Perfect Match

by Alexis Alvarez

  “Absolutely, Chelsea. We’re here live at the trailhead to Mt. Baden-Powell with Fia, and we’re just about to introduce Dylan’s third date to him for the first time! Fia, please bring up Alyssa and tell us about the date you’ve set up for Dylan.”

  Fia took a deep breath and stuck up her chin, as Alyssa walked over, perky and tanned in her jogging shorts and top, long muscular legs perfect and strong, her smile dazzling.

  “Everyone, please welcome Alyssa to the show. She’s an expert mountaineer who’s just conquered Everest and has a new book set to publish next month called Rare Air: Finding The Top Of The World. Because she’s such a sports enthusiast, she and Dylan will be doing a ten-mile round trip hike together to the top of Mt. Baden Powell. Good thing she was able to fit this into her schedule! Later this evening, she’s flying out to a remote mountain site for a week-long trail hike without Wi-Fi. Outer Mongolia for sure!”

  “Hi!” Alyssa waved her greetings to the camera. “I’m excited to be here and to meet Dylan. I hope he can keep up.” She laughed. “But no pressure, right?”

  Fia really liked Alyssa, and thought the two of them could be friends someday, if the situation were right. She wondered whether Dylan would love her this much, too, but tried to push that thought out of her head.

  She said, “Alyssa is the most amazing person I’ve met in a long time. And I want the best for her.” She smiled and gestured to the monitor. “To show you what’s possible, I wanted to introduce you to some of my favorite matches. Alyssa, let me bring out a few of couples who’ve gotten married. If it all works out for you and Dylan, you never know, this might be your future!”

  She was gratified to see Chelsea crane her neck sharply and frown on the monitor. But this was live, haha!—so it was going to happen.

  From behind the Morning Brew van, three couples walked out, arm in arm, the last one holding babies in their arms: twins. It had been a hell of a thing to convince the couples to come meet her all the way out here, but they’d done it…and thank God they had.

  “Meet Jake and Jessica, Myron and Leticia, and DeShaun and Ava Lee…and their adorable twin one-year-old boys. These are just a few of the couples who’ve found lasting love with my service.” She gestured, and Ava stepped forward.

  “Hi!” She was shy but pretty, her eyes sparking, her coffee skin glowing. The baby in her arms cooed. “I just wanted to say that when I signed up for Perfect Profiles, I wasn’t sure I could ever find love. I was busy doing my residency and it was completely hectic. And all the guys I met were just not right. But then Fia introduced me to DeShaun. He’s a doctor too, so he understands the schedule issues, and it was just…sparks from the beginning.” She smiled. “And as you can see, we didn’t waste any time starting our lives together.” She jiggled her baby, and her husband put a hand on her shoulder.

  “That’s right,” he agreed. “We want to give a big shout out to Fia for finding us our happy ever after. It’s not easy juggling two doctors’ schedules and newborns, but we’re making it work. And we’re more in love than ever.”

  “Aw,” exclaimed Alyssa. “I want what you have! Your babies are adorable! OMG!”

  “More couples are featured on my website and blog, so please come check it out!” announced Fia. “We just announced two more marriages!”

  From the monitor, Chelsea broke in, her smile forced. “Thanks, Fia, for sharing such a lovely moment with us all! But now let’s bring in Dylan, the real star of this show, to meet Alyssa!”

  Later, when Dylan and Alyssa had disappeared up the trail, laughing together, Fia felt relieved, exuberant and exhausted. It was a live segment, so now the audience had gotten a chance to see her successes, not just her failures. But on the other hand, Chelsea was probably going to skin her alive and eat her in a stew, so it wasn’t clear whether it had been the right call. Also, judging by the way Dylan and Alyssa had looked at each other, they had some sparks going on, and that made her want to cry.

  She was jealous, and she was just going to go ahead and admit it to herself. She wanted him so badly it hurt. But even if she said yes to his dirty promises, what would happen then? She’d just be another notch in his bedpost, another one-night stand to him. And it would really go against her professional ethics, although when she looked into his sexy eyes and listened to that drawl, she wanted to say “What ethics? What are ethics again? Fuck them, whatever they are,” and just melt into his body. Naked.

