Page 6 of Love in Fine Print

“Hey man, I’m going to be in the city next Friday; you free?”

I paused, mainly because I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t even have to check my schedule since I knew there was nothing on it.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Good. I have some big news,” he enthused.

“You got sponsored by Viagra, and they are going to give you a lifetime supply to combat your erectile dysfunction?”

“Yeah, it’s not quite as big as your Rogaine deal, but I gotta think about life after ball.”

I chuckled. When I’d played my final year, the big joke was that I was old. Which for the NFL, I supposed I was. Thankfully, I still had a full head of hair.

“See you Friday.”

“See you then, man.” I hung up the phone and couldn’t help but dread seeing my friend. Whatever his news was, it was going to be better than what was going on with me. I was trying, and failing, to run a matchmaking business.

The only reason I’d retired was because of Gran’s health. When she had a stroke, I’d thought she was going to get out of the hospital. I thought I would have a few more years with her, and I’d decided that I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. Unfortunately, I hadn’t had that time. One month after I hung up my cleats, she’d passed away.

After losing her, I’d thought I’d go back to the game. I figured I’d come out of retirement. I still felt like I had a few good years in me. But then I met with her attorney and I was informed that she’d left Ever After Matchmaking to me. Since then, I’d just been taking things day by day and winging it. It wasn’t going well.

Was Miss B right? Did my relationship status affect the business?

Running Ever After was my Gran’s final wish. I’d promised myself that I would keep her legacy alive and I knew I had to do anything I could to keep that promise. Anything.

3

OLIVIA

“Thank you, Felipe.”I smiled as I took the boba tea.

Felipe touched the brim of his flat cap and tipped it forward as he dipped his chin. “Anything for my prettiest customer.”

“You’re a charmer.” A charmer that made, hands down, the best boba tea in the city.

My mind wandered as I walked down the block to my favorite spot. It was a nondescript bench beneath an oak tree. It didn’t face the Bay or the Golden Gate Bridge. There was no view of downtown or the water. It sat in the corner of a small park that was nestled between rows of Victorian houses. It was a street that I’d always loved.

Growing up, during the week I lived in a 5,000-square-foot penthouse with my mother. Then, I spent the weekends with my father in a tiny, five-hundred-square-foot apartment in the Mission District. It was an eight-floor walkup with original appliances from the seventies, and we’d shared the space with cockroaches, but I loved it there. I felt so much safer there, than I did in the penthouse where my mom lived.

I wasn’t going to complain and play the poor rich girl card, but it had been a very cold environment to be raised in. Somefamilies had formal living rooms that were off-limits to children, my entire apartment was one big formal living room.

The only rooms I was permitted in were my bedroom, my bathroom, and the kitchen. I never knew if my limited access had to do with my mother’s OCD and having to have everything spotless, or if it was because she liked to entertain, and a child was a party buzz kill. The penthouse was lonely and I was always on edge because I never knew from one minute to the next what mood my mother was going to be in. One second, she would be happy and laughing; the next, she’d be hysterically crying. Sometimes there would be weeks she didn’t get out of bed. I just tried to be as quiet and invisible as I possibly could be.

My escape had been my dad’s apartment. It was tiny, and old, and I loved being there because I loved my dad. He was kind, loving, and hardworking. We watched movies and colored and did jigsaw puzzles.

After my dad died when I was twelve, I used to come and sit on this bench and daydream about the people in the houses on this street and what their lives were like. I imagined that they were all living the lives of the families portrayed on television and in the movies.

Did they have dinner together? Did the parents read their children bedtime stories? Did they have family game nights? Did the mom bake with them? Did she put Band-Aids on their cuts? Did she braid their hair?

My mother was not what I would call the nurturing type. I couldn’t remember her ever brushing my hair, making me breakfast, or helping me with my homework.

She’d married my father, who was fifteen years her senior, when she was twenty-two and had me one year later. When I was five, she left him, and because they hadn’t had a prenup, she took him to the cleaners.

He’d lost everything.

After that, she’d gone on to marry and divorce a string of wealthy men. Each time, her bank account grew. I remember hearing her friends laughing about how stupid men were, and how Bianca, my mother, easily bewitched them.

That’s what she’d done to my father, and I blamed her for his death. He worked twenty hours a day so that she could have anything she wanted. House renovations. Diamonds. Trips. If she batted her eyes and asked for it, he made sure she got it. She worked him into an early grave. I’d tolerated my mom when my father was alive, but after he died, I hated her.

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