The question takes me by surprise. Rotating toward him with a furrow in my brow, I ask, “What are you talking about?”
“You can’t host our wedding, Declan.”
“Why not?” I ask, feeling blindsided.
His shoulders slump away from his ears, and his smile fades into a cold, flat expression. “You know why. Get Anna to do it.”
It’s cute when he tries to be bossy.
“Since when areyouthe one telling me what to do?” I quip back.
I have a choice here. Give in to his request and take the easy way out of this situation or make things difficult for everyone. And I’ve never been suited to make things easy on anyone.
“Don’t,” he mutters, turning his seething gaze from my face. I can’t believe how quickly we’ve changed the tone in the room from playful old friends to bitter and resentful ex-friends. As if we left this fight lying on the floor and one of us just picked it back up again.
“Don’t what, Shakespeare? You’re the one who invited me to lunch today. You’re the one who showed up at my house to marry your hot American boyfriend.”
“I told you not to call me that!” he barks.
Seeing him fired up only gets me fired up. I’ve always loved Colin’s antagonistic side. I never got to see it very often.
“Why? Because it reminds you that we were once friends? Until you left.”
“Me?” he replies with outrage. “Do you not rememberwhyI left?”
I stand from the stool and pass by him toward the table where my brushes and paints are stored. I’m purposefully not engaging with him. I don’t want him to think he’s getting under my skin or that I’m bothered at all by this situation.
“Honestly? No. I don’t think about it much at all anymore.”
“It is so typical of you to conveniently forget your own blame in any situation. You truly think of no one but yourself. You are such an arsehole, Declan,” he says. The hint of pain in his words has me faltering as I reach for the black paint. It hurts Colin to be vexed with me. To call me names. Tohateme.
“Don’t act like this is news to you,” I reply flatly.
“You’re right. It’s not. I always knew you were heartless,” he says in a biting tone.
“Right, so you can go ahead and stop flirting with me or whatever this is. It’s pathetic, Shakespeare.”
“We are not flirting, Declan. We’re not fucking either.”
I let out a clipped laugh as I pry open the can of paint and sloppily stir it up, letting the thick black contents splash onto the table and my hands.
“You made that very clear when you brought your fiancé to my house,” I reply with a chuckle.
“I’m not playing games here, Dec,” he says with a serious tilt of his head.
“Och,” I reply with a grunt. “That’s exactly what you’re doing, Colin. But don’t worry. I can play games too.”
“I’m not—” he argues, but something in me snaps. I put a paint-covered hand on his chest to stop him. Abruptly, I shove him back, and in typical Colin fashion, he relents, obeying my push.
“Yes, you are. You’re the one who came up here, thinking you could tell me what I can and cannot do, but that’s not how this works and you know it. You never could stand up for yourself, so why don’t you go back to doing what everyone tells you to? Like the little pushover you are.
“And listen, I don’t care that you think I’m a selfish, ignorant prick. I don’t care that I hurt your feelings, so now, you want to hurt mine. And I don’t care that you’re getting married. I’m happy for you. I am, so why don’t you stop trying to pick this fight just so you can feel something with me again, because it’s not going to happen. We’re done, remember? We ended things seven years ago, Colin. I feelnothingfor you anymore. You’re just someone I used to know. That’s it.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I have a wedding to host, and you have a man to marry. So why don’t you just leave me the hell alone so we can both get what we want?”
He’s breathing heavily, the sound of it audible in the now-silent room. And I’ll admit, I love the vitriol in his eyes. After so many years of his eager compliance, I love seeing Colin show a little teeth.
It gives me something to tame. And tame him, I will.
