CHAPTER ONE
“DRINKS ARE ON the house!”
A cheer went up from the gang, not just because Colleen O’Rourke—the bartender and half owner of the best (and only) bar in town—had just offered free booze, but because Brandy Morrison and Ted Standish had just gotten engaged.
Colleen hugged the happy couple once more, then went behind the bar and accepted high fives from her regulars as she pulled beers and mixed martinis, poured wine and slid glasses down the bar. After all, Brandy and Ted were her doing. That made...hmm...fourteen couples she’d set on the road to matrimony? No, fifteen! Not bad. Not bad at all.
“Good job, Coll,” said Gerard Chartier, accepting his free Cooper’s Cave IPA. He sat at the end of the bar, where the fire department was having a “meeting,” the agenda of which seemed to be O’Rourke’s list of microbrews. She wasn’t complaining. They were good for business.
“Your sorry single state hasn’t gone unnoticed,” she said, rubbing his bald head. “Not to worry. You’re next.”
“I’d rather stay single.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Trust Auntie Colleen, ever wise and all-knowing.”
“Colleen!” her brother, Connor, yelled from the kitchen. “Stop harassing the customers!”
“I’m part of our charm!” she yelled back. “Gang, are you feeling harassed?”
A satisfying chorus of no answered her. She breezed into the kitchen. “Hi, Rafe,” she greeted the backup chef, who was making one of his famous cheesecakes. “Save some of that for me, okay?”
“Of course, my truest love,” he said, not looking at her. He was g*y. All the good ones were.
“Brother mine,” Colleen said to her twin, “what bug is up your ass?”
“You just gave away three hundred dollars’ worth of booze, that’s what,” he said.
“Brandy and Ted got engaged. Beautiful ring, too.”
“Your work, Collie?” Rafe asked.
“As a matter of fact, yes. They’d been eyeing each other for weeks. I gave a gentle shove, and voilà. I expect I’ll be a bridesmaid. Again.”
Rafe smiled. “And when will you work your superpowers on your own self, lovey?”
“Oh, never. I’m too smart for all that. I like to use men for purely physical—”
“Stop! No one wants to hear about your sex life,” Connor said.
“I do,” said Rafe.
She grinned. Tormenting her brother, though they were both thirty-one, was still one of the great joys in life.
“It seems like such a waste. All that, unclaimed.” Rafe gestured to her torso and face.
“She got burned when she was young,” Connor told Rafe.
“Oh, please. That’s not why I’m single. Besides, you’re single, too. It’s all part of our dysfunctional childhood, Rafe.”
“Don’t even try,” he said, adding the sour cream layer to the cake. “I was a g*y boy born to Jehovah’s Witnesses and grew up in East Texas with five older brothers who all played football. It was Friday Night Lights meets The Birdcage meets Swamp People. No one can compete with me in the land of dysfunctional families.”
“You totally win,” Colleen said. “Con and I only had a cheating father and—
“Isn’t tonight your night off?” Connor interrupted.
“Yep. But I came in because I sensed, using our magical twinsy bond, that you missed me.”
“You sensed wrong,” he muttered. “Get out of my kitchen. Your posse just came through the door.”
“He has batlike hearing,” Rafe said.
“I know. It’s creepy. Bye, boys! Don’t forget my piece of heaven, Rafe. Connor, come say hi. Everyone loves you, for some reason.”
She went back out into the bar and sure enough, there were the girls: Faith Holland, her oldest pal in the world (and a newlywed, and while Colleen couldn’t claim that one as her idea, she’d nonetheless helped keep them together); Honor, Faith’s older sister (bone-dry martini, three olives), someone Colleen had definitely helped with sweet Tom Barlow—their wedding would be in early July; and Prudence, the oldest Holland sister (gin and tonic, now that it was spring), married for decades.
“How’s tricks, Holland girls? Honor, you want your usual? Pru, a G&T? And what about you, Faithie? I have some strawberries I’ve been saving for you...a little vodka, a little mint, splash of lemon...want to try one?”
“Just water for me,” Faith said.
“Oh, lordy, are you pregnant?” Colleen blurted. Faith and Levi had gotten married in January, and from the way he looked at her, those two got it on like weasels. And you know what they say about weasels.
“I didn’t say that.” But she blushed, and Honor smiled.
“Well, I hope you are,” said Pru. “Nothing like the blessing of kids, even though I thought I would kill Abby the other day. She asked if she could get her tongue pierced. I said sure, I’d get a hammer and a nail and we could do it right now if she was that dumb, and the conversation devolved from there.”
“Hi, girls,” Connor said dutifully, having emerged from the kitchen.
“Con, bring Pru and Honor their regulars, and a big glass of ice water for Faith here.”
“I thought you wanted me to say hi, not to wait on you,” he said. “Faith, are you pregnant?”
“No! Maybe. Just shush,” Faith said. “I’m thirsty, that’s all.”
“Connor Cooper would be a great name,” he suggested.
“I think it sounds pretentious,” Colleen said. “Colleen Cooper, or Colin for a boy...now we’re talking. Con, how about those drinks? And some nachos?”
