Page 83 of Imperfect Match (Imperfect Match 1)
He shrugs. “Girls are always thinking ahead. There’s this chick I work with at the store who’s like nineteen, and she has her wedding all planned out already, like right down to the dude’s Batman socks. She just doesn’t know who the dude is yet.”
I shake my head and finish off my beer. “Girls are ridiculous. They’ve been sold this fantasy of perfection—perfect guy, perfect wedding, perfect life—and none of it’s real. I know, because I use their devotion to the fantasy to sell shit to them every single day.”
“So did you guys break up or what?”
“Yes.” I set the empty bottle on the counter and grab a second beer from the fridge. “She wants the fantasy and I’m too much of a realist. I know what marriage does to people in our family. I’ve seen it—the expectations are too high, and the disappointment and resentment are inevitable. You end up hating each other, even if you stay married.”
“Are her parents divorced?” Leo asks.
“No, and that’s another part of the problem. Her parents somehow make it look easy. They’re like the one in a million couple that figured it out. Willow thinks it can be like that for everyone, but it can’t.”
“Maybe it can be that way for you guys though. You could try.”
“There’s no point, Leo!” I yell, angry that he’s taking her side. I don’t know why I even bothered to tell him anything—he thinks like a child. “And I refuse to watch us self-destruct the way I watched Mom and Dad. It’s too painful.”
Before Leo can say anything else, I grab my beer, march over to the couch and flop onto it. “We’re done.”
Twenty-Three
Willow
Somehow I get my ass out of bed the next morning. My eyes are so puffy they feel as though they’ve swollen shut, but I have to function. I can’t lie around here because everything I look at reminds me of Reid. His scent clung to my pillow as I slept, making me yearn for him. When I took a shower, all I remembered was him climbing in there, making me dirty and then washing me clean again.
Then when it’s time to grab breakfast, I see the insane amount of food in my fridge and start crying all over again.
Fuck love.
When I get to the office, I brace myself for some sort of platitude about what the universe wants or advice on how to cleanse my chakras. Instead, when Aspen sees me, the look on her face says it all.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly and then comes over, wrapping her arms around me in a crushing hug. “I’m so, so sorry, Wills. I hoped that you guys would’ve found a way to survive this.”
“Thanks.” I’m struggling not to cry, and it’s tough. “It didn’t work the way either of us hoped.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really. Maybe once the pain subsides a little. Or at least when it doesn’t feel so raw.” Which basically means never.
She releases me and nods. “You let me know when you’re ready. I’m here for you.”
The lump in my throat grows bigger. To fight off tears, I decide to focus on moving forward. “I could use your help with something.”
“Anything,” she says.
“Want to help me choose a donor for insemination? I brought the profile book with me. If I can choose one by the end of the week, I might be able to start the first cycle next month.”
“Of course. This is my niece or nephew we’re talking about here. I’m going to be their favorite babysitter, aren’t I?”
I glance at Aspen’s outfit for the day—it looks like she’s fashioned a skirt out of recycled paper bags—and feel a twinge of nervousness. “Uh, sure.”
We sit down at the small conference table with cups of coffee and go through all the profiles in the book, but I have a hard time feeling enthusiastic about it.
“So what color hair and eyes do you want?” Aspen asks. “Do you have a preference for ethnicity? Ooooh, I think you should have a Ukrainian baby!”
“Why?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know, it just sounds cool. Hey, what about this one? He sounds great.” She reads aloud from the page. “Tall, dark hair with blue eyes, with an Italian background.”
“No.”
