Mr. Match: The Boxed Set

by Delancey Stewart

  I shook off whatever he'd been about to say. I didn't need anyone else knowing, not even on the team. So far only Fuerte and Hamish knew, though I was pretty sure Trace's sister was in on it, and I wondered if Hamish had told Sophie, his wife. My own sister was the only other person in the know, if you didn't count the three people I had working in an office downtown. By my count that was about eight people too many. It was inevitable that word was going to get out soon. "Nah, it's all good."

  "I'm serious, Max. I wouldn't have gone looking if you hadn't made me. And never in a million years would I have chosen Erica. She hated me."

  "Clearly not." I took another gulp of the martini I'd been nursing, liking the fire down my throat. It burned, and if I could feel that, it proved I was capable of feelings. So clearly, that wasn't the issue I had.

  Fuerte studied me for a long minute, long enough to make me shift in my chair and consider getting up. I had the sense he was about to ask some questions I didn't want to answer. "So what about you, Max?"

  Here it came.

  "You bringing a date to the wedding tomorrow?"

  A bitter chuckle from my chest. "Nah." The fucking irony. I tried on my smile again—bitter and pouty probably wouldn't look any better than jealousy on me.

  So rather than letting anyone see how much I'd really hoped to find my own match, I had made this my schtick. I acted like I was above it all, like I was happy to pull the strings and make the matches (though really, I had little to do with it at this point. Mr. Match dot com pretty much ran itself. The math made the matches. I just made the money.)

  "You seeing anyone, though?" Fuerte was trying to be gentle.

  I glanced around the bar where the other Sharks players were starting to get slightly rowdy. Evans and Toofer were dancing out under the hanging lights with some women they'd met at the bar, and Hamish and Isley were alternately laughing hysterically and leaning their heads together, talking about something. Buck and a couple of the Sharks' newest players were scattered along the bar in various states of inebriation.

  "Nope," I said, taking another sip of my drink.

  "Why not?" Fuerte asked.

  "You always this nosey the night before you get married, dude?"

  "Figure I don't have much left to lose. My fate is sealed."

  "Funny. You're the happiest I've ever seen you. Don't pretend like you're a man headed to the gallows." Fuerte didn't get to play off his happiness. Not with me, not when all I wanted in the world was what he had.

  "True," he said. "Why are you avoiding the question?"

  "Why the hell do you keep asking it?" I finished my drink and put the empty glass on the table. "Do I need to escort you to your room? You're not going to stay here all night with these guys and end up late to your own wedding are you?"

  "Erica would have my balls," Fuerte said, glancing around almost like he was afraid she'd come storming through the bar at any minute.

  "Afraid she's already got yer balls," Hamish roared, coming to join us. The big Durnish defender wore his kilt, as usual. He'd been a little tough to take lately, too, since marrying his childhood sweetheart.

  "Don't stay up too late, guys," I told them, getting up from the table. "And whatever you do, don't let Evans dance like that. Ever. Again."

  We all turned toward the dance floor where Erick Evans, a mid-fielder with blond hair and a penchant for hooking up with soccer groupies, was currently doing some kind of hip-swiveling dance, which he'd accompanied with some ill-advised finger snapping. He'd fashioned a hat out of one of the cloth napkins from the table, and was wearing it wrapped around his skull. It wasn't a pleasant sight, but the girl he was dancing with didn't seem to mind.

  "I'll take him up before things get out of hand," Hamish promised.

  "If that's not out of hand, I'd hate to see what is," I said.

  "Remember the Cup afterparty?" Fuerte asked, and each of us groaned.

  The Sharks had won the Cup last season, and Evans had taken his terrifying moves to new heights. Literally, dancing on the bar at the celebration and then falling spectacularly off of it and into the glasses on the bartender's side. We were almost banned from McDaugherty's for that, but since it was the unofficial team bar, we'd been able to talk the owner into giving us another chance.

  "You're right. Don't let it go there tonight. I'm headed up." I said.

  "Night Winchell," Fuerte called, and I lifted a hand to my teammates as I made my way back to my room.

  Alone.

  Like always.

  The ceremony was beautiful, and the reception was a true celebration—as opposed to those over-formal focus-on-tradition type receptions some couples have. Despite the fact that they'd been planning their wedding for a year, neither Erica nor Fernando got too wrapped around the axle on the details, and both of them let loose when it was time to enjoy that it was done. They entered their lives as a married couple laughing hysterically among friends and family, dancing and celebrating.

