The Sizzle Paradox, page 11
Max catches my eye and lets out an ungodly shriek as he lunges forward and wraps his arms around me. We’re both the same size and so we end up bumping foreheads. “Oh shit, sorry, sis!” he chortles, holding me at arm’s length. “Can you believe this, huh? Can ya?”
Before I can answer, he tugs me forward to the good witch. “This,” he says, his voice trembling with emotion, “is Camellia Martinez. Isn’t that just such a perfect name?” He gazes at her as if she invented the concept of names. Coming to, he continues, “Camellia, this is my other sister, Lyric. The one I told you about.”
Camellia looks up at me, a nervous, hopeful smile on her face. “Hi.” Although I’m not actually offering a hand, she somehow manages to take mine anyway, and sandwiches it between two of her small, soft, warm ones. “Max does not stop talking about you. You’ve done so much for him, and I can only hope to be half the woman in his life that you’ve been.”
I blink at her. Then I blink at Max. My mouth, I’m pretty sure, is open. “I, um…”
My little brother laughs. “Lyric’s speechless! Dude, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen! Usually she’d be telling me ten thousand things I’m doing wrong and need to fix.”
Letting go of my hand, Camellia swats him gently on the arm. “Well, then, you probably deserved it.” She grins at me. “Right?”
“Right,” I reply, before I can even compute that I’m agreeing with her. The enemy. Although … looking at them now, holding hands, her lovingly telling him off and him with his eyes crinkled in absolute joy … I have to say, Camellia Martinez doesn’t at all appear to be the devious cradle-robber I was expecting her to be. “So, Camellia,” I say, rallying. “How did you guys meet?”
“At NYPL about eight months ago. I’m a librarian,” Camellia replies.
I narrow my eyes at Max. There, that’s it. I’ve caught them in their first lie. “Really. What were you doing in a library, Max?”
He laughs. “I know, right? I went in to use the bathroom. And then, before I knew it, I was walking out of there with a library card and a stack of books. Guess who’s a big Ruth Ware fan now?”
I stare at him. “You … you’re reading Ruth Ware.” I have tried for years to get him to read a single book. Even a chapter book. Even a wordless picture book.
“And I’m introducing him to Tana French next week,” Camellia puts in, smiling fondly at him. “We do a little book club with two other couples.”
“Oh, oh, and guess what else, Lyr?”
I turn to Max, stunned. “What?”
“I got a job. An actual nine-to-five—well, sorta. I’m a house painter for Camellia’s dad’s company. So I get to not work in an office, which, let’s face it, I need, and I get to mostly do my own thing, too.”
I rub a hand over my face. “You’re serious?”
He beams at me. “Yep. Are you proud of me? You’ve been telling me to save money and get responsible for years and now I finally am. It comes with health insurance and everything.”
I can’t speak. Suddenly, I’m choked up and blinking back tears. Camellia has done in eight short months what my family and I have been trying to do for years. And you know what? Thank the God and Goddess for her.
I gather Max in a hug and squeeze him tight, my eyes closing. “I am so proud.” Then I open my eyes and smile at Camellia. “Congratulations, you two. Let me see that ring.”
Laughing, she holds out her left hand. On it sits a thin gold-tone ring, with the sculpture of a tiny camellia flower on it. I smile up at the happy couple, who are both waiting eagerly for my reaction. “It’s perfect, Max,” I say, shaking my head. “Holy shit. I don’t even recognize who you are anymore.”
He laughs uproariously and slings an arm around his fiancée. “Right? She did a number on me.”
“Thank you,” I say to Camellia, totally meaning it. “And keep doing it, please.”
They laugh together this time and then are accosted by Uncle George, who for some reason wants to know if Camellia has strong feelings about unicycles. I watch them go with a smile, and then feel a tap on my shoulder.
I turn to see Kian gazing smugly down at me. Guess he extricated himself enough from my family to have heard some of my conversation with Camellia and Max.
“So,” he says. “Gave her a chance, did ya?”
“Shut up.” I elbow him in the ribs and reach for a caramel brownie.
