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  Bella was amazing, free-spirited, and completely in love with being in love. This was her third husband, but she wasn’t bitter about men at all. She felt like you had to go through a few men before you found the one, and that was exactly what she had done. However, this one seemed to be sticking around, something that I always hoped that Bella would find. She was whimsical in her thoughts and held strong to the concept of true love. Me? I wasn’t a cynic by any means, but in reality, I had never really been in a serious relationship, and from what I’d seen of my friends’ divorces, true love was looking more like a fairy tale than real life. Still, somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that the right guy was out there for me. I just needed to find him.

  Ryan was damaged. That was no secret, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that he was the first man that I had ever thought about for this long of a period of time. I knew there was something there I needed to explore, but I was more than a bit nervous. Part of me envied Bella’s fearlessness and free spirit, but I wasn’t the girl that just jumped headfirst whenever something felt good.

  “Love is crazy,” Bella said. “I believe you can love a million people in your lifetime, but there will always be that one that stands out in your mind. The one you are supposed to be with. Finding him can be tough at first, but I didn’t give up, and now, here I am, happy as a clam. You should seriously try it: no joke.”

  “I’m not sure if your style is mine.” I laughed.

  “Alissa, if you want to find that guy, you need to just keep trying until lightning strikes,” she said. “I mean I don’t expect you to go out and get married right away. Although if you did, I wouldn’t judge. But I mean start dating. Don’t tie yourself down. Right now, you have nothing to lose.”

  “Except my dignity.” I laughed.

  “You are silly,” she said, shaking her head. “You need to embrace your femininity, go out there and remember that you aren’t doing anything wrong. Why can men take their time going from relationship to relationship, slowly deciding on the woman they want to spend their life with, but we can’t? There is no shame in testing the waters until you find the right temperature for you. I did it, and I couldn’t be happier, although I’m pretty sure Mom will be glad not to have to go to another wedding.”

  “You eloped last time,” I said.

  “Yeah, and that is how I knew he was the one.” She smiled. “It didn’t matter to have a show. I just wanted him, no flowers or crazy party, just him. Our little party of two in the valleys of Vermont’s beautiful mountains was the best wedding out of all three of them.”

  “I don’t know.” I chuckled. “I liked that Halloween-themed one. You made an amazing zombie bride.”

  “I’m not sure whether I should take that as a compliment or be very offended by that,” Bella said, laughing and kicking me in the thigh. “If I remember correctly, you were a pretty hot dead prom queen.”

  “Yeah, that was a fun night.” I smiled. “But in all seriousness, there is something to be said about the traditional way of thinking. Meeting a man, courting, falling in love, becoming best friends, and when neither of us have any reservations, we get married, and hopefully, for life. A mate, a partner to walk through life with. I am not judging you at all, but I don’t think I could take the constant up and downs of searching for that true love over and over again.”

  “True, and for some people, that works,” she said. “But with the divorce rate at an astonishing high—”

  “No thanks to you.” I smiled.

  “I did my part.” She laughed. “But with the divorce rate so high, I feel like people don’t know how to do it the traditional way anymore. On top of that, the traditional way stemmed from the fact that you didn’t have choices. You made one choice, and you stuck with that. Nowadays, we have the freedom to find the best match for us. We have the ability to seek out, not only love, but the best love. The love that fits us perfectly, like we were molded from the same piece of earth. It’s not a usual thing for that to happen with the first man that you meet.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, sipping my wine. “I think there are a million people that could be happy with out there. I think that it takes work to be a partner. I’m not talking about marrying the first man I meet, but I’m talking about taking that connection that I find and nurturing it like our grandparents did, and turning it into something more than beautiful. I think everyone’s definition of perfect is different, and I think that it’s dangerous to always think there may something just a little more fitted to me out there. I feel like you will always be looking and never really see what you have. At least, that’s how I would see myself being.”

  “I understand what you’re saying.” Bella smiled. “We definitely look at relationships differently, but in the end, I just want us to be happy.”

  “Very true,” I said, raising my glass. “Like Mom and our new stepfather. Mom has been with two men in her life. The first left her like an idiot, and the second, she just fell madly for, so I guess there is something to be said about finding the perfect one for you. I think for some people, it just happens though.”

  “Speaking of Mom,” Bella said, grabbing the postcard off the counter. “Have you heard anything more from her?”

  “No,” I sighed. “Just the random postcards we’re getting. I know she deserves every second of this trip, but I miss her. She is the third post of our trinity, and it feels weird without her here, talking about all of this, sipping her wine, and laughing loudly.”

  “I know,” Bella said. “I love you and everything, but it’s weird without the full circle of divinity going on around here.”

  “We are pathetic.” I laughed. “We’re talking about Mom like she died, not like we should be jealous that she is on a whirlwind honeymoon with the love of her life. I’m a bit jealous. I won’t lie.”

  “I’m just jealous of all the food they get to eat.” Bella laughed.

