Page 64 of Make-Believe Match

I sighed. “You’re so lucky. When I was growing up, I’d have given my right arm for some brothers or sisters. All I had was mean Tabitha.”

“You ever ask her about that post she made for The Summit?”

“No. I planned to confront her, but she mentioned the phone call from Bob Oliver, and I panicked. Forgot all about it.” But I didn’t want to think about that now. “Tell me about your sister. Her name is Mabel, right?”

He nodded. “Mabel is a good kid. Crazy smart and funny. She’s at graduate school studying to be an archaeologist. She works her ass off, always has.”

“Will she be there tonight?” I asked hopefully.

“I don’t think so. She was just home over Labor Day weekend—she was at The Broken Spoke that night too.”

“So Mabel grew up withfourolder brothers,” I remarked. Were you guys crazy protective of her?”

“Totally.”

“What did you do when she brought boys home?”

He thought for a second. “You know, I can’t remember her bringing a single guy to our house.”

“Wonder why,” I murmured.

“Mostly she and Ari—that’s her best friend—just hung around together and begged us to take them places. I basically had two little sisters.”

“And your dad—he never remarried?”

“No.” Devlin thought more a moment. “Mabel once asked him why he didn’t go on dates, and he said, ‘It only happens once.’”

I put a hand over my heart. “That’s sad, but also romantic, I guess. The notion that there’s only one great love of your life.”

Devlin made a dismissive noise.

“What, you don’t believe in soul mates?”

“No. It’s setting yourself up for disappointment. First of all, if it’s true and there’s one perfect person made just for you, what are the odds you even find them? There are billions of people in the world.”

“You trust fate, I guess.”

“Fate isn’t always kind. I mean, bad things happen to good people.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’tloveeach other. Humans need connection.”

“I’m not saying being alone is ideal. But there are a lot of ways to connect with someone. Love doesn’t always work out.” He paused. “People cheat or grow apart, or one could lose the other. What happens then?”

“I don’t know. You move on?”

“But you can’t,” he said. “Not if you believe it only happens once.”

“Okay, but not all people fall out of love or experience loss. Sometimes love is forever.”

He was silent for a minute. “I just think it’s a lot of pressure to put on a relationship. To expect it to last forever.”

I wanted to argue in defense of forever, but I decided against it. So what if Devlin didn’t believe in soul mates? It wasn’t my problem, and it wouldn’t hurt me. What we had wasn’t real, what we felt wasn’t love, and what we expected was six months of partnership and an amicable farewell. That was a far cry from forever.

But as we made our way closer to his hometown, I wondered more about his romantic past. Was there a girl here who’d broken his heart? What had happened with McKenna? Had there been other broken or toxic relationships? I remembered what he said when I’d asked him if he’d loved McKenna.

I cared about her to the extent that I’m willing and able to care about someone. Maybe it was love, maybe not.

You didn’t say those things without some trauma to the heart, did you?