He drew a deep breath. “Yeah, well, love sucks.”

Elle didn’t even try to disagree. “Sometimes, absolutely,” she agreed. “But the thing is, once you’ve been hit over the head with it, it actually sucks a lot more to walk away and leave it behind.”

“I’m not the one walking away,” he said.

“Maybe it’ll pass,” she said. “Maybe . . . maybe it’s just a really powerful crush.”

“Deep green,” he said.

Elle blinked. “Huh?”

“Colbie’s eyes are a clear, piercing green, but sometimes they’re more like jade when she’s sad or upset.”

She was still staring at him. “You’ve finally gone off the deep end.”

“How long have I known you? And the others? And I don’t know what color anyone else’s eyes are.” Not even Clarissa’s. “But I know Colbie’s. I also know that she bites her lower lip when she’s trying not to smile. That her comfort food of choice is mac and cheese. That she loves and cares about her family more than she worries about herself. That she can laugh at herself and life. Hell, she makes me laugh at life, and we both know that’s a real feat in itself.”

Elle was still just staring at him. “Interesting,” she said. “It’s not just any woman who can get you to slow down and notice the little things.” She shook her head. “I guess I have no choice but to let this go. Or at least try.”

“Try real hard,” he suggested. “And while I’m asking something of you, I’m going to ask this too—she’s alone out here. No friends, no family. Can’t you and the girls invite her to something?”

“Like?”

“Like the chick nights you have where you all get together and . . . I don’t know, whatever it is you all do.”

Elle looked amused. “Just for curiosity’s sake, what is it that you think we do?”

“Look, all I know is that last month you, Pru, Willa, Kylie, and Haley all went to some drag show and ended up onstage. When the club got raided by the police for some shady dealings in the back rooms, everyone got dragged downtown. Archer, Finn, and Joe had to bail you all out.”

“You want me to get your girlfriend arrested?”

“No,” he said. “I really, really don’t want you to get her arrested. I want you to include her in your crazy-ass gang and make nice.”

“I don’t make nice easily.”

“No shit.” Spence gave her the look that he knew she could never resist. “Just try. For me, okay? If you get the others involved, it won’t look like I made you make friends with her.”

Elle blew out a sigh and hopped off his desk. “The things I do for you.”

When Spence was alone, he stood at the window and tried to gather his thoughts. Yeah, okay, so he was in deeper than he’d thought, or even planned on. But what he hadn’t yet admitted to anyone, including himself, was that even if Colbie expressed an interest in making this work, he still wasn’t sure they could. Could he change his habits? Let her in, all the way in? He wondered if these worries had anything to do with why his grandpa had picked up and left his family, out of the blue.

And did the old man have regrets?

Shaking his head—there was no use going there—Spence called Colbie. He’d already told her Joe and Archer knew. “Elle too.”

Colbie was quiet for a beat. “Okay.”

“Don’t worry—they’ll keep it to themselves.”

“They’re your people,” she said. “If you trust them, then so do I.”

His people. He had his people, and she had hers. It already felt as though they were a continent apart.

One afternoon Colbie was writing away and getting lots of pages while she was at it, when Elle texted her to come to her second-floor office. Okay . . . When she got up there, she found Pru, Willa, Kylie, Haley, and Elle going through a trunk of costumes.

“Girls’ night out,” Elle said to Colbie.

Kylie was wearing a headband with a feather in it, a flapper dress, and some seriously high heels. “Hard to snag a good man when you’re as short as me,” she said.

“But can you walk in those?” Colbie asked doubtfully.

“To be determined.”

“There are worse things than being short, you know,” Haley said.

“True,” Kylie said. “There are actually great things about being short. For instance, when you hug a guy and you feel his heartbeat against your ear, you know exactly where to stab him if he hurts you.”

“She’s just kidding,” Willa told Colbie.

Behind Willa’s back, Kylie shook her head. No, she was not kidding.

Haley, who didn’t like men at all, just grinned. Willa was in only a bra and panties, pawing through the trunk. “The twenties theme is harder than I thought it’d be to pull off. I don’t look good in hats.”

Pru was in her boat captain’s uniform. Or at least the pants and boots. She wore no top and was talking with someone on the phone. “Don’t worry,” she was saying. “We don’t plan to get arrested this time.”

Colbie hesitated. “So . . . you got arrested last time?”

“Yes, but that hardly ever happens,” Kylie said and tossed Colbie an outfit.

“We for sure can’t get arrested again tonight,” Pru piped in. “I’ve gotta work in the morning. Plus I promised Finn.”

“Party pooper,” Kylie said.

“You in?” Elle asked Colbie.

She had no idea. Back home she didn’t have a lot of friends. Janeen and Tracy. Jackson. Andrea Horvath, her editor. Most everyone else had fallen by the wayside when she’d gotten so busy.

“Colbie?” Willa asked.

“I’ve never actually been on a girls’ night,” she admitted.

“Why not?” Haley asked. “You and your tribe too busy or something?”

They had all paused what they were doing and were looking at her with varying degrees of curiosity.

“This is a little embarrassing,” Colbie said.

“It can’t be as embarrassing as when we took Pru to the spa and she screamed the house down during her Brazilian,” Elle said.

“Hey,” Pru said. “My bits are extremely sensitive.”

Colbie sighed. “I don’t exactly have a tribe.”

They all blinked collectively.

“You don’t have any friends?” Willa asked.

“Not ones that I can just call up and go out and get arrested with.”

“One time,” Pru said and sighed.

Willa smiled sweetly at Colbie and squeezed her hand. “Well, you can change that right here and now. Elle put tonight together, including you, so you’ve got your girlfriends now. Us. Right, guys?”

They all nodded enthusiastically. Well, except for Elle. Her nod wasn’t quite enthusiastic, but Colbie got the feeling that she didn’t do enthusiastic, so she decided to take it.

Chapter 25

#WhatTheFlip

They all finished dressing from the trunk and Colbie looked around, thinking they looked amazing. She glanced down at the clothes Elle had given her. Clothes being a loose term for a mini halter fringe dress, headband, belly button– length strand of pearls, and thigh-high stockings with lace trim along the tops.

She didn’t recognize herself.

They’d just gotten out of an Uber at some exclusive, fancy nightclub in the Financial District, ready to partake in Murder Mystery Night.

“I just hope I’m the murderer, not the murderee,” Elle said. “I don’t look good in blood.”

The six of them were dressed as—near as Colbie could tell—prostitutes from the Roaring Twenties.

“I wouldn’t mind being the bad guy,” Haley said and smiled. “Elle plans the best girls’ nights out.”

“Of course I do,” Elle said.

Inside, they headed to the bar. A few minutes later, Pru eyed the line of shots in front of all of them and grimaced. “Tomorrow morning’s going to hurt.”

They were each given role cards with their story lines and information. Colbie realized she was the victim, but according to the rules, she couldn’t tell anyone. She was to mingle until half past nine and then “vanish.” But really she’d be allowed into a back room, a greenroom, where she’d be able to drink and eat and watch the next half hour on the monitors as the guests tried to solve her murder.