  She was sitting in her living room a few nights later, reading a book, when Dylan called. When she saw his name pop up on her phone, her heart skipped a beat.

  His voice was relaxed. “Hey.”

  “Hey to you too.” She sat up straighter and put down her tablet, licking her lips. “How was the date?”

  “It was fine.”

  “Fine as in a bobcat jumped out and ate my date’s leg, and Chelsea will surprise me with that little special fact next Monday morning? Or fine as in, we talked and nobody lost any body parts. Because with you, it’s hard to tell.”

  “Haha, you’re hilarious. Nobody lost any body parts.”

  “Was there vomiting? I feel like I need to ask all the questions. Did you get carjacked? Did anyone need anti-venom or a tetanus shot? Was there bail involved? Inquiring minds need to know.”

  “None of that. I swear. It was totally regular, for, ah the most part.”

  “That sounds troubling, Dylan.” She sat up straighter and wound a strand of hair around her finger. At the same time, she wondered, idly, what he was wearing, and where he was.

  “Not troubling. Just she’s—look, I’m in good shape, okay? But she’s in phenomenal shape. So I had a hard time keeping up. She might have mocked me a time or two, before she took off for her exotic adventure.”

  Fia flashed an image of Dylan’s strong legs and washboard stomach and had a hard time imagining him struggling at anything physical.

  “Not keeping up with a woman. That must be new for you,” she said sweetly. “Get used to it.”

  “I can keep up in all the ways that matter to you,” he said, his voice low and teasing.

  “We’ll see.”

  “You just say the word, Fia.”

  “I shouldn’t ask whether you kept up with her in other ways.”

  “You’re right. You shouldn’t. You already lectured me on the ethics of that and how it’s against your policy to ask such questions.” He laughed.

  “Right, but last time you told me anyway.”

  “Well, this time I’ve developed more respect for your rules, so I won’t.” He laughed again.

  She tried not to care. “Well, as long as there isn’t anything Chelsea can use to mash me into human pulp, I think we’re all good.”

  “Chelsea eats human pulp for her breakfast smoothie. But I think you’re clear. Hear me respecting you by telling you the critical details, just like you said I should?”

  “Yes. Very good work. Well done.”

  There was a pause that extended into an awkward silence. She felt the phone get sweaty near her ear and wiped it on her shirt. “Did you say something?”

  “No.” He sounded like he was smiling.

  “Oh, okay.”

  Then they both started talking. She said, “Well, I guess I’ll get go…” just as he said, “Want to get dinner?”

  Her heart pounded. “Dinner?”

  “The stuff a person eats in the evening. Food items. Typically available at restaurants.”

  “Well, okay, but I just assumed you’d take me to the grocery store to steal food while the manager isn’t looking,” she returned.

  He laughed. “We can do that. First one to get arrested loses.”

  “Or we could just, you know, pay for the food like real adults. The kind who don’t cheat at bets,” she retorted.

  “Where’s the fun in that, Fia?” He was smiling again; she could hear it in his tone. “Pick you up in an hour?”

  “If it doesn’t take you longer to get yourself ready,” she said, already
running an inventory of her closet to pick the sexiest thing to wear.

  “In that case, make it twenty minutes. Go,” he said, and hung up.

  Fia laughed, looking at the phone, then dropped it to the couch. Twenty minutes? Fine. She could bring it! She hurried to her room and grabbed the tight blue mini-dress she’d bought on a whim a few weeks ago; it was nearly too sexy for dinner with friends, but it would be perfect for a night out with Dylan.

  She brushed her hair and added a few spritzes of spray, then added lip gloss and a faint brushing of eye shadow. Her clear skin didn’t need much, and she preferred the clean look, anyway. If Dylan wanted a girl with caked on makeup, he could keep looking. Anyway, this wasn’t a real date, right? It was two people getting dinner.

