Packaged Husband

After twenty-four years, being the “pretty one” starts to get old.

Maybe pretty should be a compliment, but it isn’t always. Sometimes it’s an implied insult. Particularly when it’s the only label people ever apply to you.

If you’re one of three blond sisters, you’re going to get labeled as something—if only so people can tell you and your sisters apart. My oldest sister, Melissa, is the bossy one. The ultracompetent one. The one who makes things happen without even trying. And my middle sister, Sam, is the smart one.

That leaves me. Chelsea Greyson. The youngest of my family. The baby. The spoiled princess.

The pretty one.

No one knows anything else to call me.

Both my sisters are attractive, so it’s not like I’m uniquely beautiful. But neither of them puts much effort into their appearance. I dress stylishly and always do my hair, makeup, and nails. I can be counted on to invariably look good, and not many people try to see beyond that.

Pop definitely doesn’t.

Pop is my grandfather. He founded a successful regional restaurant chain called Pop’s Home Cooking and made a ton of money. He raised my sisters and me after our parents died when I was eight.

Other than each other, Pop is all the family we have. But I’ve always been nothing but the “pretty one” to Pop, and that’s all I’ll ever be.

At the moment, Pop and I are having our weekly lunch, and he’s giving me his look of amused disappointment, as if I’m a miniature poodle who’s forgotten how to do its tricks. I’m used to that look. I get it all the time, and not just from my grandfather.

Pop has white hair and a long handlebar mustache that bristles with his mood.

It’s not bristling now because he’s not surprised by me. He’s disappointed, but he’s used to that.

“I am trying, Pop,” I say, holding on to my smile with effort. “It’s not easy to find a job since I have absolutely no work experience. I’ve never had a job before.”

“So what? You’ve got a college degree. And you’re my granddaughter.”

It’s more than evident that the latter qualification is what Pop believes should net me gainful employment. I went to a decent college and got Bs without trying very hard. I’m smart enough for most things, but I’m not as smart as Sam.

I’m not smart enough to impress Pop.

But he’s been treated as a king in Charleston, West Virginia, for as long as I’ve been alive, and he believes his reputation should cast its warm glow onto me.

“I could definitely get some sort of job.” I’m trying not to lose my patience since getting angry with Pop only makes his obnoxious tendencies worse. “But it would be the lowest of entry-level positions. I’m okay with that, but you’re not. No one is going to hire me for the kind of job you’re thinking about without any work experience.”

“I would,” he grumbles. “Why don’t you just work for me?”

Working at Pop’s—with Melissa and/or Pop as a boss—sounds like a nightmare scenario to me.

I’m not foolish enough to say so, however.

“I don’t want to work at Pop’s. It’s nothing personal, but Melissa already works there. I want to do something different.”

“What about Trevor? Maybe he’d hire you.”

I take a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t want to work for my brother-in-law, Pop. Besides, he has a small staff, and everyone who works for him is top-notch. He’s not going to want to hire me.”

Melissa’s husband, Trevor, owns his own marketing firm. Yet another successful person in my social circle. I’m surrounded by them. Even Sam’s husband, Hunter, who was in prison for two years, is moving up fast in the finance department at Pop’s.

Everyone is good at a career except me.

“I’ll make some calls,” Pop says, his mustache starting to quiver for the first time.

“Please don’t make calls, Pop. I want a job that I get myself. Not one you bully someone into hiring me for.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“Please, Pop. I’m not going to accept a job that you engineer for me. Anyway, I’ve got an interview tomorrow for a job.”

“You do? With who? What’s the job?”

I hesitate since the last thing I want is for Pop to call up Owen Masterson this afternoon and mess up the best job possibility I’ve ever had. “I’d rather not say yet.”

“Why not?”

“Pop, I’m an adult. Surely I can go about my job search on my own.”

His mustache quivers at me.

“It’s something I’d be really good at it. It would just be a temporary contract, but it might lead to other opportunities. I’ll tell you about it when I can. Right now I’ve initiated this and gotten the interview entirely on my own. It’s important to me that I do this on my own.”

He frowns. “You’re as stubborn as your sisters, girl.”

“I know that. What else would you expect?”

I’m hoping this means the topic is over.

I’ve been trying to find a job for the past few months, and I suppose this weekly inquisition is Pop’s way of helping. He’s been supporting me financially my whole life, and I normally wouldn’t have a problem with this. But Pop’s money always comes with strings—he believes if he supports me, then he has a right to run my life—and I’ve seen my sisters cutting those strings over the past year or two.

I want to do the same thing.

But that means getting a job when I’ve never had one before.

Yes, I’m spoiled. I don’t deny it. You tell a girl just out of college that she doesn’t have to work and she can have a nice apartment and nice clothes and have fun on her grandfather’s bank account. And I’d like to see how many girls would say no to that arrangement.

It’s only later that the strings start to reveal themselves.

It’s time now for me to live my life, and I’m doing my best to get started. But until I get a job or another way to support myself, I’m pretty much stuck putting up with Pop’s lectures and interference.

“I didn’t expect you to be so on board with me getting a job,” I say to him now, picking out an olive and a crumble of feta cheese from my salad and putting them into my mouth. “I thought you’d rather I get married.”

“Eh.”

I raise my eyebrows at that. “Eh? Isn’t marriage the best thing for women? The only thing that will really fulfill us?”

I’m quoting Pop here. I don’t believe it myself. But Pop is as old-fashioned as they come, and he’s always believed his three granddaughters need solid men to take care of us and keep us in order.

“Yes. But I don’t think you’re ready yet. You’d pick some pretty fool and then be stuck with him all your life. You need to grow up some first. A job’ll be good for you.”

I don’t have much of a temper. I’m a good-natured person. I like to laugh, and I like to understand people.

But I’m suddenly so angry that I clench my hand around the stem of my water glass.

I might be a bit spoiled, but I’m also an adult woman.

I can get married if I want to get married.