“Maybe I’m just not feeling it,” I answer back, petulantly.
“You don’t really mean that.”
I didn’t, but no one else had to know that. “Why is it thatI’mthe one getting singled out here? Both Marie and Reece are single right now. And I’m pretty sure Jace just broke up with his girlfriend.”
“I’m pretty sure they just got back together,” came Jonah’s quick response.
That had me rolling my eyes. “Can you focus? Who cares about that. Don’t you see the unfairness to this situation?”
Jonah sighed. “Bran, we’re just worried about you. You’ve been perpetually single for your entire life. Lila wants you to find happiness.”
“Through amatchmaker?”
“What?” He laughed. “Crazier things have happened. Look at Sara. She got married to Tom after knowing him for three weeks.”
Okay, that was probably the worst example my brother could’ve ever given me. Not only was my half-sister a hapless romantic, but she was impulsive as hell.
Taking a trip up to the mountains after getting fired from her big-wig job in the city, she’d ended up getting herself snowed in in this little remote village out in the middle of nowhere for three entire weeks until the county next door to them had enough manpower to plow everyone out.
In that time, she’d ended up bunking with the manager of the motel she’d been staying at, getting a little more than just cozy by the fireplace with him. By the time she’d come back to Edgewood, she’d had a ring on her finger and a damn baby in her belly.
Five years later and those two were still crazy in love with another little one on the way.
“That’s not the point.” I forced the words out.
What Ireallywanted to say was that therewasno point.
To any of this.
I wasn’t going to magically get matched up with my soulmate and fall madly in love with him and run off into the sunset while we laughed and canoodled the entire way to our honeymoon destination.
My soulmate wasn’t some man that sought the help of a matchmaker and had hope of one day finding their true match. Or even really believed in the power of love at all.
Honestly, my soulmate probably never existed in the first place. I’d been cursed to forever fatefully find myself obsessed with the one man I could never have. Therefore, denying me of a soulmate for being stupid enough to let myself fall into this trap in the first place.
It was my own dumbass fault for getting my emotions too entangled with Avery’s at such a young age. Imprinting on himto the point that infatuation paled in comparison to the kind of obsession I felt for him.
By now, I was in too deep.
If after an entire decade of having not seen each other had done nothing to dull these feelings, then nothing ever would.
Not some matchmaker setting me up with a handsome guy who was determined to sweep me off my feet. Not some man trying to talk me up at one of the bars downtown while hoping to convince me to come back to his place with him for a nightcap and a quick roll around in the sheets.
And certainly not some poor son of a bitch who had already buried his demons in the past and healed himself of the kind of future that eventually awaited me.
“Okay,” Jonah’s voice drawled. “Then whatisthe point?”
“Never mind. It’s not important. Look, if Lila’s actually that dead set on forcing me to go with this guy she picked out, then whatever. Fine, I’ll do it.”
“Don’t sound so morbid. You’re not walking the plank here.”
That’s exactly what it felt like, though. A proverbial gun being held to the back of my head while my sister chanted ‘kiss him!’ in the background.
Or worse:fall in love.
“Just...tryit, Brandon. One date. That’s all we’re asking. Mom’s also worried about you, you know.”
Ugh,I hated this guilt trip. Mainly because it always worked. Jonah knew that. I knew that. This was the pain about having older brothers. They knew how best to push your buttons and get you squirming enough to agree to whatever crazy plan they’d concocted. Which, in this case, was apparently to get me back into the dating world.
