My Three Aunts Decided I Was Too Handsome to Stay Single. I Had Twelve Months Before They Ran Out of Women in Kentucky

Her name, it turned out, was Jo Carter. I found it on the inspection report.

I did not call her.

I want to be honest about that, because I know how these stories usually go. The handsome bachelor meets the woman who isn’t impressed by him, and three pages later they’re dancing in the rickhouse.

That’s not what happened.

What happened is that I fixed my fire exits, passed my inspection and went back to my quiet life.

At Christmas dinner, my aunts sat me down again.

“Well?” said Aunt Delphine.

“I went on fourteen dates,” I said. “All lovely women. None of them wanted to marry me, and I didn’t want to marry any of them.”

Aunt Ruby sighed. Aunt Pearl shook her head slowly.

“Wyatt,” Aunt Delphine said. “What do you actually want?”

Nobody had asked me that in years.

“I want to make bourbon that people drink at their weddings,” I said. “I want to take Colonel hunting in the fall. I want to have you three over for dinner every Sunday until you’re a hundred. And if someone ever walks into my distillery and makes me forget to ask her name, I want to be free to find out what happens next. On my own time.”

The aunts looked at each other for a long moment.

Then Aunt Pearl reached into her purse, took out the list and tore it in half.

“Fine,” she said. “But we’re keeping the trust as is. You’re running it. No conditions.”

“You were never going to change it,” I said.

“Of course not,” said Aunt Delphine. “But it got you to go on fourteen dates.”

They clinked their bourbon glasses together and laughed like three girls at a slumber party.

I’m 50 now. Still single. Still happy.

Jo Carter comes back for the annual inspection next September.

My fire exits are perfect.

I’m thinking about asking her name again. Just to be sure.

Do you have a family member who just won’t stop trying to set you up? Tell me about them in the comments.