Swoon: A Brother's Best Friend Standalone

I’m speechless. I hadn’t thought about it like that.

“I mean, I’m not trying to push you into anything,” Ryan says. “You’re the one who knows if you click with her or not.”

“It’s not about whether I ‘click’ with her,” I say. “We’ve always had a crazy connection. Honestly, I feel like I know her, inside and out. The problem is that she doesn’t really know me. She thinks she does. Whew! You should have heard the way she chewed my ass the other night. But the thing she doesn’t realize is how weirdly nice and generous I always feel compelled to be around her. For instance, the other day, I heard her say, once, that lilies are her favorite flower. Once. And not even to me. So, what’d I immediately run out and do? Buy her some fucking lilies! Who does that?”

Colby, the eldest Morgan brother, laughs. “A man in love does that, dumbass.”

Josh, Kat’s husband, chimes in. “I’m not trying to push you into anything, either, Colin. But I feel like I should mention the right woman will bring out the best in you. If a woman doesn’t do that, she’s not The One.”

“Amen,” Ryan says, and Colby quickly agrees.

Dax pipes in. “You haven’t noticed how Violet makes me a better man?”

“Mad Dog has certainly done that for me,” Keane says.

“To put it mildly,” Colby mutters, and everyone on the call, except for me, chuckles.

I suppose I’d join in the chuckling, if only a cavalcade of memories from my relationship with Kiera weren’t slamming into me right now—a rapid-fire montage of all the times Kiera and I fought over the stupidest shit and brought out the absolute worst in each other.

Being around Amy feels like the polar opposite of the shit show that was my relationship with Kiera. Being with Amy feels calm and happy. Natural and right. But, still, my rational brain simply won’t stop clinging to the timeline here.

“It hasn’t even been three weeks since Amy and I saw each other for the first time in almost a decade,” I say. “Could anyone trust the kind of intense feelings I’m having for Amy, this fast?”

“Could anyone?” Ryan asks. “Absolutely. Can you? Only you can answer that, brother.”

Colby adds, “Rum Cake’s right. Only you can know if your feelings are the real deal. That said, I’m a believer in ‘When you know, you know.’”

“When did you know?” I ask.

“Oh, I knew Lydia was The One the second I saw her. Everyone thought I was crazy, but I knew.”

My eyebrows shoot up. That’s shocking to me—it’s totally unlike our careful, methodical Colby to jump in, head-first, like that. “Wow, man. That’s intense.”

“It was,” Colby agrees. “But I knew. So, I went with it, and never looked back.” He looks down at the sleeping baby in his arms. “And it turns out, it was the best thing I ever did.”

I’m blown away. Colby isn’t the kind of guy to leap before looking. “What about everyone else? How long did it take you to know your wife was The One?”

The guys reply to my question with answers ranging from “after one conversation” to “about a month.” All of which is shocking to me. Even Kat’s husband, Josh, who says he fought his true feelings for “way too long,” seems to think it’s entirely possible for me to have reliable, real feelings for Amy this quickly.

But before I’ve figured out how to reply to the latest round of information, the Morgan family’s lone daughter, Kat, appears on-screen. She hands a baby to her husband, Josh, who hands her an older one in return. And when Kat realizes I’m on FaceTime, she pops over next to Ryan to greet me.

“Hey there, Colinoscopy! Wish you were here!”

“Hey, Kitty Kat. Nobody invited me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! Violet said you and Fish have a work thing in LA tomorrow.”

“Yeah, we do. It’s all good. Fish and I have to appear in the finale of Sing Your Heart Out tomorrow. Tell your mom happy birthday from me.”

“I will. So, what’s going on? Why the big pow-wow?”

Mia on her Uncle Dax’s lap interjects, “Uncle Colin’s girlfriend broke up with him because he wouldn’t say ‘I love you’ when she said it to him. And now he thinks he messed up and should have said it. So, he’s asking everyone how long it took them to say it and everyone is calling him a big dumb-dumb.”

Everyone bursts out laughing, including me.

“I couldn’t have explained it better myself, Mia,” I concede.

The guys give Kat a bit more information, and to my surprise, Dax’s diabolical sister looks deeply sympathetic. “Violet’s been telling us this same story in the kitchen, actually. And we’ve all reached the same conclusion: You’re a big dumb-dumb.”

“Lovely,” I mutter. “Amy won’t return my texts and calls, but she’s called Violet and told her everything.”