  And I found myself still envying them both enormously.

  "Dance?" A woman said, stepping close to where I'd been sitting and extending a hand. She was Sophie's friend, Anna, from the bakery. We'd met a few times before. I liked her, and appreciated her sensitivity—she'd seen me moping and had come to rescue me. I pasted on my smile and accepted her hand. Because while I didn't have any interest in dating Anna, I enjoyed her company, and I was grateful to her for pulling me back into the party and out of my own head.

  "Everything okay?" She asked me over the noise of the music and the crowd.

  "Yeah, of course," I answered.

  "Weddings make you think, don't they?" The music had shifted to a slower song, and she stepped close, automatically putting a hand on my shoulder as my own hands found her waist.

  "That's exactly it," I told her. "They make me think about things I can go weeks without thinking about normally." That was almost true. As Mr. Match, I thought more about finding a soul mate than most people probably did.

  Anna was close now, our arms around one another as her head came to rest on my chest. "I'm so happy for them though, for Snappy and Shark. They're a good fit."

  They were. And the nickname Sophie and Anna had created when they'd taken Erica and Fernando as wedding-cake clients fit them well. We swayed, and I watched my friends around me as the night cooled on the patio outside the big reception hall lined with windows. The boats in the marina bobbed and the palm trees stood watch around the party, all of it reminding me how lucky I was to live the life I did, and to live it in a place as nearly perfect as San Diego.

  In reality, everything about my life was pretty damned perfect. I had more money than I needed, and at a time when so many needed so much, that was saying something. Life was comfortable, and I'd been able to make sure it was good for my mother and sister too, which was one of the things I'd grown up saying I would do. My career was still on the upswing with the Sharks, and Mr. Match was doing better than ever. I was healthy and surrounded by friends. At this exact moment, I had a beautiful woman in my arms.

  But it wasn't enough, and when I focused on everything I had, it just made the awareness of what I lacked that much more acute. Because Anna was in my arms, but she was not in my soul. I probably could have taken her home, but that wasn't my style. I knew the difference between passing time and living a full life, and I didn't want to pass any more time.

  I'd singlehandedly helped more than two thousand couples find love in Southern California—not just love, but their true mathematical match. My sister and my mother had both used the tool I'd created to find someone to fill their hearts, and I'd expanded the geographic reach to include Arizona as well. But it didn't seem to matter.

  There was still no match for Mr. Match himself, and I sensed that pretty soon all of San Diego would know it. There had been a couple members of the media allowed to photograph the ceremony, and I heard one reporter asking a guest about Mr. Match's identity—after all, the site was part of Fuerte and Erica's story. The
vultures were definitely circling, and if it came out that Mr. Match himself was single, doubt would be cast on the veracity of the entire venture. People would start to doubt whether the algorithm worked, if Mr. Match himself wasn't happily matched. Worse yet, already happy couples might start to doubt the certainty of their own relationships, start to question whether I was just a shrewd charlatan selling a new version of snake oil.

  No one could know I was Mr. Match, and that meant I needed to step away before I got found out.

  I'd been thinking about this for a while, and I had a plan.

  I kissed Anna's cheek as the song ended. "Thanks for the dance," I told her.

  She gave me a wistful smile as I turned and walked away, heading back to the bar.

  Chapter 115

  Entrée: Shoes and Slobber

  TATUM

  "Slow it down, boy," I called to the huge dog at the end of my leash, hating the desperate sound of my own voice. "Come on, Charlie."

  "Don't let him be the boss," the dog trainer called helpfully across the field through which I'd just been dragged by my one-hundred-pound Newfoundland. "Assert yourself."

  "Charlie!" I said in my sternest voice, the one I used at work.

  He actually paused and looked back at me, as if to say, "what's up your butt?" Then he seemed to decide I was serious, and he stopped. I stepped, panting, up to his side as the dog trainer jogged across the field to join us.

  "That was good," she said. "The voice you used at the end there, that's your command voice. You'll need that with him. A dog this big with no training isn't used to being guided, but he'll take to it when he understands you're in charge. You just have to be consistent."

  "Okay," I said, hoping she was right. Charlie and I were new companions. He was a Newfoundland, a breed I had no experience with at all, and a much bigger dog than I would have ever chosen for myself. He shed about two cats-worth of fur every day and slobbered constantly. That said, he was affectionate and sweet, and I was growing accustomed to having him around, even if he made my small house feel like a shoebox.

