Page 1 of Practice Makes Perfect

Chapter One

Carter

The sight of moving boxes greets me as I stumble out from my bedroom in the apartment I share with my sister, her son, and her boyfriend. Not boyfriend, I correct myself, fiancé, and after today, I won’t be sharing the apartment with anyone. Loneliness threatens just as it does every time I think about Maya and her small family are moving into our old childhood home, something that’s been on the horizon ever since Jake bought it for her and subsequently proposed this past Valentine’s Day. They’ve been staying here with me while some necessary renovations were under way, but those are all finished and now they’re ready to move in and move on with their lives. If only I could be so lucky. While my sister is engaged to be married to the man of her dreams and the father of her almost three-year-old son, I’m about to be more alone than I have been in a long time.

Six years ago this November, we lost our parents in a drunk driving accident. Maya came home from college and immediately moved in with me after our childhood home was repossessed due to some financial blundering on our parents’ part. Two years later, she got pregnant with JJ and for a while, it was the three of us against the world. We had a great routine going. Maya and JJ would hang inside the store we own, Hodgepodge, and liaise with customers and artisans while I spent most of my time out in the workshop, focusing my efforts on creating new furniture and other woodworking pieces that were requested of me. We’d have dinner together, and then enjoy each other’s company until bedtime. To help Maya out, I also spent a good amount of time hanging out my nephew, taking him to the park or playing any number of games with him to help tire him out before I sang him to sleep for his nap or bedtime. It was nice to have those special moments with JJ, and helping to take care of him and my sister gave me a sense of purpose outside of work. Now that those days are over, I’m feeling slightly depressed about the whole situation.

It’s not that I’m not happy for my sister. I am. The fact that Jake disappeared for three years and came back to her was incredible, a miracle really, and seeing Maya and JJ as happy as they have been these last few months fills my heart with so much joy and gratitude that it sometimes feels like I can’t contain it all. My sister having everything she ever wanted is more than I could ever hope for, and now she does. We struggled for so long, her in particular, and now her romantic and financial worries are behind her. My worries are as present as ever, and now that I will be on my own, I’m actually a bit concerned for myself. Before I could channel all of my time and energy into my family, but now that’s not the case, and I’m not sure what to do

It’s not like I’m a recluse or anything, but I’m not exactly Mister Social either. Being around other people isn’t something I dread, it’s just that with the last few years being so busy with work to keep the store solvent and my helping Maya with her son, I haven’t had a whole lot of time for friends or dating. The idea of having someone to love who would love me in return has been on my mind since I was younger, but between dealing with the grief of losing my parents and Maya getting pregnant two years later, dating didn’t just get pushed to the back burner, it got taken off the stove and put on ice almost permanently.

Admittedly, finding that special someone could have been more of a priority for me if I really wanted it to, but it wasn’t like I was having much luck before my parents’ accident anyway. Starlight Lake is a small town and the dating pool is even smaller. It seems like every woman here has already gone on a date with me and declined a second, or hasn’t been interested in dating me at all. Expanding my search area to other towns on the dating apps hasn’t provided more options either, so eventually I stopped looking altogether.

Dating apps are all about snap judgments based on looks rather than based on who the person really is, and I understand that, but it doesn’t make it suck any less for me. Attraction is important, and while I’m a decent looking guy, I’m not exactly the type of man you immediately swipe right for. My father, Stellan Johansen, on the other hand, came to the states from Norway and was basically a modern-day Viking with the face and body of a warrior. He was tall and broad shouldered, with flowing golden locks, a strong nose and jaw, icy blue eyes, and the kind of muscles I could only get from hours in the gym and an all grilled chicken and vegetable diet. He was the type of guy women would practically swoon over, batting their eyelashes at him every chance they got.

Maya inherited his striking Scandinavian looks and charming personality, whereas I take after my mother, Olive. She was a little quieter, a little more reserved when it came to her dealings with others, and she looked more like your average girl next door than Viking princess. Her hair was dark brown, her stature on the shorter side, and her body soft from a mixture of genetics, strong dislike of exercise, and deep love of sweets. My father believed her to be the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and I agree that she was beautiful, it’s just that most times I wish I had taken after Dad when it comes to my appearance.

