* * *

"I'm serious!"

I know I'm being dramatic but fuck it. I deserve to be over the top at a time like this.

I fling myself back on the bed and throw my arm over my head. The tears threatening at the corners of my eyes are real. I'm over acting so I can keep my sense of humor but the truth of the matter is-- everything sucks and I really am going to start crying any minute.

"Brooke," Paige isn't buying it for a minute, "there's nothing wrong with you. Or your picker."

Paige might be my bestie, but she's so not helping right now.

"My picker is broken, how else can you explain how I manage to keep ending up with assholes like Damian?"

Paige laughs, "Well first of all, you could stop falling for guys with names like Damian! I mean really, how did that not tip you off right off the bat?"

I throw my arm over my face and groan.

"Seriously, Brookie, if you want to meet a good guy you're going to have to change your patterns."

"I don't even know what that means," I moan into the crook of my elbow.

"It means stop picking up guys based on their tattoos. Stop shopping in bars where all the guys are wearing leather jackets and ride motorcycles. Try a book club or maybe volunteer somewhere, that's how I met Jace."

Her voice gets all lilty and high pitched when she says his name. It makes her sound like she's 15 again. I've been listening to her "I'm in love and this is The One" voice for ten years. I've only heard it about a hundred times, I'm really good at recognizing it by now.

And really, "Jace," how can she even try to tell me that Damian's name should have given him away? But there's no point pointing that out to her, she and Jace just made it past their second anniversary. Their second month, that is, but that's half way to happily ever after for Paige so there's no way she's going to hear anything I have to say about the newest love of her life.

"I'm going to sign up to be a mail order bride."

When I say it I'm joking but Paige doesn't laugh at me right away and the few seconds of silence let me marinate in my words.

"You are not." Paige's voice lacks the conviction that I'm used to.

I expected her to immediately scold me for giving up on finding love the old-fashioned way. I expected her to tell me to stop talking crazy and launch into a list of ways to find a great guy.

She tells me no, but she doesn't sound like she means it. I pull my arm off my eyes and look at her.

She's got her phone in her hand and she's looking at the screen with an intense interest. She's Googling something.

"On second thought..."

Oh shit! She's looking up mail order bride sites?

I sit up and give her my best deer-in-the-headlights look, "You are not looking that shit up!"

I can't believe she's taking me seriously.

Her face scrunches up. I watch her thumb work its way across the screen, clicking on links and then going scrolling through the sites she's opened. Her face scrunches, she frowns, then her eyebrows shoot up, she smiles, she frowns again.

"What?!" The suspense is killing me.

OK. It's not like I'm really serious about becoming a mail order bride. I mean, I didn't even think it was a real thing, but Paige looks like she's having no trouble finding sites.

"Well," she starts off hesitantly while she's still browsing, "the good news is you can totally be a mail order bride if you're serious?" She looks up me with a curious look on her face.

"What's the bad news?" I have to admit, this is getting my mind off Damian. I almost even crack a smile.

Paige looks back down at the site she has open and shakes her head like she can't believe what she's reading, "The bad news is that you can totally be a mail order bride if you're serious."

"That bad?" I finally laugh.

"Depends on your idea of bad," she grins, "Apparently mountain men needs brides, as do truck drivers, fisherman, and prison inmates."

"No lighthouse keepers?" I tease, but seriously, mountain men? I crane my neck to see what site she's on.

"I don't see anything for lighthouse keepers, but if you're willing to relocate to Bolivia, this guy's only missing a few teeth," she holds her phone for me to see a picture of smiling man that appears to be 300 years old with only 2 visible teeth. Only two teeth are visible because that's all he has. The empty spaces along his gumline are obvious.

I shiver.

So much for mail order matrimony.

"Hmm," Paige has switched to a different site, she sounds intrigued. Always dangerous, but still, I'm curious.

"What?"

"Arranged marriage," she reads.

"Arranged?" I mimic her curious tone.

Fiddler on the Roof comes to mind. As does Bobby Jenkins. That's probably what I'd end up with if I let my dad pick a husband for me. There's a reason I wouldn't let Dad pick for me.

I'm ready to pull the whole "forget I said anything" routine but Paige is downright into this site now. She jumps up and fires up the lap top on my desk.

Oh shit. She's serious if she needs to see the site on a real computer!

"Arranged," she's explaining to me, "it's a modern day matchmaking service that focuses on marriage as the end game."

She's scrolling through the full site now, concentrating on the fine print.

"So it's not cheap," she muses, "but this Raven chick claims to have a 98% percent success rate with her matches."

"Raven chick?"

"Yeah, her name's Raven Swann. Looks way more normal than her name suggests though."

Paige holds up my lap top so I can see Raven's photo on the site. Ms. Swann doesn't look anything like the goth/hippy/new age/witch that I expected. She's a pretty woman in her mid-30s with long straight hair and soft brown skin. She's not even wearing too much eyeliner. And she's way younger than I would have expected a matchmaker to be.

"Says she been matching couples for 20 years, and that she's a third generation matchmaker."

Paige sounds impressed. She continues reading for a while and then turns to me with a dangerous grin, "How serious are you?"

* * *

Turns out, I'm pretty fucking serious.

I'm 26 years old for crying out loud. I've been through a handful of failed relationships, 2 of which I actually thought were going to turn into forever.

The problem is, I like em rough around the edges. I see a little ink peeking out from under the sleeve of a leather jacket and my panties fall right off. Add a motorcycle and a filthy mouth and I'm gone.

I like boys that drink too much, swear too much, and win bar fights.

Turns out, I also like boys who can't keep a job because they keep throwing punches at their boss, who get thrown out of their apartments because they sleep with their roommate's girlfriends, guys who can't keep it in their pants. Which would be fine if they took it out to slip it into me-- not their roommate's girlfriend.

