Cole
“Mail order groom? You? Be serious.”
Farmer Dan is younger than me by three decades. The kid just graduated high school, practically still a child and it would be more appropriate for him to marry the woman that’s got me twisted into knots. The age-gap between them is certainly smaller.
“If that’s what it takes,” I reply. “You have to be bold when you go after what you want.”
“No more sage advice,” Dan groans. “Please, no.”
Buzz and Casanova chuckle as the nineteen-year-old walks away from the picnic table we’re sitting at for our lunch break. Working at the Carmichael Lumberyard isn’t a glamorous job, but it pays well and the crew of men I work with are decent guys.
Calhoun joined us earlier this year after he moved to Crescent Ridge to marry Madison, one of Sabrina’s best friends.
Luckily, he’s taking a vacation with his family or I’d be dealing with his overprotective big brother routine.
Like the other mail order grooms that married into her friend group, he’s become a surrogate big brother to all his wife’s friends.
I don’t need that complication right now. I’ll deal with him after I’ve got my ring on her finger.
“You could ask the girl out, you know?” Casanova suggests. “Be bold in person and all that jazz.”
“What do you know about jazz?” Buzz snorts. He’s older than me, with a shiny bald head and has a hand with only a thumb and two fingers thanks to an accident with a buzzsaw in his early twenties.
The pair get into a heated debate that I steadfastly ignore. Before I signed up for this dating app, I never used this damn phone. I can answer when someone calls, and navigate to my contact list to call the boss, but otherwise I don’t have much use for it.
I like my phone to work as a phone, and nothing else. No fancy radio, TV, or goddamn therapist. But to get my girl, I’m gonna use the blasted thing. Even if my fat thumbs hit the wrong letters when I’m typing in the app. Even if I had to ask the guys for help finding the app.
Sabrina’s worth it. Hell, she deserves a better man than me.
But when I overheard her friends at the diner talking about her finding a husband before the 13th on some random mail order groom dating site I wasn’t going to sit idly by.
I’d rather die than watch her marry some loser who can’t find a wife in his own zip code.
Fuck that noise.
“Catfishing is a bad idea,” Dan tells me with a glare as he rejoins us.
“Sabrina hates fishing.”
Dan freezes in place, and the two chuckleheads arguing about whether jazz music needs vocals or not have fallen silent. I’ve missed something.
“Cole,” Casanova groans.
“I’m taking away your phone,” Dan mutters. “You can’t be allowed onto the internet without supervision.”
“Just spit it out.”
“Catfishing is purposely misrepresenting yourself online to deceive another person in the hope of tricking them into a relationship or to scam them out of money,” Casanova says.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, it’s bad.”
“Shit.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll come up with a better plan,” Dan offers in consolation. “Like talking to her.”
“We already matched.” I mutter.
“Dumbass,” Buzz says with a grin. He’s on his third marriage and considering how that trainwreck of a relationship is going he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Glancing at my phone I can’t help but wince as Dan and Casanova continue mocking me. Out of the crew I have the least amount of experience with modern dating. Even Buzz managed to find three women willing to marry him.
I’ve only ever wanted to marry one woman. Before I met Sabrina, I didn’t think of myself as the marrying kind. Now I might have torched our relationship before the starting line.
Dumbass indeed.