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“Who on earth said anything about Vanessa?”
“Well, that’s who Luke wastryingto set you up with before Annie came along and we saw what you looked like when you actually like someone.”
“WHAT?”
Mindy winks at me. “Don’t sweat it, Liam. I got your back.”
I swear, my head is about to explode. “Why on earth do you two keep trying to set me up with my freaking employees?”
“Um, same reason Lana Mae keeps trying to set you up with those dance moms—we’re trying to capitalize on your only contact with women.”
“I contact women!”
“Liam, your dry cleaner doesn’t count.”
“You are an insane person.”
“I’m a romantic. You should try it sometime.”
Luke gives Mindy the goo-goo eyes. “You turned me into a romantic.”
I roll my eyes. “Pull over, I’m about to be sick.”
“But seriously, Liam,” Mindy says. “Look at Luke and me. We happened because I was chasing one of his best friends at the time like an idiot.” Mindy flushes at the memory. “I thought Luke was one of those guys who didn’t want a relationship, didn’t want to settle down, but when we finally got together, that changed. Things change when you meet the right person. You’ve changed, Liam. And I think it’s because you might’ve met the right person.”
Mindy, who I love dearly as a sister-in-law-to-be, is not usually one for sage advice. But against my better judgment, that little speech is getting to me.
For so long, I was convinced that doing things my way—carefully organized, perfectly precise, comfortably predictable—was the only way that worked for me. But Annie’s turned this on its head. Using data gathered from my company, for crying out loud!
She’s thrown a lot of my firmly-held beliefs into question. My firmly-held protective shields.
Could Luke and Mindy be right? Could it be that, when you meet the right person, the rules of the game themselves can actually change?
I’m not totally convinced yet… but for the first time ever, I’m open to it.
Luke smirks at me in the rearview mirror as he pulls into Lana Mae’s neighborhood. “We just want you to be happy, dude. We all do. You deserve something for yourself.”
“I don’t know.”
“Trust me.”
Legs grabs my hand. Squeezes surprisingly hard. “Trust him, Uncle Liam.”
A strange calm settles over my body.
Maybe, just maybe, it might be okay to stop trying to control everything, for once. Maybe I can let myself trust the process.
* * *
Twenty-four hours later, my sense of calm has evaporated into thin air.
Poof! Gone.
“Legs, honey.” I knock on the bathroom door for the fiftieth time. “Please let me in.”
“No,” her voice catches in a little sob and my heart fractures down the middle. “You can’t come in.”
She’s been in the bathroom for about thirty minutes, and though my voice is calm and soothing, I’m panicking.