I thought Damian was different. Because he promised me he was different. I should have known better.

I really do want that happily ever after. I want a family of my own. A husband that can keep a job and his temper. A man that doesn't flip out if my period is two days late.

Wouldn't it be nice to be with someone who wants to have babies?

I mean, yeah sure, I get it. I know Dame and I weren't ready. He'd been unemployed for six months already and no prospects in sight. We were living on my salary alone, which is decent and all but not really enough to support a household.

We weren't married-- I mean, we'd talked about it and all. He always said he was "open to the idea," "down the line," "when I'm back on my feet."

Stupid me, I thought that meant he wanted to marry me. What it really meant was more like, "please don't kick me out and stop paying my bills."

When I had my little scare, it all became clear. It's one thing that neither of us were ready for a baby but the way he flipped out? Obviously it was more than "not ready now," it was pretty clear the idea of being shackled to me for the rest of his life was more than he could handle.

Thank God I started my damn period! And kicked that asshole to the curb. And went on a 6 week mope fest where I ate nothing but chocolate ice cream drowned in peppermint schnapps.

I mean really. This guy was with me for over a year, living with me-- off of me-- for 8 months, he talked like I was it for him, like we were going somewhere as a couple, like we had a future. And even if it would have been crappy timing and all, it would have been nice if he was just a little bit secretly excited about starting a family, you know?

What I really learned from Damian is that I want a man who really loves me and who's really in it for the long haul, the big picture, the whole nine yards.

I'm looking for a future with someone who wants the same things I do and isn't a total loser.

And I obviously can't be trusted to pick that someone out on my own.

I can't believe I'm filling this out. There's gotta be 3,000 questions on this thing.

I click "next" at the bottom of the page. Make that 4,000.

If Grant hadn't spoken so highly of Raven's services I'd have called this off when she said "background check."

Grant's so damn happy with Amelia. They're two years in and just announced their second baby's on the way. I'm sure I'll be getting another fucking Christmas card with them dressed in matching outfits in front of the damn tree any day now.

They even dress the damn dog up.

It's so cute it makes me want to puke.

That's what I tell my brother. I roll my eyes and make retching noises and tease the bastard that I have to ask Amelia if he can have his fucking balls back long enough to go hunting with me, but the truth of the matter is that it kills me because I'm so damn jealous.

I wasn't one of the people that Raven interviewed when Grant used her services to find Amelia. That was the year I was out of the country. Out of touch really. Off the grid, only checking in via email now and then to let everyone know I'd made it across another South American border without getting killed or arrested.

So I missed out on all the fun when our sister and parents were interviewing candidates and deciding who my baby brother was going to marry.

I still remember reading Mom's email when I finally found a hotel with wifi after being stuck for 14 hours at the Honduras border. Worst border crossing of the whole trip.

Grant was getting hitched, to some girl he'd never even met! He'd found Raven's agency through some buddy of his and he was gung ho on finding himself a wife and starting a family.

At the time I thought it sounded crazy. Paying some crazy new age match maker to set you up. And this Raven chick doesn't deal with dating or hooking up, no way. She's serious. Her clients are looking for the real deal. If marriage isn't what you're looking for, you aren't looking to do business with Raven Swann.

There's no keeping it secret. You can't play off how you met by making up some story. Raven deals in arranged marriages. After an extensive application process, her clients are essentially left out of the process while their closest friends and family get to interview the prospective matches.

I'm on day three of the extensive application process.

Fuck if I know what I'm doing. All these questions are stupid as fuck. Who cares what kind of toothpaste I use, or whether I prefer sleeping with my socks on? What does this shit have to do with finding the perfect woman for me?

I lean back in my chair and let my eyes unfocus for a minute. I've been staring at the damn computer screen for the last two hours trying to finish this up.

I can't believe I'm going through with this.

I'm not going to spend another year alone though. I won't make it through another holiday season, watching my folks gush over grandkids that I haven't given them yet, listening to Grant talk about his vacation plans with his new family, watching the way Amelia looks at him like he hung the damn moon.

I want that.

I want what my brother has and I don't want to waste any more time trying to find it on my own.

I close my eyes for a minute and think about what kind of woman Raven will find for me. What kind of woman my friends and family will find for me, actually.

She's gonna have to be ready for kids, that's for sure. I want kids yesterday. I never thought of myself as daddy material but watching my buddies from college and the way they swell with pride when their kids do something for the first time, and the way little Taylor hangs on to Grant's neck when he holds her.

Turns me to fucking mush. And I have to shrug it off and make some dumbass joke about my brother being pussy-whipped so no one sees how it tears my heart out I want it so bad.

Of course, I'm not lookin' to trade sex for babies. Hell no. I need a woman who loves cock. Who loves my cock. And not just in missionary position with the lights off either. Fuck that. I want a woman who feels beautiful in front of me, I'll make sure my woman feels beautiful in front of me. I'll make sure she knows she's worshiped every day. But she's gotta enjoy sex. In every position and in every room of the house.

That's the thought that has me forgetting about the application a little longer.

I imagine a sexy woman with a curvy body, spread out on my bed in front of me. She'll be naked and looking at me with her eyes glazed over with lust as she touches herself, begging me to take her.

Oh yeah. I don't care if she's a moaner or a screamer. I don't care if she's blonde or brunette or a redhead with all that pale skin and freckles.

That's not the shit that matters to me.

I just want someone to love, someone who loves me back. And loves having my hands on her, because I plan on putting them on her a lot.

I pull myself out of my fantasies and go back to answering the questionnaire. The sooner I get through this, the sooner I get to meet my wife.

* * *