  When my parents got divorced, I was barely old enough to remember, and through the years, my father had stayed at a distance. His visits were sporadic, rarely planned, and when we were together, it always felt forced. I wasn’t a girl with daddy issues, though, as my mother was the queen of single parenting and was able to turn Bella and me into strong, determined women. Still, with Mom just getting married, and Bella having the time of her life on husband number three, it was starting to get my wheels turning.

  I was at that age where people figured I should find a partner and settle down. Now, I wasn’t too much of the girl that gave a damn about societal norms, but I was definitely getting that fire in my belly to start trying to figure out where I wanted to go from there. I had a good business, a strong family, and now, I wanted that romance that I had put on hold for so long. But what was the right path to go? Did Bella really have something there with her “free love, find the ripe apple in the orchard after trying several others” mentality? Was my mother’s traditional, though seldom spoken about, idea of finding that man and building a world around the two of them mentality what was right?

  It was all so confusing for me, especially with no real guide through the wars of love. On one side, I saw the beauty in my mother’s new marriage, and on the other side, I saw the trauma and debilitating heartbreak of divorce, like Ryan’s family. Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum was Bella, and although it seemed so nice to always feel secure about love, I wasn’t sure I could just drift through men like that.

  “In reality, Alissa, life and love are all about seizing that moment when it strikes,” she said. “Don’t let those amazing moments, the ones that feel like they are from a movie, pass you by. It’s better, in my opinion, to hate the outcome in the end, than to spend your life wondering what if. What if I had just kissed him? What if I had said yes? What if I had just taken the chance? I don’t want questions like that.”

  For the first time in our relationship as sisters, Bella had said something I could definitely agree with. I didn’t want to have those questions when I died, those what if�
��s that people spend their entire lives obsessing over. I wanted to know that I took a chance when it was given, and I did everything I could to make that work. I guessed it was a melding of the two ideas of the women in my immediate family, the forever of working through it, and the whimsy of jumping in headfirst. Thinking about that made Ryan flash through my mind, and I wondered if he was one of those men I would always ask what if about? Ryan could be something completely amazing, but he and I could also be a terrible mistake. That mistake would not just affect me, but the entire family, including that little seven-year-old girl.

  I gulped my wine, frustrated with the fact that my brain wouldn’t settle on one idea. My fears and sensibilities ran through me like wildfire, and I was starting to become concerned that I was destined to be a “what if” kind of girl. Do I take the chance on love or pass it by for something more sensible? But what if I was tired of being sensible?

  Chapter 7

  Ryan

  It was one of those dark and stormy nights, but not outside so much as in my head. Sitting at the kitchen table in the light of a single table lamp, my senses dulled by the heat of whiskey in my belly, I was definitely dabbling my toe in that all too familiar self-inflicted depression. The kind you can see coming, have every ability to stop, but just give into the loathing because sometimes it just feels too good to put off.

  After dinner, I helped Kayla finish up her homework before tucking her into bed and kissing her forehead. She gave me the normal, “I miss Mommy,” routine that she did almost every other night. I was pretty sure that was what sent me into this death spiral that I was in. I came downstairs and pulled out the bottle of Jack I kept in the back of the pantry and flipped on my computer, venturing onto my social media page for the first time in a long time. There were dozens of pictures of Christina and me, and a lot of them with good old Dale. What a bastard. He came into my marriage like a thief and stole shit right out from under me. How could he be okay with a woman that didn’t want to see her daughter anymore? I felt like that kind of woman was destructive and immoral, not the kind of woman I would want to be with. I did find it darkly amusing that as the time frame moved up closer to the date she left me, Dale and Christina moved closer and closer together in all of the pictures.

  I put in Alissa’s name on the search bar and clicked on her smiling profile picture. She was so damn beautiful in a way that I wasn’t used to. I was incredibly attracted to her, and not just because she was ungodly hot, with curves in all the right places, firm round tits, and pouty lips I could definitely imagine around my cock, but because she was so damn sweet. She smiled at everyone and everything, and even when she looked at me with steamy eyes, I could feel her innocence travel through me. There was no doubt about it. I was attracted as hell to my ex-wife, but that lust was centered around the fire that burned inside of her. I knew that it was hot and steamy and gave me satisfaction in all the ways a young guy wanted, but I also knew that fire had a really good chance of burning the hell out of me if I wasn’t watching closely. I got too comfortable in the heat, and that was exactly what she did: burned me until I was unrecognizable to even myself.

  But Alissa, she was a whole other story, with her kind heart and willingness to give to others to make their lives a little bit easier. She was incredibly intelligent, motivated, successful, gorgeous, and crazy good with Kayla. I had my eye on her for a very long time, and now that I could actually move on it, I was freezing. It was so frustrating that my heart was saying one thing while my mind was screaming about social norms and how people would look down on me for dating my stepsibling. It wasn’t like we grew up together, or we were related in any way. It was driving me nuts that all of this was actually bothering me. I needed to get my head on straight and just decide what I wanted to do.

