Mr. Imperfect

chapter 10



Mike angled himself on the tramp so he could see the women on the porch. While his nieces and nephews squealed with joy, he watched his sister for cues as to how the conversation was going.

Unfortunately, it looked like it was going very well. Mike could read his mom and sisters-in-law pretty well, and all of them seemed quite smitten with Rori. Whatever she was saying to them clearly had them impressed.

This impression was confirmed when Kris sent him a look of resignation that said, I haven’t found a chink in her armor yet, but I’ll keep looking.

Not good.

Rori was passing inspection, which meant everyone would approve of her marrying Luke.

Before this day, Mike would have never believed that he and Luke could have ever fallen for the same woman. In the ten years since the two of them had started dating, Mike had never even looked twice at a girl Luke liked. They hadn’t even been in the same zip code as Mike’s type.

Until today. Until Rori.

It was a fact Mike needed to get over, and get over quickly. Luke had a fiancée. Mike thought she was hot. Big whoop. Hot girls were everywhere, and Mike was currently in a self-imposed moratorium until he got his student loans paid off. He wasn’t even in the market.

At least, that’s what he could tell himself when he wasn’t looking at Rori. As soon as he caught sight of her again, a chemical reaction in his brain stripped him of logic and left him in a different head space entirely.

“Do you think Kris likes her?” Luke asked from across the tramp as Mike’s youngest niece flew above their heads squealing. In his distraction Mike had allowed her to get bounced way too high.

“Looks that way,” Mike said, trying to keep his voice neutral as he caught his niece on her way down.

“Again! Again!” she cried, squirming away from him. He let her down.

“I knew you guys would love her!” Luke beamed. “Seriously, Mike, she’s perfect. Like, crazy perfect.”

“Bounce me now!” Mike’s nephew pouted at their feet.

Mike shared a look with Luke and a moment later the kid was flying up like a rocket. This time Mike didn’t catch the kid, but kept his eyes on Luke.

“Do you love her?”

Luke laughed. “Seriously? Only you would ask that.”

“Someone has to,” Mike challenged.

“Not in this case,” Luke said, timing his next bounce just right to bounce Mike’s oldest nephew, Alex, above their heads. The kid flew up between them, flapping his arms like a struggling bird. “She’s not into that. She cares about common goals and physical attraction. Rori thinks love is something that you grow into in a marriage, not a prerequisite.”

Mike stopped bouncing and stared his friend, his vision momentarily blocked as Alex plummeted back to the tramp.

“You’re kidding me,” Mike said, his chest suddenly feeling quite hollow.

“Nope,” Luke grinned. “Perfect, right?”

No. Not perfect at all. In fact, quite the opposite. To fall in love at first sight with a woman who didn’t believe in love?

“You’ll see, dude,” Luke said when Mike hesitated. “She’s perfect. You’ll love her.”

And that, Mike thought, is the problem.