  Leaving her underwear off was just for comfort. It definitely wasn’t “just in case”.

  As she slipped on her favorite strappy black sandals, the doorbell rang—a perfect twenty minutes after he’d hung up. When she opened the door, she almost gasped to see him standing there. In black slacks and a white button down shirt that fit just right across his broad shoulders and strong arms, he’d never looked sexier. The white set off his tanned skin and dark hair, and the pants—Jesus, the way his legs looked, she’d be ready to jump on him in a second! How did he look so good in just…clothes?

  “Fia.” He looked startled, and his eyes widened, then a slow smile broke out across his face. “You look amazing.”

  She flushed, put a hand to her cheek. “Thanks. You too.”

  “You ready?” He held out a hand.

  More than ready. She gave him her palm, sucking in a breath at the way she felt tingly sparks at his touch. “Yes. Where are we going?”

  “To get some rotting strawberries at Jake’s deli, of course.” He laughed. “Or maybe to a place with slightly higher quality. You choose.”

  “I’ll go with quality,” she said and giggled. “Although it’s really a very difficult choice.”

  He ushered her into his Porsche, and she could tell they both remembered what happened last time she was with him in here. It was the look in his eyes as he glanced at her before starting the engine.

  But he turned his gaze back to the road and started driving, fast and effectively cutting through the streets. “I thought about you on my date.”

  “You did?” She turned to look at him. His profile was handsome, his lashes long, visible from this angle.

  “Alyssa was really cool, and I liked her. But I bet you would have laughed at my jokes.”

  “What jokes were these?”

  “You sort of had to be there. Something about a Sherpa and sucking oxygen and… maybe, in retrospect, they were a little inappropriate.”

  “You think? You can’t make gross jokes with someone you just met!” she chastised him. “Dylan!”

  “It was funny.” He gave her a guilty grin.

  “It probably wasn’t.”

  “This one was. Listen.” He cleared his throat. “Two hikers were dizzy from the lack of oxygen after climbing Mt. Everest. On their way back down through the city, they stopped to look at some interesting tracks. The first hiker said, ‘These are bear tracks.’ The second hiker disagreed. ‘No way, these are elk tracks.’ They went back and forth a few times, and they were still arguing when the train came and ran them over.”

  “Dylan!” But she laughed. “It’s so stupid! OMG.”

  “Full disclosure, the joke was initially told with blondes instead of hikers. But that’s offensive, so I switched it to something she’d appreciate more.”

  “Dylan.”

  “I also asked her if guy hikers hit on her all the time with lines like, ‘Hey, babe, want to borrow my hiking pole? It’s long and hard’.”

  “God. That’s worse than a bobcat chewing off a limb! Jesus. Chelsea is going to put that on there.”

  “Ah, Chelsea.” He stopped laughing.

  Fia blinked. “Dylan, forgive me if I’m wrong, but it seems like you have sort of a weird relationship with Chelsea. On the show, it looks like all fun and games and joking around. But when you tell me stuff, and admit she’s a bitch, I have to wonder—why are you even working with her? I mean, why this show?” She frowned. “You could be doing so much…more.”

  He swallowed and for a second she thought she’d pissed him off. His reply was terse. “You already know the answer.”

  “No, I don’t.” She was confused.

  “Remember when we first met? I asked you if you feature starving artists on your dating website, even if they’re amazing guys. And you admitted that no, you do not. You talked about the money and success being part of the whole package, indicating that a man has what it takes to make it in this world. That’s why. I have to focus on my career, Fia. As do we all. As do you.”

  She winced. “I didn’t really mean it like that, though.”

  “Yeah, you did.” He gave her challenging look. “Have the courage to stand behind it, Fia.”

