One Last Time (Loveless Brothers 5)

“And you’re sure Beauford can’t just pop back by for a few hours?” she asks.

“Mom,” Ava admonishes. “His grandmother’s in the hospital. In Tennessee.”

Vera sighs.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” she says. “What about Tucker Yates? I heard his divorce from Cathy was finalized at last.”

“Tucker’s divorced because he’s a lunatic who thinks the earth is flat and the president of the United States is a lizard in disguise,” I say.

“And because he cheated on Cathy with an eighteen-year-old,” says a new voice as Olivia, my middle sister, walks through the door. “Have y’all seen — oh, there they are. Why are we talking about that sorry excuse for a man?”

“Delilah’s date canceled last minute and she’s refusing to go with anyone else,” Vera sighs.

“Beau’s grandmother is in the hospital,” I explain.

“Because of squirrels,” Ava adds.

Olivia just raises her eyebrows.

“Aren’t you still doing your nun thing?” she asks me.

I shoot her a good, hard glare.

“What?” she says, blinking her wide blue eyes, oblivious.

“Delilah hates it when you mention the detox in front of Mom,” Winona explains.

“You can’t still be doing that,” Vera says, politely astonished. “It’s been nearly two years.”

“Two years Tuesday, actually,” I say. “Some families would give me a certificate in recognition of my accomplishment.”

“Then this is the perfect time to re-start dating,” she says, ignoring my certificate comment. “You’ve had plenty of time to sow your wild oats —” she waves one genteel hand in the air, “—take your stripper class, do your meditation, all those things you’ve been up to.”

“Two years is the goal,” I say, as patiently as I can. “I won’t make it if I go on a date Saturday night, will I?”

“Isn’t it close enough?” Vera asks, in a tone of voice that means I think you’re being ridiculous.

I take a deep breath. Vera and I have had this argument before. We know one another’s positions on my single-and-celibate-by-choice state, and I know I’m not going to change her mind this time, either.

Vera thinks that being thirty and choosing not to date is crazy as a shithouse rat, though she’d never use that phrase. She’s excruciatingly old-fashioned in some ways, from a time and place where a woman’s worth stemmed from the man she was with.

For Vera, it’s unimaginable that I actually like being single, so I think she assumes I’m lying about it and must be longing for a man to come in and sweep me off my feet.

I am not.

“I’d like to go alone,” I say.

Simple, direct, firm, yet polite. My therapist would break into applause if she heard. I hold my breath, hoping that it was polite enough and not too direct.

I’ve heard rumors of families where people can just tell others what they want and their wishes are respected instead of debated. Sounds nice, but I believe it about as much as I believe in unicorns.

Vera and Ava look at each other.

They frown, both brows gently wrinkling in an almost-identical pattern.

Then Ava sighs and grabs her iPad, and I wonder what those other families are like.

“Okay,” she says after a moment, flicking her finger along the screen to scroll. “Donald Craw. Jeffrey Preen.”

“Ava,” I say, closing my eyes and willing myself patience.

“Andrew Haulier — oh no, wait, apparently it’s complicated with him.”

My eyes snap back open.

“Are you going through my high school graduating class on Facebook?” I ask, staring at my little sister.

“Cory McGarvey,” she says, ignoring me and tilting her head, still looking at the screen. “He’s kinda cute?”

I take a deep breath and glance around the room, trying to give myself a moment. Off to one side of me, in front of a plush leather armchair, is a triple mirror featuring a tall pink column topped with curly orange hair.

Of course Ava’s bridal seamstress makes house calls. For the amount Vera and my dad are paying for this wedding, you can’t expect the bridal party to go somewhere and slightly inconvenience themselves, for goodness’ sake.

I glare at the hottie in the mirror. She glares back.

I whisper a serenity prayer to myself, though admittedly I start it with for fuck’s sake, please.

This is exactly why I asked Beau to attend my little sister’s wedding with me. We’re friends, so I’m happy to spend several hours at an open bar with him. He’s single, so no one would going to get mad. And he’s gay, so it wouldn’t get awkward.

It was perfect.

Damn those squirrels.

“Norward Yapp,” Ava goes on. “You went to school with someone named Norward?”

“I think he went by his middle —”

“Oh!”

Vera and I look over at her in unison. I don’t like that Oh!.

“Did you know Seth Loveless is single?” Ava asks us.

My heart thumps clumsily in my chest. My stomach tap dances. I think all the blood in my body rushes to my head, and I’m pretty sure time has slowed down and I can now hear oxygen molecules bonking together.