“Well, of course not. I’m not saying get your heart all tangled up in things. That sucker needs to patch itself up with some time. But that doesn’t mean you can’t distract yourself from this…what’s the guy’s name?”

“Evan.”

“Okay, no more Evan. Also, no more putting yourself down, acting like you’re not worthy of male attention. You’re freaking adorable.”

“You are,” Julie agreed. “I can think of about a dozen guys who would eat you up.”

“In the nondirty way,” Grace rushed to clarify.

“But the dirty way is the best kind,” Riley said, sounding confused.

“Regardless,” Emma said, “we don’t need a dozen guys to get your mind off this Evan.”

“Nope, just one will do,” Julie said.

“Okay, but I don’t know that Lincoln—”

“No, not Lincoln,” Julie said. “If the kiss was merely nice, he won’t do.”

“Then who—”

The guys chose that moment to barge back into the apartment, and judging from their talk about medium-rare, Grace was dead-on about their discussing steak.

The men froze by the door when they saw the women watching them, and Penelope watched as Riley’s fiancé leaned toward Cassidy and asked out of the corner of his mouth, “Why do I get the feeling we just walked into one of their disastrous plans?”

Cassidy shook his head, but he too looked wary. “I don’t know. But they’ve already got most of us ringed or on the way to the altar.”

“Most of us,” Jake said. “But not all.”

The other four men turned their attention to Cole and Lincoln, who’d both been looking at their phones and missed the whole thing.

They looked up, then looked at each other in confusion.

“Uh, what’d we miss?” Cole asked.

Julie’s husband, Mitchell, clapped Cole on the shoulder. “Don’t even worry about it, man. Chances are you don’t want to know.”

Cole frowned, his eyes moving around the room until they met Penelope’s. He lifted an eyebrow as though to ask Do you know what’s going on here?

Julie leaned toward Penelope with a knowing look on her face.

“Betcha Cole’s kisses are better than nice,” she said quietly.

“I wouldn’t know,” Penelope responded.

“Oh, but you will,” Julie said confidently, as she sat back and sipped her wine. “You will.”

Chapter 10

Cole and Penelope never discussed his walking her home. It just…happened.

It was snowing, but lightly, and Cole was relieved when Penelope looked content to walk through it rather than take a cab the several blocks to her place.

“I love snow,” she said as they trudged along the quiet sidewalks, lifting up her palms and letting the flakes land on her black gloved hands.

“Even in April?”

“Well, yeah, that’s kind of wrong. But still, it’s pretty.”

He smiled. “Sure, it’s pretty now. But will you love it when it’s piled up on the side of the curb, turned black from city grime, and creating a weeklong pile of slush at every crosswalk?”

Cole’d meant the comment as an off-the-cuff observation, but the way she was looking at him made him feel a bit like a grouch who’d declared the dessert table off-limits.

Then she surprised him with an equally gloomy response. “Everything pretty has an ugly underside.”

This time it was Cole’s turn to lift his eyebrows and look at her. “Dark thoughts, Tiny.”

“Oh, I don’t mean it in the depressed, glass-half-empty kind of way,” she explained. “But sometimes it’s better to be prepared, you know? To be aware that for every moment of wonder, another of disappointment is likely to follow.”

Cole considered this.

He was surprised to realize how closely her philosophy aligned with his own.

Cole knew how people saw him. He was aware of his charming, easygoing image. He cultivated it, even. Everyone assumed that nothing got under Cole’s skin because he never showed it getting under his skin.

But part of the reason he was able to maintain the happy-go-lucky vibe more often than not was precisely because of what Penelope was describing. He was always prepared for when the other shoe dropped; and as long as he knew it was coming, he could grin and bear it.

“So what about tonight?” he asked curiously. “You seemed like you were having fun.”

“Yes! So much fun,” she said, sounding so happy that his chest squeezed.

“So what’s the downside of a happy dinner party?” he asked teasingly. “What’s the ugly underside?”

She was quiet, and he was surprised to see that she was really thinking about it.

They walked another half block before she replied. “The dark side will happen later tonight. When I’m almost asleep,” she said quietly. “It won’t quite be jealousy, but…something close to it.”

He supposed he should stop being surprised by Penelope Pope’s unabashed honesty, but she continued to catch him off guard with her openness.

“Jealous of…” he prompted.

“Their happiness,” she said quietly, sounding a little embarrassed. “I get that you’re a dedicated bachelor and all that, but surely it doesn’t escape how in love they are with their respective partners?”