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The sharpness of Jed's voice startled me. Worse, it almost sent the tub of Häagen-Dazs flying through the air. I grabbed onto it firmly. I was nowhere near done with it yet.
"Yeah, I'm listening. But you’re waffling."
"Oh. Dear. God," Jed exclaimed. "You're doing it again, aren't you?"
"Doing what?" I peeled my eyes off the TV screen and placed the phone and ice cream tub onto the couch beside me. I tucked my feet under my body and sat cross-legged, mentally preparing myself for my older brother’s ambush.
"It's Friday night"—I could immediately hear the resigned tone in his voice—"and lemme guess…you're at home? Alone? I bet you've just finished eating pizza, and now you're plowing into a tub of Ben & Jerr?—"
I raised my index finger. "Uh, Häagen-Dazs, actually," I clarified unnecessarily.
"And you're watching that stupid House and Hoarders show, aren’t you? The British version."
"Of course, the British version. You know how much I like a sexy British accent."
And for the record—all British accents were sexy.
A sigh permeated out of my phone's speaker. "This is why I did it, Mitch. This is why I entered you into the KRLX92 Happily Ever After giveaway."
"I don't understand what any of those words mean." But I could feel my spidey senses warning me I wasn't going to like it. "What the hell’s a Happily Ever After giveaway?"
More sighing. "The station was running a contest called Happily Ever After, where basically callers had to ring in and share their worst dating story."
My arm froze mid-scoop. "Oh."
"Yeah." Jed dialed his voice back, letting it grow softer and into that protective big brother mode of his that he so frequently slipped into with me. "So…I called in."
"But your love life is fine." I chowed down on the ice cream, a little confused. Jed had no problems in that department. "You're the epitome of carefree, casual fun. No strings. No repeats…"
"No feelings." He finished off his well-worn mantra for me. "That's right, little bro. I'm all good. But you, on the other hand…"
I stopped chewing. "Me on the other hand what, Jed?"
Silence.
Followed by sounds of some shuffling and a slight tongue pop. Despite being a six-foot-six human tornado of energy, outlandishness and exuberance, underneath it all, my big brother had a heart of gold, as well as a tongue twitch that he couldn't control on the very rare occasions where he would find himself getting a little flustered.
A moment like this one for some reason, which in turn, only made my chest tighten even more. "What have you done exactly?"
"Mitch, how do I put this?" He paused. "You kind of have a terrible tendency to see the best in people."
"I'm pretty sure that's not a bad thing," I countered, seeking out my next mouthful of ice cream.
A shorter silence, this time punctuated by a loud exhale. "Okay, you're right. It's actually one of the best things about you. I was just being facetious. But, Mitchell"—a seriousness pierced his tone—"you being such a nice guy and seeing the world through nice-guy glasses means that you get hurt and used and treated like crap by guys because of it. And that is a bad thing. It kills me every time I see you go through it."
I pushed out a heavy sigh of my own. "Yeah. Me, too."
He had a point. My love life was bad, like so bad that you almost can’t believe that it’s actually true bad.
But what did that have to do with a radio giveaw?—
Oh, crap!
The pieces were starting to fall into a place.
A radio contest for love tragics.
Me being a love tragic.
