I knew my sister was wildly in love with all her men. I imagined it was the same for Bre. They were luckier than they had any right to be, and I had to admit I was a little bit jealous. I struck out with all the men I tried to date. They were fun for a while, but it never became serious.
Case in point, there was one guy named Damien that I had a couple dates with. I turned around and saw him walking in the door. Turning back, I hoped that he hadn’t seen me. A few months had passed since I’d last seen him. It wasn’t that we had left it badly. It just didn’t seem like the right time, and we weren’t all that compatible.
He was in investing, and while that made him technically a banker, he was a lot more interesting than he seemed. We’d met at a different party, a friend of a friend who was in a band. There were a few fairly famous people there, though I didn’t remember any names. It wasn’t an A-list affair, but it wasn’t a basement club, either.
I think the band was Tourniquet, a semi-silly girl group that was a cross between goth and western. They were big locally and had just begun a nationwide tour. I thought Damien was cute, and I approached him, asking him to dance. He was into it, and we ended up back at my place.
I was living with Millie at the time, but I don’t remember that the two of them met. Millie occasionally stayed with her boyfriends and also had been known to go to bed early. Whatever the reason, Damien was in and out of my apartment before he and my sister could run into each other.
There was a second time we got together at his place and then nothing. I didn’t have any experience with long-term relationships, so it didn’t strike me as odd. We were just two adults having a little fun. It didn’t have to be anything more than that.
I snuck a glance back at Damien and watched him disappear into the kitchen. For a moment, I considered following him in and seeing if he was up for another wicked evening. But he had my number. He would have called me if he wanted to see me again. I had his number, but I hadn’t texted him either. It seemed best to just leave it alone.
“Have you seen Millie?” I asked.
“I think she’s out in the garden,” Bre said.
“It was nice to finally meet you.” I offered her another hug.
“Likewise,” she replied. “If you see a stunningly handsome man with a little boy in his arms, feel free to say hi.”
“I will,” I promised.
I held out my hand for Flynn to shake. He was polite, but I got the feeling that this kind of gathering wasn’t really his thing. I knew he was rich, and I wondered if he would prefer to be on a yacht or in a gold-plated hotel room in New York. Slipping out the door, I wound my way through all the guests to the pit where the pig was roasting.
Warren crouched beside it, poking the blackened meat with a fork. “It looks done,” he said, rising to his feet. “Ah, Meara.”
“Hey, Warren,” I answered. “You really went all out.”
“Are you drinking coffee already?” he teased.
“No,” I scoffed. “This is wine.”
“There are glasses in the living room.”
Of course there were. Warren wasn’t super old, but he was older than Millie and me. He wouldn’t offer his guests anything less than the best. If he didn’t have enough glasses to go around, I should have known he would purchase more. It was a little short-sighted of me to reach for the first cup I could find, although to be fair, it was that other woman who offered the coffee mugs.
I shrugged it off. I knew they all thought of me as Millie’s eccentric twin sister. I was just living up to the moniker. Taking a deep gulp, I finished off the beverage. Vlad, Millie’s second boyfriend, stood at the edge of the yard, deep in conversation with another man. Vlad was a part-time professor of business, but he also ran his own company. Several of them, if I wasn’t mistaken. And I was sure that Caleb was around here somewhere.
Of all my potential brothers-in-law, Caleb was the most like me. Not that he was a partygoer or a lover of the nightlife, but he was a little bit scattered. He was the astronomy professor who Millie was assigned to in the first place. She was supposed to help him get organized to write some articles for publication. Little did he know that she was going to help him in more ways than one.
Millie quit the university after settling down with her boyfriends. She didn’t want the pressure of trying to hide her polyamorous relationship. She didn’t care what the university said about it and didn’t want to give them the power to weigh in.
I worked in retail, and they were pretty forgiving about a lot of things. Pink hair for instance, or green, or purple or whatever color I used, it didn’t matter as long as I was friendly and chatted the customers up. They liked to see a little bit of flair, I mused. It made selling a bit easier and gave me a built-in ice breaker.
I seriously doubted if my boss would have anything to say about me dating multiple guys at once. They were interested in only one thing: money. As long as I showed up for work on time and turned on the charm, I could pierce my tongue and sleep with the entire Bulls basketball team. They would actually probably like that because it would bring in more customers.
“You’ll find someone,” Warren said, following my gaze to where it landed on his friend.
“What?” I asked.
“I didn’t think love was in the cards for me before I met Millie,” he shared openly. “And I’m much older than you are.”
“You’re not that much older,” I said.
“Old enough.” He winked at me.
I could see why Millie was interested in him. Helping him move the pig up onto the picnic table, I watched as he sliced into it. People gathered around to be among the first to taste it. I accepted a slice for myself and rolled my eyes up when it melted in my mouth.