  All of Alissa’s sweetness aside, it had been quite a while since I had gotten laid. When Christina first left and for about six months after, I would go out to the bars, not every night, but enough to get her off my mind. I had several one-night stands, but nothing to write home about. I always went back to their place and never spent the night. I didn’t want strange women around Kayla, knowing that even though she didn’t understand, just their presence in the house would make her upset. It was a tricky situation. I wanted to get laid, but even more, I wanted to sleep with other women because it made me feel like I was getting back at Christina, even though she had no idea what I was doing. After that six-month period, I pretty much stopped going out and hooking up with girls. I had more important responsibilities to attend to, and Kayla really needed my attention. Besides, it wasn’t like any of these girls had any possibility of becoming anything more than a one-night stand. Not one of them had anything interesting to say.

  Alissa was different, though. I wasn’t interested in just one hot night. I was interested in her as a person, too. I figured that eventually, I was going to start dating again, and eventually, Kayla would get used to the idea. What better way to start that out than choosing someone that she was comfortable with already? I wasn’t sure that was going to make a difference at all to Kayla. She was still in the mode of thinking that her mother was going to come back through the front door at some point. I knew that even if she did, I wasn’t sure her being around Kayla was a very good idea.

  Alissa already loved Kayla, and she was so good with her, and I couldn’t get her off of my mind. Maybe it was the liquor making me so determined to get Alissa, but either way, I liked how it felt to want someone else besides Christina on a deeper level.

  That was it. I had to stop spending my days just thinking about Alissa. I needed to get over the whole “our parents are married” thing and just jump in with both feet. If I’d had these feelings for her for this long, there must be something to it, and I was going to decide right then and there that I wanted to pursue Alissa, no matter how tough it might be for me. The worst she could do would be to let me down, and even though we were going to be in each other’s lives for a long time, I couldn’t see her making it into an awkward or uncomfortable thing. In reality, I knew in my gut that I wasn’t imagining her interest in me. I noticed her blushing the day I came in all hot and sweaty and took off my shirt. In one way or another, she was interested in me. Maybe she was having the same issues with the stepsibling thing. Maybe she was worried I wasn’t over Christina, but either way, the thought had to be there.

  I remember when I was out for drinks with Juan, he gave me some good advice that made sense.

  “You just need to go for it, man” He said, tossing back the rest of his whiskey sour.

  “Go for what?” I had asked.

  “A relationship. You need to just jump into it. I can tell you’re ready for it.” He said.

  “I know. You’re right, I just don’t know where to begin.” I shrugged. I knew that the longer I sat there mulling it over and obsessing over it, the more chance I had of talking myself right out of happiness. And Juan knew it, too.

  “I know I’m right, that’s why we’re friends.” He had motioned for another drink from the bartender. When she refilled his glass he looked at me. “You need to figure out what she is interested in and involve yourself in those interests.”

  “My problem is figuring out what she is interested in without coming off as the creepy guy. How do you actually ask that question randomly to someone in a normal conversation?”

  He seemed to think for a second before saying “Maybe ask her to out on a date, breakfast or something like that. Start there and feel your way through the conversation for the perfect moment.”

  I rested my elbows on the table, as I thought about our conversation at the bar and ran my hands over my face, feeling the exhaustion from the alcohol and the long day start to surge through me. I pulled my head up and set it in my hand, wondering what Alissa was doing right at that moment, wondering if she was thinking about me as well. I looked over through the kitchen door at the painting hanging on the wall.

  It was huge, probably four feet across and five
feet tall, and the colors were striking. It was one of the “new age” art pieces that Christina had fallen in love with when we were together and had just bought the house. Personally, it wasn’t my style, and in fact, I had always hated the damn thing, but she was all about the eclectic style and owning really expensive things so she could tell her friends how expensive they were.

  That being said, I had zero knowledge or skill in decorating and had I not conceded to letting her take over decorating control, it probably would have looked like a giant man cave with brown leather couches and sort of animals over the fireplace. I would have been impressed, the boys would have been impressed, but it would have been unlivable for the women. For me, regardless of whether I liked it or not, it was never unlivable, so I just went with whatever Christina wanted. In reality, I went with whatever Christina wanted for our entire relationship, which was probably part of the reason that I ended up where I was. Nonetheless, I had zero skill in the area of décor, so I was more than happy to pass it off to Christina, and all of my buddies were jealous that while they were curtain and couch shopping with their significant others, I was able to either get caught up on work or lounge around on the new furniture that she had delivered. I felt like it was a win-win situation for me. That was, until Christina was gone, and I was stuck staring at her decorating choices for hours upon hours every day.

  Just as that thought ran through my mind, my eyes widened, realizing that maybe asking Alissa what she was interested in might not be necessary at all. The answer was literally staring me in the face in the form of an extremely loud and obnoxious giant painting on my living room wall. I didn’t know why I didn’t think of this before. Alissa was an interior decorator and owned her own company. I was a newly-single man, living in my ex-wife’s torturous design studio. I could totally ask Alissa to give the house a makeover, offer my services to get everything done, and be able to spend some alone time with her.