  She bit her lip. “I said it. But maybe…I was wrong. I don’t know! Dylan, part of my business is about making money in L.A., and it’s true, I cater to wealthy people. I’m sorry if I sounded snobby when I said that to you. It’s not that I look down on people who don’t have a lot of money. But I’ve built this matchmaking service as an elite system and it does cater to the ultra-successful and pretty people.” She frowned. “And believe me, it’s not like that doesn’t bother me sometimes.” She paused. “Maybe more than sometimes. But, I mean, what am I supposed to do?”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do?” he countered. “We do what we need to do, right?” But he didn’t sound happy.

  Fia continued her train of thought. “I mean, sometimes I feel like a bitch turning women away because they don’t have a certain look. I see a woman come in who’s severely overweight, and I cringe inside because I know I won’t be able to fix her up with a sexy millionaire bachelor, no matter what the romance books say. And I wish to God, I wish to God I could. You know?”

  Her voice became angry. “I hate telling her no, she can’t sign up, she’s not a fit for the service. It kills me inside. It’s fucking unfair that this is the way the world is, that people are so bought into the stupid sexist misogynistic patriarchal shit about body types and traditional beauty. But fuck, Dylan, it’s there. People want what they want; I can’t change that. But when I screen the right way and account for personal desire, I can—I do—find people love. Am I a bad person because I can’t do it for everyone?”

  To her horror, a tear leaked down her cheek and she rubbed at it furiously. “Shit.”

  Dylan shot her a look, his hands tight on the wheel. “I never knew you cared about that.”

  “Of course I care about it!” Her voice quivered. “And when I first started, I really wanted to be inclusive. Over time, I learned that if you run a high-class, expensive service, people in L.A. have very narrow, extreme expectations. So…I drifted.” She bit her lip. “This is where I live, and this is what people want. So I provide it. And they’re happy together, then. I don’t know what to do. If I changed the service at this point to include everyone, I don’t think I’d make nearly as many people happy.”

  “But maybe you could. If your system is as good as you say it is, you could help find love for people who aren’t traditionally beautiful.”

  “The problem is that people who aren’t traditionally beautiful still want someone who is traditionally beautiful. Nobody is immune from society’s curse. And unfortunately, they might not be what the other people are looking for. It will end in disappointment and anger on their part, so it’s like I’m doing us both a favor by not accepting them. Shit. That sounds ever worse.”

  This was the first time she’d spoken these words aloud, the secret worries and fears that gnawed at her soul when she couldn’t sleep at 3:00 a.m. These were the acid drops that bit into her mind, sizzling as they burned their way deep into the recesses of her thoughts, poisoning her joy.

  “Well, I guess I could
say I’m not a hundred percent satisfied with myself, either.” Dylan’s voice broke into her ruminations. “Yeah, the morning show is wildly popular and I’m building a name for myself, but it’s—it’s fluff. I’d like to be doing something else long-term. If I stick with the TV thing, I’d like to do serious journalism. But this opportunity came up, and I’d be stupid to pass it up. And in the future, who knows. Once I do well here, more paths will open up.” His voice sounded taut.

  “What else would you rather do?” Fia knew from his survey that he’d majored in communications and business, had an MBA, and had worked in several smaller stations before making this stratospheric leap to the country’s highest-rated morning show, turning himself into one of the hottest bachelors around.

  He looked at her briefly. “Things.”

  “Secret things?” She smiled. “Spy work?”

  He shrugged. “Something more meaningful to me.”

  “You’re building a career, step by step,” encouraged Fia. “It’s not a bad thing, Dylan. I’m sorry I said things about your job being meaningless. Nothing’s meaningless. Or maybe it’s all equally meaningless, right?” She shrugged and gave a small laugh.

  “Well, now that we’re both wallowing in despair, how about some expensive food to cheer ourselves up?” joked Dylan, pulling down an expensive suburban street and hitting a button on his visor to open a gate into a fancy community.

  “There are restaurants in here?” Fia swiveled her head.

  “I’m going to cook for you. At my house.” He turned into a long driveway, leading up to a large modern home amid lush green lawns and landscaping.

  “For real?” Fia craned her neck. “This is what the morning show pays for? I’d lick Chelsea’s ass every morning too, for a chance to live here.”