Page 5 of Somehow You Knew

I shrug. “It’s true, though.”

Willow clears her throat from the hospital bed. “I have to agree with her, babe.”

“Goose, he’s barely a few hours old and you’re already dooming his dating life?”

My brother’s nickname for his wife never fails to make me smile, especially given Willow’s history with the geese on their property.

“Don’t worry. After I tell him all my dating horror stories, he’ll have no interest in it anyway,” I say, bouncing the baby gently as I pace the room.

“Uh oh. I take it last night didn’t go well, then?” Willow asks.

I pin her with a flat look before resuming my enchantment with my nephew. “It was a train wreck.”

Willow stifles a yawn. “Oh, come on. It couldn’t have been that bad.”

This time I glare at her. “Easy for you to say. You found your person. Hell, you just squeezed a kid out of your vagina, and still have hearts in your eyes.” She snorts, but I know she knows I’m right. “Dating in this day and age isn’t like it used to be.”

And I’m beginning to think it’s only going to get worse.

“You act like you’re ancient, Hazelnut,” Dallas says as he sits down on the bed next to his wife, stroking her forehead softly.

I try to ignore the tiny twinge of pain that resonates in my chest from hearing Dallas use the nickname my father gave me. He doesn’t know that every time he calls me that, it’s a painful reminder of what I lost. But I don’t have the heart to ask him to stop, and part of me doesn’t want him to, because if he does, it’ll feel like losing another piece of my dad.

I know he’s gone. I know he’s not coming back. But somehow, I still can’t fully accept it.

“I’m beginning to feel ancient, especially now that all my brothers are happily in love.”

“You’re only twenty-eight, Hazel,” Willow interjects. “Did you forget that your brother and I met when we were in our early thirties?”

I shake my head as my nephew stirs in my arms. “You just don’t get it.”

And no one ever does—not how the hope grows with each new guy I talk to, not how my mind spins visions of our future together after just one date, and not how depressing it is each time it doesn’t work out.

No one understands it—not like my dad did anyway.

“Tell me more about your date.”

I look out the window, watching the white clouds drift across the sky as the breeze pulls them in from the ocean. The hospital is too far inland to see the water, but I know it’s out there. It’s oddly comforting.

I spin to face the two of them again. “Well, it started with him picking me up and not even bothering to get out of the car. Then, when I got to the car and opened my own door, he pretended he was going to drive off without me, which he foundhilarious.”

My brother growls. “I wanna punch this guy already.”

“Oh believe me, I contemplated it. After I finally got in his car—against my better judgment—we drove to the concert while he asked me questions about how I envision the future with my significant other, which I thought was a good sign…until he told me what his vision ofourfuture together looked like, and then I had to hold back my vomit.”

Willow winces. “I’m afraid to ask.”

I adjust my nephew in my arms before continuing. “Oh, it was quite the fantasy. He told me he dreams of me in the kitchen when he comes home from work, ready to serve him dinner. Then after we eat and I clean up, we sit on the couch—correction, I sit on his lap on the couch—while I listen to him tell me about his day. Then he watches television before he goes to sleep. But not before we fuck, of course—in any position he wants me. Because, you know, that’s myjobas a woman.”

Dallas’s fists grow tighter as Willow’s eyes grow wider.

“But that’s not the worst part…”

“Oh God, there’s more?” Willow asks, shocked.

“Oh yeah. He ignored me the entire concert because he was too busy flirting with the girl next to us. Then he had a few toomany beers, and by the time the concert was over, he could barely walk straight. So I ended up driving us home, even though there was a storm in full swing. And as we drove back, he asked me a question I had to think about for so long, it made me wonder if I was the one losing it.”

Willow tenses, bracing herself. “What did he ask you?”

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