Perfectly Unmatched Read Free

tell myself. He just technically proposed to me.
              He’ll definitely be back.
              I lie down on my bed and fold my hands over my stomach, watching the ghostly flicker of the candlelight on the walls until the first flame drowns in the melted wax and sputters to its smoky death. Shadows chase across my ceiling and more candles extinguish as I doze in and out of a choppy pseudo-sleep that’s interrupted by dreams that feel so real and ominous, I startle awake over and over.
              Every time I jolt awake from another mini-nightmare, I’m shocked that Damian isn’t in my room, flowers in hand, a small smile of apology on his face. Somewhere between midnight and early sunrise, I fall into a dark sleep that’s mercifully dreamless and wake way too early. I welcome this new day with such an enormous leaden lump gathering weight in the pit of my stomach, no amount of concentrated Reclining Goddess pose can get rid of it.
              “Good morning, princess,” my father says when I walk into our huge, sunny kitchen. He’s sipping strong coffee and looking over the paper, his regular, dependable morning routine. “Your mother tells me you girls are headed out for a spa day today?”
              I pour myself a mug of the fragrant stuff from the French press, adding only a tiny bit of sugar and no cream. I like my coffee dark and a little sweet in the morning, like my father. At night I want drowned in sugar and extra creamy with a shot of liquor, the way my mother takes it. I guess I’m a little confused. Or just an open-minded coffee drinker.
              “Good morning, Pop. We’re heading out for a little pampering. You know Mama needs it. How’s the world looking? Falling apart as usual?” I pull my chair close to his and lean on his strong arm, glancing over the page he’s reading. It’s the classifieds. “Looking for something in particular? Can I help?”
              His smile is worn. “Just hunting around for a few good men, sweetie.” He shakes his head and rubs his temples. I can smell the stale bite of old cigarette on him. My father used to only smoke in the evenings, after dinner, but he’s been smoking during the day, earlier and earlier. “I hate to admit it, but I don’t think Winch is ever coming back, and Remy isn’t gonna be any good without Winch around. What does that leave me with?”
              I think about Damian, about how very similar the two men I love most in the world are, and take a long, hot sip of my coffee before cradling the warm mug in my hands and making a silent wish that things will work out the perfect way they need to. “I’m sorry, Pop. I still can’t believe Winch just left like that.”
              I really can’t believe it. I’m not saying life was completely perfect here, but Winch didn’t even try to make things right. And, though I have to admit, he was completely loyal to the family for years on end, once he decided he was done, he just up and left with hardly any warning, never considering the destruction his completely selfish behavior would be leaving in its wake. It didn’t make any sense. It isn’t the way our family operates, and his desertion felt like an unexpected amputation.
              None of us can shake the ghost of Winch, because we still need him in order to function wholly.
              Because, besides the emotional chaos his leaving produced, he’d left a gaping hole in our family’s business. Winch had been groomed to run so many different aspects of so many businesses since he was just a kid, plus he’d been my father’s right-hand man and kept an eye on Remy. Now that he’s gone, it’s all on our father’s shoulders. Everything.
              Though my father never complains, I can see the weight of it in the bow of