Chapter One #2
It’d be nice to run with someone and share the breathtaking views, but so far, I hadn’t had any luck in finding such a running partner.
I tried dating the old-fashioned way, but many—too many—of the women in Greenridge had been involved with one or more of my older brothers.
Being the last of the Hartley boys meant opportunities to meet women who hadn’t interacted in some form with my brothers were slim.
I didn’t want their leftovers, and if these females were into the more rugged, hands-on, mountain men type, I wasn’t going to be a good choice for them anyway.
I was the shortest of the Hartley brothers at six feet tall, which wasn’t tiny, but I always felt small when standing with the rest of them.
I was fit and muscular from running and lifting, but not as solid as the others.
My brown hair, brown beard, and brown eyes made me look related to the brothers that sported the same, but I took a bit more time to style my hair, shape my beard, and my clothes were more fashionable and fitted.
I still wore flannel like my brothers though because .
. . well . . . flannel. Comfy and warm were two attributes essential for Vermont living and flannel embodied them both.
I might get escorted out of the state completely if I didn’t agree to wear flannel.
I definitely didn’t want to leave the wooded, mountainous area where I’d lived my entire life.
Even if the pool of women was shallow. After too many failed attempts to meet women out and about, I’d turned to meeting potential mates online.
I was always in my home office, handling the finances and business side of Hartley’s Nest, as that was my specific role in the family business.
My computer, tablet, or phone was never too far from my fingertips so being online was second nature to me.
I’d gone on a few dates with women whose profiles appeared to be perfect matches to my own and what I was searching for in a partner.
Appeared being the operative word. I’d met far too many women whose profiles were nothing but lies. So. Many. Lies. While my profile was one hundred percent true, I kept finding that the women’s profiles were almost completely fabricated.
These women claimed to love running, but they couldn’t keep up or worse, they wouldn’t even agree to go running with me.
They waxed poetic about wildlife, but when I took them to Hartley’s Nest, they were not at all amazed by the animals we helped here.
They listed their favorite movies, but they couldn’t have a critical conversation about the cinematography of them. Because they hadn’t actually watched any of them.
They mentioned video games they loved, but when I set them up to play, it soon became clear they’d never held a controller in their hands.
I didn’t know why these women felt they had to lie in their profiles, but it was getting on my nerves.
Recently, I’d clicked on a few profiles only to find that the picture was also fake.
I didn’t need a woman who took movie-star quality headshots, but their pictures should resemble the real-life them, shouldn’t they?
Mine did. What you saw was what you got. Pure and simple.
I leaned forward now and grabbed my phone off my desk. I opened the Cyber Mates dating app and scrolled through a few profiles that had expressed an interest in connecting with me.
“Tori Flanagan,” I read aloud as I perused the profile of a woman with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She was beautiful until my gaze rested on the six fingers she had on her left hand—a clear indication the photo had been generated by low-quality AI. “Skip.”
I swiped over to another profile where the first sentence of the woman’s profile said she grew up on a horse farm in Vermont and competed nationally in show jumping. Her picture looked authentic with her in riding pants, boots, and a helmet.
“Okay, Diana Westerfield, let’s see about you.” After a few minutes of online searching on my phone and no results turning up a Diana Westerfield on any of the common horse competition sites, I deemed her a liar too. “Reject.”
I swiped away from her profile, and after finding falsehoods in four more potential connections, I closed the Cyber Mates app and tossed my phone back onto my desk.
Why was it so hard to find a kind, smart, pretty woman my age who also liked running, wildlife, numbers and finance, movies, electronics, and video games?
Although those last two interests sometimes got me in trouble with women.
I could admit to having a bit of an obsession with gaming and electronics and gadgets in general.
I was easily consumed by them and often lost track of time.
My family knew to come and tear me away if they wanted to spend time with me or needed me to do something.
Women I dated, however, often didn’t consider it fair to have to compete with my tech toys.
