Page 2 of Criminally Yours

Good.

Millie shook her limbs, resetting her body to enforce the same to her mind. “I’m nearly there. Are you and Dad set for your holiday?”

“We’re at the docks already. I can’t wait.”

“I’m sure you’ll have a lovely anniversary trip.”What I’d give for a four-week cruise.

“As long as your father stays in line.”

“Will you cope with not calling me every day?” Millie cheeked, although speaking to her mum daily was a habit she was keen to break.

“I’ll struggle, but I’ll try to be okay with it. Have you got conversation starters for the social? You need to engage with people to make friends.”

“Yes, I’ve got them.” Millie turned into an alleyway and rifled through her bag, her hand diving between lip balms and hand cream. She squeezed her e-reader briefly.

“And they’re not about what Theodore what’s-his-face billionaire book boyfriend said on page fifty-five ofDanger Seekeror whatever it’s called?”

“I’ve researched how to make friends. My list includes questions about people’s jobs, their favourite holiday destinations, and where they’re from. It’s like dating but worse.” Millie stopped by a huge bin and rubbed her eyes. “I can’t wait to get home, take my bra off, put pyjamas on, and have a book in my hand.”

“Please do this for me.”

Her mum wanted the best for her, as she always had, but Millie couldn’t forget the numerous rows she’d had with her parents over studying to be a counsellor rather than a doctor when her mum had insisted she focus on a “solid career.”

“Okay. Love you, Mum. Travel safely, and see you in a month. And don’t call me.”

“Love you, little pixie.”

Millie rolled her eyes at the nickname her parents and brother used. “Love you.”

Millie hung up and rechecked her maps app. The social was at a bar at the end of the quiet side street and around the corner.

She fumbled for her purse to make sure she had her ID ready.

She was still carded when buying alcohol from the supermarket. She wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or offended. When she was completing a counselling degreeplacement, someone had asked her if it was Bring Your Daughter to Work Day and where her dad was.

She stowed her bag and grabbed her phone.

She never felt like a child when she scrolled her apps. She had her book account, but there was also an app she considered her gateway to anonymity.

Her fingers danced over her phone, drawn to the app no one knew about, tempted to see what comments and messages the men she outrageously flirted with had sent her that day.

They’d give her courage for the mingle.

She giggled at a message from a man who called her a vixen with a social life to rival influencers. Another asked if she was jumping into a different stranger’s bed every night. A third complimented her on her underwear choices.

She didn’t post photos, but she described things.

She led a dual life, but at least on the app, no one told her she was like a little sister or rejected her because of her kindness.

They didn’t know the real her, and that allowed her to express her wild side freely. She never lied to them, but they still presumed a twenty-seven-year-old single woman with a dirty mind must be having the time of her life.

If the time of your life meant thinking about your former best friend whom you’d lost your virginity to and never saw again, then sure, her life was peaches and unicorns.

She opened her book account and sent a message to her book friend, Rylee, in America.

They’d never met and never would, but it didn’t make their friendship less.

Millie: I don’t want to go.