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“The company needs me,” I say. “But I’d love to come out more often if I could.”
My sister-in-law isn’t satisfied. She sits down next to Anthony and places a tiny kiss on her son’s forehead. “Isaac,” she says, “please, please, just consider letting me give it a try. Just once. If you don’t like it, I promise I’ll never mention it again.”
I groan. “That’s what this is? An ambush? You feed me delicious food and wine, and then you attack.”
“Consider it an intervention,” she says.
I look at my brother. “Help.”
Anthony laughs darkly. For all my occasional annoyance with my bubbly sister-in-law, that laugh, right there, is worth every pestering question she asks about my love life.
Anthony had been in a dark place after his diagnosis. His gradually deteriorating eyesight robbed him of joy long before it started robbing him of sight.
But Summer had restored that. She’s helped him work through his hurt and fears until the future, while still painful, is once again something to look forward to. And the small son in his arms, the first baby in the family, has shown me a new side to my brother I never thought I’d see.
He’s happy.
And I’ll never stop being in Summer’s debt for that.
“I’m sorry,” Anthony says. “But I think I’m on my wife’s side on this one.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You would never have accepted this yourself, you traitor.”
“I did,” he says. “Didn’t exactly work out the way she predicted, but it gave results. Just unexpected ones.”
Summer nods. “That’s right. Isaac, there are a ton of women I think you’d match really well with. I have a shortlist prepared.”
This again.
She’d tried twice before, and each time was more insistent than the last. Together with her aunt, she runs an elite matchmaking company for New York’s high society.
That’s their tagline and not my words.
Their hands-on approach and careful curation of partners leads to a very high percentage of successful matches. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve been told several times by Summer herself.
I look at my sleeping nephew. He’s clearly not being fussy enough of a baby if Summer still has the energy to think about my love life.
“Isaac?” she says. “There’s a beautiful, newly divorced woman who just signed up for the service. She has a good job, a stellar social life, and I think you two would really hit it off.”
My eyebrows rise. “Really? What’s her name?”
“Valerie Simmons. Do you want to know more? I could pull up her profile.”
I feel myself deflate at the unfamiliar name. “No.”
“Oh.” Summer sighs and then shakes her head. “It can be something super casual. Dinner here at our house, just the four of us.”
Anthony snorts. “Well, that’s not casual at all.”
I look at him with gratitude. “Exactly,” I say. “Look, I appreciate it, but I can handle my own love life. Thank you, but no thanks.”
She raises an eyebrow. “And are you? Handling your own love life?”
“Anthony,” I say.
But my brother doesn’t come to my defence again. He looks at me with the same dark eyes I see in a mirror. “Isaac,” he says. “Honestly, man. You gotta get out there. You’re living the life of a workaholic monk or a princess locked into a tower.”
“A princess,” I repeat slowly, “locked in a tower?”
