He didn’t respond, instead he just stared at me.
“What?”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me.”
“Tell you what?” I downed the dark liquid.
“That Isabella, or Bella, is the mystery woman.”
“Was it that obvious?”
“It was pretty obvious.” Billy chuckled, clearly enjoying this. “So, what’s with the double? Is she the one woman on this planet who is immune to your easygoing charm and boyish good looks?”
“It’s not like that.”
“So, she’s not immune?”
“I barely know her.”
“And yet you’re whipped.” Billy grinned.
“I’m not whipped,” I lied.
Billy turned to the “wise men,” aka The Three Stooges. “Show of hands, who thinks this is the face of a man that is whipped?”
The men all smiled, some of them with more empty spaces where teeth should be than others, as they lifted their beers in a toast to me being whipped.
“I don’t remember you being very chipper a few months ago when you met Reagan.”
“Yeah, well, it was right after Pop died.”
Shit. I should’ve thought of that.
“And I didn’t know things were going to work out the way they did. It’s much more fun on this side of the fall.”
“The fall?”
He nodded. “Falling in love is a lot more fun to watch than live through. At least this part, anyway.”
“This part?”
Billy grinned. “When you don’t know what’s happening, but you can’t stop thinking about the person. You have no clue if they feel the same way you do or if you even want to feel the way you do. You feel completely out of control of your emotions and your thoughts. You feel powerless.”
Fuck.He wasn’t wrong.
“That’s why it’s called falling,” he continued. “If it was climbing, you could have a plan. When you climb there are holds you could put your feet in and ledges you could grab onto. Falling, ya just gotta close your eyes and hope for the best.”
My brother and I had never really talked about stuff like this. He’d never gotten so deep. The only advice I’d gotten from him was to wrap it up, so I didn’t knock anyone up.
This was the second deep conversation I’d had today. The first had been with Ray. I wasn’t sure I enjoyed this new trend. I poured myself another shot, but this one I planned on nursing. “Did you learn that on Married at First Sight?”
Some new customers came and sat at the end of the bar and he flipped me off before helping them.
I sat there at the end of the bar, just sippin’ my whiskey and wondering if my brother was right. I’d considered the fact that Bella was different. I’d even figured it was probably love. But that was in my own mind. Hearing Billy say it out loud was something different, and it felt both more real and unreal now, having heard him use the “L” word to describe my feelings for Bella.
I didn’t know her last name.
I didn’t know if she had any brothers or sisters.
I didn’t know what her career was.
I didn’t know what kind of music, movies, or TV shows she liked.
I didn’t know if she was a dog or a cat person.
But, in fairness, I knew all of those things about several dozen women and I never felt a tenth for them of what I felt for Bella. So maybe that kinda thing wasn’t what love was built on. Maybe what love was built on was whatever sorta magic Bella and I shared, even if I couldn’t corral it into a list of facts.