At five feet eleven, I’m no slouch in the height department, and I have muscles built from long days of hard work in my shop, lifting and sculpting wood furniture for hours on end, but my face is a little rounder than I would like and my dark brown hair is wavy and never seems to want to settle in one spot. Running a hand over it now as I pad over to the kitchen and turn on the coffee maker confirms that once again, I have a massive case of tangled bed head. Maya tells me it’s not my appearance, but my lack of confidence that is the cause of my dating woes. While I agree with her that my confidence could benefit from a little boost, it’s hard not to think that my looks aren’t a factor when I’ve lost track of the number of disappointed glances I’ve gotten from dates when we first meet in person.

Women on the apps read about my being a small town woodworker and see the flannel I often wear, and they expect a lumberjack, an alpha male mountain man that can sweep them off their feet and that they’ll fall instantly, madly in love with. You would think they would see that wasn’t likely to be the case from my app photos, but they don’t. Maybe they hope the reality is better than what’s on screen, but when they show up and get a somewhat timid guy who would rather sculpt wood into something useful than spend hours sculpting his own body into one of a Greek God or perfect his lumberjack persona, it becomes obvious that I’m not what they were hoping for. That kind of fantasy is a lot to live up to, and it doesn’t help when you’re starting at a disadvantage of what it seems most women around my small town want.

With a sigh, I open the cabinet and take out three mugs and a new sippy cup for JJ. As the coffee percolates, I start making some breakfast for the family. My eyes flick over to the pile of cardboard boxes near the corner of the family room. We’re going to need a good start if we’re moving all of those today. At least it’s June and there isn’t a cloud in sight. Glancing out the window to see a clear sky brightens my mood slightly, and I’m grateful for it. Summer is my absolute favorite time of year. I may not be a lumberjack, but I know my way around the woods and enjoy hiking, camping, and going out on the lake, squeezing as much time out in nature as I can into the warmer months. At least I’ll have those activities to look forward to when I’m dealing with the lonesomeness that’s creeped its way into my heart over the years and seemed to set up shop permanently.

The door to the second bedroom creaks open, drawing my attention there just in time to watch JJ shoot out and run towards me in his footie pajamas while nearly slipping on the hardwood floor. “Carda,” he squeals. He’s still unable to enunciate my full name, but it’s not like I mind. He can call me anything he wants in that sweet little voice. My nephew basically has me wrapped around his little pinky finger and he knows it. With a smile on his chubby face, he skids straight into my legs and holds them tight. A smile of my own spreads across my face at the familiar gesture as I lean down and pick him up.

“Hey there, little J,” I cheer before blowing a raspberry on his soft cheek. The sound reverberates in the small kitchen space and it makes him giggle even harder. “What do you want for breakfast this morning?” It’s the last time I’ll be making him breakfast in this apartment, but I manage to hold my disappointment at that fact at bay and keep my expression bright for him. My nephew will still be around, and I can still do things for him, it will just be different. There is a mostly-finished project down in my workshop that will be an awesome treehouse bed for JJ when it’s finished, so working on that will help keep my mind off of my family’s absence as well.

“Pankies,” he shouts and wiggles in my grasp. Putting him down, I watch as he starts pushing his little helper stool over to the counter and smacks the granite with his open palms. “Pankies, pankies!”

“All right, all right. Pancakes it is,” I chuckle.

My hand reaches over to ruffle his auburn curls before I set him up with a bowl of sliced grapes to snack on while he waits. Normally, I would go for something much easier than pancakes, but it’s a big day, and was specially requested, so I don’t feel obligated to reel him in. As I start gathering up the necessary ingredients, I hear Maya’s slippers shuffling across the floor as she comes into the kitchen and pecks her son on the cheek. When I spot her expression out of the corner of my eye, my heart swells. She looks incredibly happy, almost glowing with the emotion, and no matter how much I’m going to miss her and little J, it’s nice to see her looking more rested, more refreshed, and more cared for than she has in quite some time.

“Morning, Mai,” I say to her as I grab a large bowl.

“Good morning,” she mutters around a large yawn. She starts pouring the coffee into the mugs I’ve laid out and I pass over the vanilla bean creamer I snagged from the fridge while I was grabbing eggs and milk for the pancakes. Our mealtime routines are like a well-rehearsed play at this point, another thing that will be changing come this time tomorrow. You’d think that I would be happy to be back to cooking for one, but it’s been at least six years since that’s been the case, and I’m not even sure I know how to do it anymore. That thought is more depressing than I would like it to be, and my hand comes up to my chest to rub at the ache that’s formed there.

