Page 21 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

“Just got the details on my next project,” I tell them, sliding off the stool as I scoop up the tray of napkins and silverware for dinner. “And it’s finally one I’m excited about.”

•Six•

Will

Any family dinner at my parents’ is rowdy. Add on a birthday celebration, and it’s mayhem.

I sit at the long pine table that dominates my childhood home’s dining room, crammed between my sisters, their partners, my niece and nephew, and my parents. Wildflowers and rainbow glitter, unicorn cutouts and dishes of my niece Eleanor’s favorite foods—birthday tradition, whoever’s birthday it is gets to pick the meal—now reduced to abandoned last bites, crisp edges, and crumbs littering the table. Napkins land beside plates. Chairs creak as we sit back. Whiskey and wine are passed and poured.

I’m lost in thought, my gaze drifting toward the window, where, right outside it, the warm summer breeze sways the damask roses Dad and Mom planted on their wedding day, which have grown and thrived for thirty-five years.

Thanks to my earplugs (without earplugs, it’s sensory hell), I can actually hear myself think, and I’m hung up on what I’ve been hung up on for nearly a week now—what I’m going to tell my parents about this plan of mine, without telling themtoomuch. Or, more specifically, what I’m going to tell my mom. My dad’s a laid-back, quiet guy. He’s told me he trusts I’ll figure out my future. My mother, however, is and always has been very much up in my business—and she is very in my business on the eventual marriage front.

So far, I’ve told my parents I’m going to give Imogen, my third-youngest sister, a break from relationship upkeep at the bars and restaurants in the city that stock our whiskey. Immy’s a big-time extrovert who’s never complained about being the one to periodically pop into the city with her partner, Leo, schmoozing, dropping into our clients’ establishments for a bite, leaving them with a fancy thirty-year bottle, a sample case of a new batch we’ll be selling soon. She’s been doing that happily for years. But Immy just told us two weeks ago that she’s pregnant with her first, and with morning sickness having hit hard, the first trimester is taking it out of her. When I told her I’d handle the city runs, she threw her arms around me and burst into happy, relieved tears.

That’s what my parents know so far, and it’s a solid cover story, not to mention an actual reason it’ll work out for me to be in the city on the weekends for the next month. I could get away with that explanation and keep the rest to myself.

But I think Ineedto tell my mom I’m finally kicking off marriage plans, if only to get her off my back. Lately, she’s been nearly insufferable in her Help Will Find a Wife campaign, and the tiniest crumb I give is enough for her to picture an entire feast of possibility. For example, I mentioned once, offhandedly a few weeks ago, that it would be helpful if I married someone who didn’t hate phones and actually understood social media, and she’s been sending me female influencer profiles ever since.

I need her to know I’ve got it in hand so she lets up a little. I just have to be wise about how much I divulge. If I’m not careful, Juliet and I might find ourselves sharing our cup of coffee tomorrow with a very enthusiastic Isla Orsino wedged between us.

I’ve got everything in place for me to leave tomorrow. Fest knows how to handle things with the farm and the production side of the distillery. Our tours and tastings run over the weekends like clockwork, thanks to the second oldest of my youngersisters, Celia, who runs them. Logistically, I know everything will be fine.

I just don’t know how to tell my mother what I’m going to be up to without inspiring her to even more obsessed levels of interest in my efforts to settle down.

A bottle of open whiskey crosses in front of me, and I pass it along to Demi, wife to Helena, the oldest of my younger sisters, on my right. Demi smiles my way and mouths,Thanks!

Just as I turn back, Miranda, my baby sister, sitting to my left, elbows me.

I brace myself for the onslaught of sound and pull out the earplug in my left ear. “What, Mimi?”

She juts her chin toward the kitchen. “Ma wants to talk to you. Says she texted you.”

I check my phone and frown in confusion. I didn’t feel it vibrate with a text, but there it is:In the kitchen, please.

Sighing, I stand and traipse into the kitchen. Soon as I’m there, I take out the other earplug, then tuck it safely in the small case attached to my keys. I slip it all back in my pocket. “Hi, Ma.”

“Hi, Will.” Mom’s bent over Eleanor’s cake, which is covered in fondant, decorating it with tiny edible sugar unicorns and shooting stars. My mother’s rheumatoid arthritis isn’t going away, but her symptoms get quiet sometimes, and when they do, when her hands are nearly as nimble as they used to be, she goes all out.

After a final shooting star is placed just so, she brushes off her hands. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

My stomach sinks. “Ma, no.”

“Will, yes.” Mom straightens and faces me, nudging away with the back of her wrist a loose wisp of auburn hair threaded with white. “It isn’t a lady or gentleman, or, you know, person, I’m trying to fix you up with.” She spins the cake stand, inspecting her work. “It’s someone even better. It’s amatchmaker.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“William Orsino, you watch your language in my kitchen.”

I groan, scrubbing at my neck. “Sorry, Ma. But no matchmaker. I don’t need a matchmaker—”

“You told me yourself you don’t know how you’re going to find your someone. This is how! Your father and I met through a matchmaker—”

“A mutual friend at a party isnota matchmaker.”

Mom sets her hands on her hips. “Fee was only a business friend at the time, and it was a regional networking event. She introduced your father and I because of our mutually compatible interests.”

That “business friend” is one of her best gal pals. She and Fee talk on the phone every day.

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