* * *
A couple hours later, my mom, sisters, and I are sitting around the kitchen table grazing on Nutella fudge and sipping coffee. The rest of the family has drifted outside into the backyard where my dad is grilling, and through the window, I watch Kian give Amethyst’s three-year-old daughter Lapiz a ride on his shoulders. I laugh when Lapiz attempts to crack Kian’s skull open with her sippy cup, but he takes the assault gamely and continues galloping around like a horse.
Amethyst follows my gaze and smiles tenderly. “He’s great with kids, isn’t he?”
“He’s a natural-born dad,” my mom, an early Kian adopter, puts in proudly, as if he’s her own son and this is the singular measure of his worth in the world. I guess it’s important to her, since she did have five kids.
I carefully select another square of fudge from the pan. “Yep. Someday he’ll make some girl happy.” Hopefully someday soon, if Zoey works out.
Opal gives me a look. “Any chance that girl might be you?”
I glare at her over my fudge. “We’ve had this conversation. Kian and I would be—”
“A disaster,” my entire family choruses.
I pause and look around at them all. “Well, so long as we’re all on the same page.”
“Are you dating anyone?” Opal asks, sipping her coffee. She knows the answer to this question. Why’s she acting like we don’t talk nearly every single day? Also, does she think I’m about to let her put me on the spot like this without repercussion?
“Not at the moment,” I reply carefully, though my eyes are slinging daggers. “And you? Wasn’t there some guy you were telling me about recently?” I screw up my nose like I’m deep in thought. “Ar … Arnie? Adam? Something like that?”
Even the tip of Opal’s nose turns red. “Nope. Not me.” And then she chugs her coffee, probably scalding her throat in the process.
No one else except me notices Opal’s seeming overreaction. Then again, I’m the only one privy to information about her romantic life she hasn’t shared with anyone else.
But she doesn’t need to explain to me why she doesn’t want to tell our family about Arthur. Besides not wanting to accept the inevitable because it’ll throw her entire life into chaos and shatter the careful identity she’s built for herself, Opal’s showing all the classic signs of fear of judgment. And she has a point—my family can be boisterously, noisily, annoyingly open with their opinions.
Although why she even cares, I don’t know. Everyone lost their shit when Amethyst married Brandon at nineteen, but that all turned out fine. Similarly, Willow almost gave my dad a heart attack when she announced she and her boyfriend Deacon were opening a vegan dog bakery in Manhattan, but that’s worked out super well and no one says anything about it anymore except to ask if she can bake their dog’s birthday cake.
Opal’s a self-made woman in love with a self-made man. Who cares if what he does isn’t practical? Who cares if he’s a decade younger? Do you know what I’d give to have someone look at me the way Arthur looks at Opal?
Also, why are all my siblings now happily in love while I stand out alone in the rain like some loser with a montage of sad love songs playing on repeat?
I blink to dispel the thought just as my mom starts to speak to me. “What happened to Paul? Weren’t you dating someone named P—”
“Yes, but that was, like, three guys ago, Mom.” I sigh and pick dispiritedly at another fudge square I heave onto my plate. Maybe I can just date fudge. That would be such a happy life. “Paul’s gone. They’re all gone.” I think again of Daniel Fuhrman and his exquisite résumé. How I got that instead of a kiss.
I will not sob at my mother’s kitchen table.
“It’ll happen for you.” Willow pats my hand, looking all big sisterly and protective, and somehow that makes me feel even worse. It’s glaringly obvious here, at our little brother’s engagement party, that I am the black sheep of the Bishop family. Not Max, as I’d deluded myself into thinking. It was me all along.
“It’ll happen quicker if you just stomp your pride and date Kian,” Amethyst puts in, all no-nonsense in her mom bun and sensible flats. “Really, Lyric. He’s gorgeous, he’s well-mannered, you know each other really well, he’s on his way to getting a great job. And he’s so good with women, you tell us all the time.”
“Oh my God.” I rub my face and then stop—I’m already close to combusting and I don’t need any more kindling. “Look, Kian’s great with women, I’ll give you that. He’s the perfect guy on paper, also true. That’s why he’s tutoring me on how to do what he does, except with the gentlemen instead of the ladies.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Opal looks up from her phone where she has no doubt been secretly texting Arthur. Those two can’t go five nanoseconds without sending kissy faces to each other. “What do you mean ‘tutoring’? You didn’t tell me about this.”