Maya peeks at me from the corner of her eye. “Ready to have this place all to yourself? No more JJ sneaking into your room to wake you up before you’re ready. No more sharing a bathroom with three other people,” my sister says, a hopeful grin on her face. She knows me better than anyone, so it’s no surprise that she’s trying to get me to see the good of this whole situation while I seem determined to only see the downside.

A rueful smile plays at my mouth as I mix up the batter for pancakes. “Well, I certainly won’t miss the old ‘sock on the door’ system for letting me know you and Jake need some alone time,” I tell her with a shudder. “I’ve learned more about your sex life over the last six months than I have ever wanted to know.” It certainly didn’t help that I wasn’t getting any myself. Every time I came home to that little reminder to make myself scarce was another time I was reminded of how utterly hopeless my own personal life was.

Maya’s cheeks darken in a blush as she adds creamer to the coffees and passes me my favorite mug. “Sorry about that,” she replies. The little gleam in her eye tells me she’s not as repentant about it as she’s making out though. “You could have taken advantage of the system yourself, you know.”

I scoff, whipping the batter harder than necessary. “That would require someone to actually want to go out on more than one date with me first.” The words tumble out before I can draw them back, and I glance over at Maya just in time to see her frown. Great. Sibling lecture incoming in three … two…

“I don’t like it when you talk about yourself like that,” she admonishes. Her eyes flick over to JJ who is too busy smashing grapes all over the counter to notice either of us or what we’re talking about. “It’s not good for JJ to hear his uncle being so down on himself. Besides, it’s been forever since you even tried to get a date, so how do you know there isn’t someone out there just waiting for you to ask them out?”

With a sigh, I turn to her and clasp her shoulder. “I’m not trying to be down on myself and I’ll watch what I say around JJ more closely.” The promise is one I intend to keep, but I can’t promise the self-conscious thoughts won’t continue to swirl around in my mind, much like the blueberries in my pancake mixture. Turning back to the griddle, I distract myself by pouring some batter and enjoying the satisfying sizzle that hits my ear as it hits the surface. As I watch the batter start to bubble, I think a little more about what Maya’s said. Maybe I have been too hard on myself as far as dating goes. Another shot at it wouldn’t be such a bad idea, and it has been a long time. “You’re right. It has been too long since I really put myself out there. Maybe I can use the free time I’ll have now to remedy that.”

“There you go,” Maya says with a bright smile. “Any girl would be lucky to have you.” She turns her attention back to JJ and starts to clean up his first attempt at winemaking when Jake emerges from their bedroom looking way more put together than anyone has a right to after just waking up. My hand reaches up in one last attempt to smooth out my own matted hair when I get a glimpse of his. Not a single red curl out of place, the jerk.

Jake nods a greeting to me as he joins Maya and JJ at the counter. “Good morning, beautiful,” he tells my sister. His words proceed his leaning in for what I am sure will be a very passionate kiss, but I turn away in enough time to miss it. They’re not shy about showing affection in front of me or JJ, but it feels wrong to witness something so intimate, especially when it causes a little sting of envy in me every time I do. That’s the kind of happiness I want, I think to myself as I flip the pancakes.

The love my sister and her fiancé found is the type of love born from two people who fell for one another instantly, and while they had to deal with a period of absence and other obstacles on the way towards their happily ever after, they both seem to be stronger for it. Maya always describes the connection she feels with Jake as magical, as something that was written in the stars long ago that she had no hope of resisting. If I hadn’t witnessed their coming back together for myself, I’m not sure I would have believed it, but I do, at least for the two of them. With both my parents and now Maya experiencing the ‘love at first sight’ phenomena, one could think I was hoping for the same thing myself, but that isn’t the case.

While I’ve felt a slight inkling of that once in my life, I dismissed it as a fluke or wishful thinking on my part. There was no way a woman as stunning and dynamic as Jake’s best friend Billie would have been interested in me anyway, no matter how much she likes to flirt with and tease me. That’s just her personality and has nothing to do with her actually wanting me. As we all sit down to breakfast and the thought of having nights and weekends to myself stretches before me, the decision to try and find someone to spend my time with is an easy one. What I want is someone who appreciates me for who I am underneath the surface, who can see past the wild, wavy hair and soft features to see the caring, thoughtful, kind man I try every day to be. Now all I need to do is find the woman willing to do just that.

Chapter Two

---