Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
But these are things one never considers about one’s brother. Yuck.
I blink away from Peter and over to his new wife, Kailey, just as she’s kissed by a grown-up version of the person who more than once held me down and farted on my face.
He pulls away, smiling, and there—right there—is what I came here to see: that unadulterated look of awe. That first beat of eye contact, the silently squealed We’re really married? Peter can be a selfish ass and I will never forgive him for cutting my ponytail off when I was thirteen, but he loves Kailey. He’ll be good to her.
And hopefully he will knock her up soon and keep the focus off me and my continued single status. That is, I remind myself, unless I end up happily ever after with one of my Heroes.
The thought pings around in my mind, but it remains a tennis ball bouncing on empty walls. I look out to the cheering crowd of guests, my eyes zeroing in on Connor in the middle of the pack, standing like a skyscraper in the suburbs. And what do you know? He’s looking right back at me.
* * *
It takes ten minutes to make my way through the crowd to him, and in between catching up with family, being stopped for photos, and once directing someone to the closest restroom, I’m able to catch glimpses of him talking to people around him. God, I love that I can find him so easily, that he cleans up so well in a slim-fitting black tux, and that he left his hair soft and floppy instead of meticulously styled. But his looks aren’t even the most interesting thing about him anymore. He’s so personally warm, gives such sincere eye contact. I love the way he interacted with my mom, the way he was so excited to meet everyone who stopped us on our way out to the garden. The way he puts his whole self into whatever he does and lets himself be emotional when he talks about his daughter. Connor Prince III should be awarded a gold medal in the Active Listening event at the Romance Olympics. It’s hard to believe I looked at him months ago and saw a plastic hero archetype. He’s no longer Hot Millionaire Executive or Hot Brit or Soft Lumberjack or even DILF… he’s just Connor.
How did I once find him boring and unpleasant and cliché? Now I’m struggling to not think of him as soulmate material.
And it’s good that I’m succeeding, because by the time I reach him, he’s standing with one of Peter’s high school friends, a petite blonde named—I kid you not—Ashley Simpson. When I say Ashley is hanging on Connor’s arm, I mean this: imagine a giant rock, and then imagine a barnacle. I like Ashley well enough—even though she toyed with Peter’s heart for years when he believed looks were more important than brains, and then chased him relentlessly once he figured out that brains were more important than looks—but I step up behind them right as she asks Connor if she can steal him away for the first dance, and my gut fills with a shimmering, violent heat.
I jerk to a stop. He hasn’t seen me. He should accept. I won’t like it, but it would be a good way out of this weird, inappropriate, untenable thing we have going on. I’m supposed to like Isaac or Dax or Nick. (Maybe Jude. I think we can all agree Evan isn’t it. But Connor is definitely not it.)
But then Connor says only a gentle “Sorry, tonight these dancing feet belong to Fizzy,” and my heart takes a gasping, free-falling tumble into my stomach.
At Jess’s bachelorette party, we were doing the drunk yet predictable swoon over all the big and small ways River is perfect for her. Given that everyone else was married, inevitably the topic turned to me, and the disaster of my love affair with Rob. The group was small—only about six of us—but everyone fell into overlapping reassurance that I’m amazing, that I deserve the best man alive, that whoever this magical human is, he’s still out there for me.
I didn’t believe it at the time, and despite doing this show, I’m not sure I totally believe it now. In the past couple of decades, I’ve dated a lot. I always assumed I wasn’t picky; I liked to brag that I didn’t have a type. I’ve had a thousand awesome first dates, and a handful of fun second dates. And then, that’s it. I’m attracted to a lot of people, but rarely do emotions get involved. In hindsight, my feelings for Rob benefitted from standing in the residual glow of Jess and River. But truthfully, the relationship was embarrassingly superficial. I didn’t know anything about his life (obviously), and he certainly never made me feel like this.