With Any Luck (The Improbable Meet-Cute, #5)

by Ashley Poston

My grandmother was a famous matchmaker, my mother is a renowned romance novelist, my sisters are paragons of advice on relationships—one an advice columnist, the other a sex therapist.

Because you see, the Love women excel at matchmaking and romance, just never for ourselves. We are fated, like my grandmother, my mother, my sisters, and me, to be the person before.

The rebound, the partner at the beginning of rom-coms who is rarely named because

they are always what the main character doesn’t need. They are the utter...

I’m the kiss before you find your true love.”

We don’t see each other romantically. (Which is a good thing, because Rhett goes through partners like a sadistic game of Russian roulette:

We are well and thoroughly best friends.

So when Rhett called me up ten years later and asked me if I wanted to be his best man, how could I say no? Never mind that he only knew Carmilla for six months—and

No. If my best friend’s going to jump, I’m at least going to be his spotter.

Rhett met me at the airport, and so we took a car together, and almost the entire ride he fidgeted and twisted his engagement ring on his finger, peering out at the wintry, barren landscape of Connecticut in February. He was nervous.

“I love her, Audie.”

The last person I wanted to see. I spun around and tried to find Rhett for an explanation,

I wake up with the taste of tequila and regret on my tongue.

I can’t remember how I left Rhett’s bachelor party. There was a kitschy bar—Ye-Haute, an Old English / Wild West–infused dive where the bartender wore a cowboy hat and talked like someone out of a Shakespearean novel, and I think I took one too many shots out of Ye Olde Bartender’s ample cleavage.

I look like someone ran me over with a semitruck and then backed up and did it again just for good measure.

Everything about Carmilla’s life is so vastly different from mine, from Rhett’s. She’s a three-time Emmy-nominated actress, with Vogue covers and an entire closet just for her shoes. I have three shoes I rotate between, so I can’t imagine having a whole closet full of them.

“It’s all too much. It’s scary. And she’s perfect. And I feel like she’s settling for me. She deserves so much more. Someone who gives a shit about this wedding.”

“I think I kissed Rhett last night. I don’t—I don’t remember when, but it was after the bar and after we got doughnuts. I remember . .

“I’m a terrible person, and I kissed him and ruined everything. Because every time I kiss someone, they find their soulmate the next day, and now he’s missing and . . . and . . .”

“So obviously, Rhett has met the woman of his dreams, and it’s all my fault that the wedding is ruined, and I’ve never seen him happier than with Carmilla, and now I ruined that because I ruin everything and—”

“Sometimes when you love someone, you both have to do shit you don’t want to.”

“Hey, hey, you won’t be alone forever. Someone like you? You’re bright and funny and talented,”

“You’re a copyeditor. You always write in a green pen. Your favorite food is a s’more, and your favorite word is ‘susurrus.’”

“Rhett wouldn’t shut up about you when I first met him. You should’ve heard the way he talked about you—like you hung the moon, the sun, and all the stars. I couldn’t wait to meet you in New Orleans, and when I did, I realized he didn’t even tell me the good parts.”

“I wasn’t joking yesterday when I asked you to kiss me.”

“Audrey Love, I’m not going to fuck you,” he growled,

“I’m going to make love to you, Audrey Love,” he said, “and make you scream my name, and tell me just how fucking lucky you are.” And I did.

“They eloped,” he deadpans. “Without telling anyone.”