Her brother gave her a dark look but left obediently, and Colleen settled back in her seat. “Guess what you missed? Brandy Morrison and Ted Standish just got engaged! He got down on one knee and everything, and she was crying, and it was beautiful, ladies! Beautiful!”
Hannah, Colleen’s cousin, brought over their food and drinks, and Prudence launched into a story of her latest adventure in keeping things fresh in the old conjugal bed. Very entertaining. Coll scanned the bar as Pru talked, making sure all was running smoothly.
It occurred to her that spending her night off at work was maybe not 100 percent healthy. Granted, options were limited in Manningsport, New York, a town of just over seven hundred. She could be home, reading and cuddling with Rufus, her enormous Irish wolfhound mutt, who would love nothing more than to stare into her eyes in adoration for several hours. One couldn’t rule out the ego boost that provided.
Or, Colleen thought, she could be out on a date. Rafe had a point.
It’s just that every guy she met seemed to be lacking something. She hadn’t felt the tingle in a long, long time.
As the proprietor of the only year-round alcohol-serving establishment in town, Colleen saw a lot of relationships blossom or end in a fiery crash. When things went right, it was generally because the woman had cleverly manipulated the guy into good dating behavior. He’d call when he said he would. Put some thought into dates. He’d ask questions about her life because she didn’t vomit up all her personal history in the first ten minutes.
Far more common, however, was the fiery crash model, when Colleen mixed a sympathy cosmo or poured an extra ounce of Pinot Grigio into a glass for a woman who had no idea what went wrong. Colleen could tell her, of course, and sometimes did... Maybe you shouldn’t have talked about your ex for two hours, or Is telling him you were just cleared for fertility treatments a good idea on the first date?
Happily, the now-engaged Brandy had asked Colleen for advice from the start. Should I go out with him again tomorrow? Is it okay to sleep with him yet? How about if I text him right now?
The answers: No, no and no.
“Colleen,” said the bride-to-be now, “I just wanted to thank you again for everything.” She bent down and gave Coll a hug. “Bridesmaid?”
“Of course!” Colleen said. “You two...mazel tov! I’m so happy for you!”
“Thanks, Coll,” Ted said. “You’re the best.”
“My fifteenth couple,” she said to the Holland sisters as the happy couple left for some monkey sex, one presumed.
“You have a gift,” Faith said, taking a slab of nachos onto her plate.
“And yet just last night, there was some poor woman in here, begging the guy she was with not to dump her, and I took her aside and said, ‘Honey, if you have to beg, do you really want this loser?’ But of course, she kept crying and begging, and it was agony, I tell you.” She finished her drink, one of the strawberry thingies Faith had passed on. “Maybe I should teach a class. Pru, when Abby starts dating, you send her to me.”
“Will do. And thanks, because God knows, she’s not listening to me these days.”
“Excuse me,” came a voice, and all three of them looked up.
“Hey, Paulie,” Colleen said. “How are you? Have a seat!”
Paulina “Paulie” Petrosinsky pulled up a chair, swung it backward and straddled it. She’d been Faith and Colleen’s classmate—not quite a friend back in the day, but really nice. She came into O’Rourke’s once in a while, usually after a workout at the gym, where her weight lifting skills were the stuff of legend.
“Um...I overheard you say something about, uh, teaching people? Women?” she asked.
“Slut University,” Pru said, and Faith and Honor snorted.
“Very funny,” Colleen said. “My reputation is greatly exaggerated.”
“And whose fault is that?” Faith asked. “You should stop spreading rumors about yourself.”
Colleen smiled. Had she in fact written something flattering about herself on the men’s room wall just last week? She had. “Ignore my so-called friends,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Um...can you really help a, um, a person? With, uh...you know. Love and men and stuff?” Paulie’s face turned deep red, then purple.
“Are you all right?” Honor asked, frowning a little.
“Oh, that. My face. It’s called idiopathic craniofacial erythema. I...I blush. A lot.”
“Wish I could hang around,” Prudence said. “We farm people have to get up early. Good luck with your man, Paulie! See you, girls!”
“So are you interested in someone in particular?” Colleen asked, scootching over into Pru’s vacated chair to make more room at the table.
Paulie swallowed. “Yeah,” she whispered, glancing around.
“Who?” Faith asked.
“Um...I’d rather not say.”
Colleen nodded. “What do you like about him?”
“He’s...he’s just so nice. I mean, really kind, right? And he’s cheerful and good and smart, I think, too. I mean, he...well. He’s great.”
Colleen smiled. “And do you feel sick when you see him, and then hot, and then nauseous?”
“Exactly,” Paulie said, her face purpling again.
“Do you imagine conversations with him, holding hands and moonlit walks and all that other mushy stuff?”
“I—yes. I do.” Paulie took a shaky breath.
“Does he make your danger zone tingly? Does your skin get hot, do your knees wobble, does your tongue feel swollen—”
Faith stood up. “I miss Levi,” she announced. She gave Colleen a kiss on the cheek and squeezed her sister’s shoulder. “Good luck, Paulie! Take Colleen with a grain of salt.”
“I’m going, too,” Honor said. “Bye, matchmaker. Do no harm, mind you. See you, Paulina.”
“So who is this guy?” Colleen asked when they were gone.