I fill them in on the date situation. “It’s just temporary, until I can get a handle on things and get Dr. Livingstone off my back.” Talking about my perpetually disappointed mentor makes me hyperventilate. I should be working on this shit instead of going into a hyperglycemic coma eating sugar-dusted sugar with sugar on top with my pushy family.
“So … you’re getting ‘tutored’ by Kian because he’s the perfect guy for literally almost every woman out there … but just not the perfect guy for you. Did I get that right?” Opal asks flatly.
“Pretty much, yeah.” I shrug. “You know. It’s Kian. Best friend. Roommate. Plant-obsessed, pancake-gobbling nut. I know him too well to date him. But once he’s done with me, I know I’ll find someone great.” I paste on a big, bright smile, but from the looks I’m getting (ranging from pitying to disbelieving to disapproving), I’m guessing it’s not working.
I feel a wide, empty hole open inside my chest as I look around at the women closest to me. We’re all so similar in appearance—blondish hair, willowy build, blue eyes fringed with pale lashes. But the similarities between them and me end there; they all have happy, stable, long-term romantic relationships and I have … a Dr. Livingstone who hates me, and a Kian Montgomery who’s leaving me soon. So why can’t I get this right? Why can’t I get any guy to stay?
Well, there’s no answering that or filling the void inside me with love right now. So I cram in another fudge square, hoping to fill it with chocolate instead.
Chapter Thirteen
LYRIC
My social gas tank is running pretty low later that evening when Aunt Colleen suggests everyone drive to the local Kohl’s so Max and Camellia can register for gifts. Of course, in the Bishop family, this is an extended-family event and not just reserved for the happy couple.
“Oh, I want to go!” Amethyst says and then pulls a face and turns to her husband Brandon. “But one of us will have to stay here, honey. Lapiz is asleep upstairs.”
“Oh, shoot.” He frowns. “I wanted to pick up a dress shirt for work.”
“I can do that for you!” Amethyst chirps hopefully.
“No, no. You don’t know the difference between lavender and mauve, and it has to be a mauve shirt. Lavender washes me out.”
You see what I’m dealing with? This is what constitutes a “problem” for my happily married family members. I sigh. “I’ll stay here in case Lapiz wakes up. I don’t think I’m up for a Kohl’s run anyway.”
Both Brandon and Amethyst look at me as if I’ve just announced I’m their guardian angel, descended from heaven. “Wow, thanks, Lyr!” Brandon pats me on the shoulder and Amethyst squeezes my waist on the way out.
Kian flops down on the couch beside me. “I’ll stay, too.”
“There’s plenty of food in the fridge if you get hungry,” my mom says, ostensibly to the both of us, but she’s really just talking to Kian and we both know it. The man’s a relentless consumption machine. Hungry Hungry Hippos? Yeah, that was inspired by Kian Montgomery.
“Thanks, Mrs. B.” He grins gratefully up at her, no doubt already planning his next meal.
My mom nods toward the now-empty kitchen while eyeing me meaningfully. “Lyric, can I talk to you really quickly about … our candy delivery service?”
Kian gives me a confused look, and I shake my head. I’ll explain later. My mom always comes up with outlandish excuses when she needs to talk to a family member in private.
“Sure, Mom.” I follow her into the kitchen, where she stops by the lemon squares. Mm. Lemon squares.
“Stop thinking about dessert for two seconds because I have something for you.” My mom reaches into the pocket of her palazzo pants and pulls out a rough-hewn pink crystal. “Rose quartz that was specially mined on St. Hana in the Pacific. I got it when Dad and I took our vacation there last year. It was blessed by an elder of the island, and it’s supposed to be one of the most powerful stones to attract love into your life.” She tries to press the crystal into my hand, but I move my hand away.
“Mom, no. That sounds rare. And expensive. You should keep it.”
She frowns. “But I’ve already found my lobster, Lyric.” My mother is an incorrigible Friends fan. “Now you have to find yours.”
