Nate huffed faintly, but Colin was undeterred, his gaze drifting between the two of us with something thoughtfulflickering behind his eyes. “Jane is happy too. Well, I mean, not so much right now, but in general. She and Alex have got a hell of a good life. A great marriage. They’re a real power couple.”
“Yeah,” Nate agreed, obviously shaking off the faux offense he’d taken to Colin implying that he hadn’t been happy before. “They really are good together. I wondered about it on the day they got married—I won’t deny that—but there’s always been something there.”
“I agree.” Colin nodded slowly. “You know, it might honestly be easier if I just did what you people do and arranged my own marriage.”
I was so surprised that I almost toppled off the desk, but Nate just raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Colin gave me a pointed glance before looking back at Nate. “It worked out for you.”
“That’s debatable.”
“Hey.” I nudged Nate’s shoulder with my knee. “I’m right here.”
He winked, sliding a hand along my calf and just letting it rest there. “Yeah. Okay. Maybe it did, but it came very close to being an absolute disaster.”
Colin chuckled quietly. “Still. It’s an efficient solution that solves a few problems at once.”
Something about the way he said it was odd. He wasn’t joking exactly, but he wasn’t entirely serious either. It was more like he was just thoughtful, turning the idea over in his mind like he was unsure what to do with it.
Finally, he tapped a rhythm out on his thigh and stood, grinning again. “Anyway, I should get going. I just came to check in with you.”
We said our goodbyes, and after he left, the door hadn’t even clicked fully shut yet before Nate leaned back in his chair,rubbing a hand over his jaw like he was already mentally moving on to the next thing.
“Do you think he was serious about that?” I asked before he could forget that Colin had even said it. “The arranging his own marriage thing.”
“Nah. He was joking.”
I shook my head. “No way. He wasnotjoking.”
Nate glanced up at me. “We’re not getting involved.”
“Come on, you can’t tell me you didn’t notice that he was almost serious about it,” I said. “Plus, he brought Jane and Alex into it too. It wasn’t just because he was here with us.”
He sighed, the kind that suggested he thought I was being dramatic, which, fine, maybe I was, but I wasn’t wrong. “He was trying to drop hints that he wants in on this too. It worked for his sister. It worked for you, his friend, so why not him? Did you really miss that? He was asking for yourhelp.”
Nate frowned as I slid off the desk and started pacing. Then he let out a quiet laugh. “No, he wasn’t. He was definitely not.”
“Yes, he was,” I argued mildly. “He wants you to help him arrange a marriage of his own.”
“He was making a joke, Katie.”
“He wasnot,” I insisted. “That was a calculated conversational pivot.”
Nate stared at me for a long moment like he was trying to decide whether I was serious. He shook his head finally. “You’re reading too much into it.”
“I amnot.”
“You are.”
I pursed my lips. “He practically asked you to set him up.”
“He did nothing of the sort, baby.” Nate shook his head slowly, like this was somehow exhausting for him. “Even if he was, I’m not the matchmaker in this family. He’ll have to talk to Alex about it. He’s much better at that.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but then I paused because he wasn’t wrong. Having recently met Trent and Charlotte, I really couldn’t argue the point. Alexdidseem to have a knack for it. Which was slightly alarming, considering how dramatically he’d rearranged multiple lives in one go.
Still, Colin hadn’t been joking. I was certain of it. I perched on the edge of Nate’s desk again when he went back to typing like this conversation had been settled. It hadn’t, but I let it go for now.
“Is Alex making moves yet to come back to work?” I asked after a moment.