They were probably right, but I first became interested in such toys because of my dad, Benjamin Hartley.
He used to take me to the one electronics store in Greenridge on Saturday mornings and he and I would peruse the aisles, foaming at the mouth over the latest and greatest innovations in technology.
We’d also drool over the newest video games and have epic battles in these digital worlds we loved.
My dad’s first love was wildlife, hence why he started Hartley’s Nest with my mom, but he had an insatiable appetite for inventions too.
I’d inherited that hunger as well, and whenever I held some piece of cool equipment in my hands or played an exceptional, immersive video game, I felt as if my dad was with me.
Even though he wasn’t. He’d fallen off the roof of our veterinary clinic at Hartley’s Nest while repairing it and passed when I was sixteen. Being the youngest Hartley offspring meant I’d enjoyed the least amount of time with our father so those electronics store memories were so precious to me.
And sometimes . . . sometimes I feared I was forgetting details about my father. Was his hair more like Vanessa’s blonde or Darius’s? I often couldn’t remember the exact pitch of his voice or the melody of his laughter. How tall had he been? Taller than me? Taller than my brothers?
I’d pull out the photo albums Mom had on the shelves in the living room of the farmhouse where we’d grown up before building our own houses on Hartley’s Nest property.
I’d get some answers from those photos, but I didn’t like relying on them.
I wanted my father to have a permanent residence in my mind. I wanted him to always be a part of me.
Playing video games and fussing with gadgets helped keep him close. Therefore, any woman who wanted to be in my life needed to like these things too.
Sighing, I rolled my chair over to my business desk on the other side of the room.
I could make use of this unexpected free time to do some finance and marketing stuff for Hartley’s Nest. I got in a few hours, but I had to admit to not being able to concentrate very well.
My mind was on the gaming session I’d been in that had ended prematurely, the disappointing scan of women’s dating profiles, and the fading memories of my father instead.
I pushed away from work and took a few minutes to stretch out.
My phone buzzed as I finished stretching with a call from my brother Isaac.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Can you do me a solid?” Isaac asked.
“Depends on what the solid is.” I’d most likely agree, but I’d learned from past mistakes to always get my brothers to define the favor before accepting. Otherwise I could end up doing nasty chores that required a full-scale decontamination session afterwards.
“Can you watch Amelia tonight? We just came back from hiking and she’s pooped, but Carina and I would like to sneak in an adults-only dinner at Bear Belly Tavern,” Isaac said.
Somehow I’d become the family babysitter.
Amelia and Hunter liked coming over to my house because I had all the cool tech and I was fun.
I took it as a compliment that they wanted to hang out, but shouldn’t a guy in his early thirties do things besides entertain nieces and nephews?
Things such as going on dates with hot chicks or clowning around town with his boys.
Not that I had that many actual boys. Most of my friends were virtual or related to me. Did that make me a loser?
“Yeah, sure,” I said to Isaac, because what else did I have planned for tonight? Umm . . . nothing.
“Great! Thanks, Beckett,” Isaac said. “I’ll bring her by in like fifteen minutes.”
“Got it.” I ended the call and walked into my living room toward my huge screen TV. “TV on,” I said and the screen instantly came to life.
Cool, right? I thought so as did Amelia who often spent twenty-minute periods saying TV on and TV off, all while giggling as the TV flickered on and off at her command.
I searched through a list of favorites Amelia and I had collected especially for her and chose one of the more musical movies. She loved to sing along, the surround-sound speakers making every song sound like an epic performance.
I’d hoped for an older date tonight and some more mature entertainment, but Amelia was a cutie and I’d be doing my brother and his fiancée a favor. That meant they’d owe me a favor, which was always good to have on tap in this family.
As I shuffled into the kitchen to scrounge around for snacks, I wondered what advice my father would have given me about finding love. If only I could text him in Heaven and ask him. He’d clearly gotten it right because he’d snagged my mother, an amazing woman.
My wish was that someday I’d get it right too.