Page 1 of Criminally Yours

CHAPTER 1

Millie

“Idon’t want to go,” Millie grumbled into the phone as she pushed her glasses to the top of her head, snagging strands of her fringe in the clasp. “Argh!”

“What now?” her mum asked, her voice blasting from the mobile.

“I caught my hair in my glasses.” She waited for a lecture about how she needed to sort out her glasses, her ratty hair, or her entire life. There was always something.

Millie checked the map on her phone. The organisers of Single Mingle, an event for single people in their twenties, chose one of the sketchiest neighbourhoods in London. “I’m not sure tonight is for me.”

“We’ve talked about this,” her mum replied with an exasperated sigh. “You can’t spend your life in your little flat in the middle of a city, hoping you’ll magically find friends, a social life, or—god forbid—a boyfriend.”

Millie pursed her lips.

“Going remote was the worst thing you did for your counselling business. You don’t see people face-to-face. You’ve hidden in your new flat for the last six months,surrounded by your books. At least in Manchester, you spoke to the people you graduated with years ago. Talking to people online isn’t the same…”

Millie tuned her mum out. They’d had this conversation too many times. Online friends were real friends, and she had people all over the world who shared her love of spicy books. Even though she’d never met them in person and probably never would, they cared about her.

“Wear your biggest fake smile tonight, Millie.”

She wanted new people in her life, but anytime she’d tried to meet others, she ended up on the edge of the group, watching as everyone else had fun.

Millie sighed and forced a smile.

“Don’t sigh,” her loving but misguided mum continued. “You’re too used to listening and caring about people. You forget to show the real you and let people get to know you.”

I don’t even show you the real me.

“I struggle to connect with people, Mum, and to make friends.” Some said it was her particular brand of sarcastic sunshine.

She gulped as she glanced at the road to her right, where the map directed her. Half the streetlights were broken, and trainers hung from the power lines.

Everything about this area was a red flag.

The graffiti covering one wall announced Neil wanted Kinka to suck him off, and another suggested Neil wanted a “blowey from Zoey.” Greedy Neil.

She rolled her eyes at the street art of a soldier kissing a woman. She didn’t need reminders of her best friend and neighbour who had ran away to join the army.

Online friends and book boyfriends didn’t break her heart like he had.

“I know you struggle, darling, which is why you need this mingle. I want you to be happy, and you’re not.”

“That’s not entirely true.” She smirked, remembering the cowboy romance she’d read on the train. The single dad cowboy fucked the nanny like his life depended on it. “Real-life men only want me to listen to their problems.”

The man she’d met off Tinder last year said she was “such a good listener and so cute. You’re like the little sister I never had.” The hot hockey players she read about would never say that. They’d bend her over a kitchen counter and?—

“Please tell me you’ve put effort into what you’re wearing.”

Millie glanced at her jeans and trainers. Her jumper had stars on it, and she wasn’t in sweats like she wanted to be. She pulled on her bottom lip. “Yup.”

“Liar.”

Millie kicked at a ball of scrunched rubbish before popping it in the bin. London wasn’t like her hometown.

The longing to drive two hours to see her mum picked at her, but her parents wouldn’t be there. Besides, she couldn’t face proximity to her old best friend’s house after seeing that street art, even though she’d probably read a soldier romance into the early hours.

She glanced back toward the street art, yawning, but it was out of view.