The last thing I want to do is divest my mom of a very powerful, ancient, expensive crystal for something that, at this rate, is never going to happen. “I can’t, Mom.” Leaning in, I kiss her soft, vanilla-scented cheek. “But thank you.”
Sighing, she pats me on the back. “I love you, Lyric. Believe it or not, something beautiful is waiting for you right around the corner. I can feel it.”
In spite of my rapidly multiplying misgivings, I smile at her. “Thanks, Mom. Love you, too.”
“Oh, did you see this?” She walks over to a hanging frame on the wall in the attached dining room. “It’s your latest paper about the role of dopamine in sexual chemistry, in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. But you know, at the rate you publish, I won’t have any more room left on the walls.”
I laugh and hug her. I know what this is: a consolation prize. This is my mom saying, Well, you’re shit at relationships, but at least you’re good at being an academic! And maybe I should be offended. But truthfully, she’s right. At least there will always be academia. Even if, currently, academia and I are mortal enemies, thanks to my struggling thesis. “I’ll try to slow down for the sake of your home decor.”
“That would be nice.” Winking, she melts back into the chaos of the living room.
I wander back into the kitchen, looking down at the array of desserts on the counter. “Welp. She wasn’t wrong about something beautiful waiting right around the corner,” I mumble, picking up three lemon squares on napkins—one for me, two for Kian—and head back to him and the comfort of the couch.
After a few circus-like moments of family members forgetting keys, wallets, coupons, toupees (don’t ask), and then coming back in to get them, the front door finally closes on all twenty-six thousand Bishops and it is blessedly, peacefully quiet.
Setting my lemon square down, I lean my head back against the couch and close my eyes. “Ahhhhh.”
Kian chuckles. “I thought you liked the chaos of a big family.” While waiting for my response, he stuffs both lemon squares into his mouth in quick succession.
I crack open an eye and look at him. “I do. But I also like my peace and quiet. Living with just you for the past five years has ruined me.”
Kian studies me for a moment as he chews and swallows, his face serious. Then he points to the fireplace. “Mind if I turn that on and turn out the lights?”
“Nope.”
He flicks the switch that sets the gas fireplace alight and then plunges the room into darkness. Firelight flickers along every surface, casting deep pools of shadow in the corners of the room. When Kian sits back down, I snuggle into his chest, take a deep breath, and sigh. He smells like smoke from the grill outside and soft cotton and boy. A safe, masculine, comforting smell.
Wrapping a lock of my hair absentmindedly around his finger, he says, “You okay, LB?”
I still for a moment, watching the fire. “Yeah. Why?”
“You seem … I don’t know. A little down. Is it Max and Camellia?”
I wait a beat or two, hoping my answer won’t make me sound like the petty bitch I am. But who am I kidding? Besides, this is Kian. He isn’t allowed to judge me. It’s in the best friend contract we both had to sign. “Yeah, kinda.”
“I thought you liked her.”
“I do.” I sigh. “And somehow, that makes it worse. Max actually went and found someone good. Like, really good. I can see them married with kids in twenty years, living in a nice two bedroom not far from Mom and Dad, complaining about how the HOA won’t let them paint their house the exact shade of greige they want.”
Kian chuckles, the sound deep and rumbly in his chest. “That’s a very specific picture.”
“You’re welcome.”
He tugs gently on my hair. “But why does that make it worse?”
I throw a hand in the air. “It’s Max. My Maxie Pad. He’s not supposed to do something as serious as get married, especially not at twenty-two! I thought I had at least a decade to get my shit together before he’d even consider any of that domestic stuff.”
“Didn’t realize you were in competition with Max,” Kian says lightly, and, as predicted, there’s no judgment in his voice.
“I’m not,” I mumble, my cheeks heating in spite of Kian’s chill vibe. I’m ashamed of the way I’m acting. And I still can’t help it. “I don’t know. The ‘date’ with Daniel last night that ended up with him giving me his résumé. Max’s engagement. Dr. L breathing down my neck. My complete and utter inability to crack the stupid Sizzle Paradox or bring myself to work on my stupid thesis. It’s all just starting to take its toll on me, I think.”
