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Brooks flicked some grass off our picnic blanket. “Don’t worry about it. Like I said, Morgan and I aren’t exclusive. She doesn’t believe in labels.”
“Do you?”
“I find it easier not to. Girlfriends tend to want to become wives.”
“Oh, the horror,” I teased, though Brooks was breaking my heart with his attitude toward marriage.
Brooks stabbed his fork into a juicy strawberry. “I know you don’t agree with me.”
“I wonder if you agree with you . . . or Morgan.”
He shoved the strawberry in his mouth, chewing on his food and thoughts. Once he swallowed, he let out a heavy sigh. “Morgan and I have both seen the damage marriage can do. Neither of our parents fared well. I appreciate her bold, out-of-the-norm attitude.”
“You look down on mine.”
“No. I envy yours.”
I bit my lip. “You do?”
“Yes, Grace,” he said my name so gently. “In fact, I’m surprised you’re not married yet.”
“That makes two of us.” I reached into the bag for the peanut butter cups. I needed chocolate, stat.
“Just haven’t met the right guy yet?” Brooks seemed hesitant to ask.
I grabbed a handful of candy and began unwrapping them as fast as I could. “No, I’ve met him.”
Brooks fumbled his salad and barely caught it before he dropped it. “Julian?” The hitch in his voice begged me to tell him it wasn’t so.
“No.” I popped an entire peanut butter cup in my mouth, not believing I was having this conversation with the “right” man.
“Who, then?”
I took some time to savor the sweet ecstasy in my mouth. The mix of the salty peanut butter with the sweet milk chocolate was perfect. “It doesn’t really matter,” I said after swallowing. “He doesn’t see me that way.”
“Sounds like a real idiot.”
“Oh, he is.” I shoved another peanut butter cup into my mouth.
“Why do you want to be with him, then?”
I stared into Brooks’s eyes. Hints of the boy I’d loved showed in the gold flecks. “Because the first time I met him, I knew he was the one.”
Brooks’s brow creased. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. I don’t make the rules. I just knew.”
“But you didn’t know anything about him.” Brooks seemed to be concerned for my well-being. Perhaps even my mental health.
“Not at first, but I quickly remedied that.”
“What did you think about him after that?” Brooks was awfully curious.
“That he was everything I’d hoped he would be,” my voice cracked, betraying me. “You know, except the whole him not wanting me part.”
Brooks rested a hand on my bare knee. “I’m sorry, Grace. Like I said, the guy must be a real idiot.”
I peered down at his hand. It felt like fire against my skin; his touch called to my soul. “Regardless of what he is, I moved on.” Well, at least I thought I had. “I want someone who’s going to wake up every day excited to see me. Someone who appreciates me and all my quirky obsessions. Someone who wants to go on adventures with me.” I pulled my knees up to my chest, making Brooks’s hand drop. His touch made me long for him to be the person the voice and I knew he could be. That someone.
Brooks flexed his fingers. “I hope you find the right man for you. You deserve that.” He sounded sincere.
“Thanks.” I had no idea what else to say. Brooks had no clue I was talking about him, which kind of said it all.
“Was he part of your facial recognition theory?” Brooks asked.
“I suppose he was the catalyst. But I was wrong about the theory, like I was about him.”
“And what is the theory?”
I rested my head on my knees. “You’ll think it’s silly.”
“Probably, but you should tell me anyway.” He gave me a sweet smile. The kind of smile he used to give me. The one that could coax anything out of me.
His powers of persuasion won me over. I sat up. “When I met—let’s call him ‘The One’—I heard this voice tell me that I would marry him.”
“A voice? As in you’re hearing things?”
“No. My inner voice. The voice that you can’t quite explain, but something deep within you knows it’s right.”
“But you said it was proven wrong.”
“I said he was wrong and the theory was wrong, not the voice.” Though I had questioned the voice and its sanity, more like my own sanity. Yet deep down, I knew the voice hadn’t lied. It had just failed to recognize Brooks’s free will in it all.
Brooks tilted his head. “He was wrong for you or about you? I don’t understand.”
Believe me, I knew he didn’t. “He was just wrong. That’s beside the point. My theory was—since I’d heard the voice the first time I saw ‘The One’—I was hoping that maybe if I went on several blind dates, with no prior knowledge of what the men looked like, perhaps the voice would speak to me again.”
