I’ve dated a few more women here and there, but after my dad passed, my focus shifted to the store. The years passed, and I’m still seeking somethingreal, but my mom had cautioned that love couldn't be hunted down. That if I sprinted toward it, tried to force it, it would only slip further from reach.
Patience.My person is out there, somewhere in the world. I would find them when I least expected it, and that would make the timing right.
So, I focused on building—the business, the book club, and true friendships. I’ve never felt like something wasmissingfrom my life without romance. In fact, my life is quite whole, and I like who I am, and I know what I want.
I think it’s important for people to know themselves fullybefore they belong to someone else.
I have good friends, both in the book club and my best friends, Jack and Oliver, even though they moved from Starling Cove after high school.
Jack joined the military after graduation. His home life was rough, and his parents planned to kick him out when he turned eighteen. Mom offered him a room in our house, but he said he needed to make it on his own. He's stationed in North Carolina now, dating a woman named Samantha.
Oliver, on the other hand, is a true brainiac. Graduated Valedictorian of our class and went on to Harvard for medical school. He's in Houston completing his Emergency Medicine residency, but he's hoping to move back to Massachusetts when he's done.
We have weekly calls together to catch up, make sure we're all doing well, and see if we need anything. Their friendships are very valuable to me. They were there when I had no one, and I was there when they were new and alone. They flew right home for me after my dad died. No hesitation.
I have everything I could ever really need in my life. My mom is healthy and happy. I have a safe home, fulfilling work, hobbies I love, and a strong circle of friends.
So when I do enter a relationship, I want it to be the right one. I want to know in my bones that it's the woman I want to marry and have a family with. I just don't think I've ever met a woman who understood me to my core and accepted me as I am.
The women in the book club get me, but definitely not likethat.
April is way too young.
Bailey is already dating a lawyer named Michael, who worships the ground she walks on, and is apparently looking to propose within the next year.
Jane and Atticus are clearly in love with each other.
Dating Tonya would be like dating my sister. Not to mention the fact that she's a lesbian and still grieving for her wife. Tonya puts on a brave front—abrasive, sarcastic, and tough as nails—but I know what's beneath the surface. Her wife died a couple of years ago in a sudden and rather violent car accident, killed by a drunk driver.
From what she's told me, she didn't just grieve—sheunraveled. For a year, she could barely function. It wasn't until a friend dragged her to a grief support group that she began to find a way forward.
That's where I met her. This blunt, tattooed woman spoke about her wife like she was the best part of her world and wore sarcasm like armor. She and her wife had been married for 10 years, and one careless man ended that love story in an instant.
I've seen firsthand what love can do—the joy it brings, and the devastation it leaves behind when it's ripped away. If I'm going to risk falling, I want it to be for something real and with the right person.
I want to fall in love with someone and cherish her the way my dad cherished my mom. I want to make sure she knows, every single day, that she's loved and that she's safe with me. I want to make her happy.
And I want her to understand me and what the store means to me. I want her to love reading so we can talk about books for hours. I want her to be kind to everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from.
I want her to accept my mom as she is—not to agree with everything, but to love her anyway. I want her to accept that I don't want to leave this town for bigger and better things.
That was the reason one of my last relationships ended. Heather thought I lacked ambition because I had no interest in turningRivers & Rhodesinto a chain. I just want to stay here,in my little corner of the world, with my mom, my store, and my friends.
I want to be accepted as I am. I want what my mom and dad had.
I want...
... dark hair, wide blue-green eyes, the most beautiful smile I've ever seen...
Pulling into my usual spot near the store, I turn the engine off and head back inside. Shutting off the lights and locking up, I head to thePRIVATEdoor and walk upstairs to the apartment.
It's a spacious three-bedroom, plenty of room for us, decorated by my mom and filled with some old furniture and trinkets from my childhood home.
After my dad died, my mom said she felt the house was too big and too empty, and wanted to sell it. I had been living on my own in an apartment when he passed, but had been staying with her here and there after the funeral. I didn't want her to be alone, so I broke my lease and started construction on our apartment.
For the house, we waited for the right buyers, and when a young family with two boys inquired, we sold it to them. They loved the house that my dad had poured so much love into, making it my mom's dream home. Mom had said things like that should be passed down to those who need them, not kept out of fear or sentimentality.
While it was bittersweet, it made me happy to think that those boys would be able to use the treehouse that my dad carefully constructed for me with love, creating their own memories.
