idea who they are.”
Benedict slumps across the table. “No, I do not.”
Colin looks around the table. Michaela looks like she’s won the lottery. Gregory looks confused. Simon is smirking knowingly.
Next to him, Anthony is clinging to his whiskey, and shaking with laughter.
“Benedict,” Colin says sagely, taking his brother’s hand. “How’s your neck?”