  My parents had bought him as a puppy, but then Dad had gotten sick and their focus had shifted from training their soon-to-be enormous dog to taking care of Dad. Now that he was gone, Mom couldn't handle Charlie, and I had a soft heart and couldn't bear to see the huge beautiful dog taken to the pound.

  I talked to the trainer a while, Charlie showing surprising restraint and sitting calmly at my side, pushing his big head against my hip until I dropped a hand to pet his ears while I chatted. I hadn't planned to have a dog—ever, really. But Charlie's soulful eyes and sweet disposition filled a space in me that was sensitive and sore since Dad had died, and knowing Dad had loved this guy helped me put up with some of the dog's less wonderful qualities. Like eating my shoes. And howling along with sirens.

  "Thanks Amy," I called to the trainer when we were done, and Charlie and I headed back to my car, where he leapt cheerfully into the back seat and then promptly settled himself between the front seats, his big head right next to mine. "You know that makes it very hard for me to see through the rear-view mirror," I told him.

  He tilted his head, looking at me with those emotional eyes, and then licked the side of my face before turning back to face the front as if to say, "Okay. I'm ready. Let's go."

  I did my best to back out without smashing into anything, using the back-up camera and peering around Charlie's big head, and we headed home, back to my little two-bedroom house in Palo Alto.

  Charlie happily headed back into the yard to check out his territory when we arrived home, and I went inside, still feeling a little like I was carrying a weight inside me—the absence of my dad from the world was heavier than I'd expected it to be. Grief was like a package you picked up when someone close to you died, one with no delivery destination, one you carried endlessly with quiet acceptance. I wondered if it would ever be lighter.

  Mom was waiting inside, as she often was since Dad had gone. This was the danger of living a block from the house where I grew up. When I'd bought the place with my then-husband, though, it had seemed perfect. We'd raise our kids in my childhood neighborhood, with grandparents right down the street.

  "How's the moron dog?" she asked, scrunching up her face and peering out the kitchen windows toward the backyard where Charlie was trotting around.

  "He's a good dog, Mom."

  She sighed. Mom had transferred some of her anger at Dad's sickness and death to the dog. She seemed to blame him for a lot of things dogs weren't really capable of. When Dad had coughing fits toward the end, she'd get frantic and exasperated, looking around for something to help, and if Charlie was inside, she'd order someone to take him out. Dad wasn't allergic, and if anything, I thought Charlie helped him at the end. But to Mom, he was a huge reminder of what she'd lost so recently.

  "What's happening this week for you?" She asked, getting up to make coffee in the fancy cappuccino machine sitting on my peeling Formica counter. My house was a work in contrasts—I had a lot of new things, but the house itself was rooted firmly in the past. It had been a wonder Austin and I could afford a single-family home in Palo Alto at all. It had been bought as a project, one we were going to work on over the years. Bringing the place out of the seventies would now be up to me alone, and I wasn't sure I'd have the time or ambition to get it done. Charlie didn't look like he'd be much help with power tools and a hammer.

  "Mostly work," I told her. This was not unusual. I worked. A lot. I often worked weekends and traveled when necessary for my job as a venture capital analyst. I had to go where the companies were and spend as much time as was necessary to figure out if they were worth an investment. "This week I'm heading to San Diego."

  "That doesn't sound too bad," she said. I could tell Mom was trying to sound upbeat about my travel plans, but I knew she was thinking about being left here alone while I was gone.

  "Should be good," I agreed, moving over to the machine to help her with the milk frother. "Like this." I moved the metal cup up and down as the steam shrieked out of the copper pipe.

  "I'll never get the hang of this. Can't you just get a Mr. Coffee like everyone else? I can just pour milk in."

  I frowned at her. "I'm weird about my coffee. You know this. I like it how I like it. You don’t have to make coffee at my house, Mom." The coffee machine had been a post-divorce buy, one I'd been gleeful about making since my ex had told me the idea was ridiculous.

  "I like your coffee better, it just seems like a lot of work." Mom accepted the mug I handed her and went to sit at the little bistro table I'd managed to fit in the corner, making this officially an eat-in kitchen.

  "Sometimes the things that are really worthwhile don't come easy," I reminded her. Mom had been telling me that since I was a kid. "Want to come to San Diego?" I asked. "I could rent a house instead of a hotel room and we could take Charlie. Make a week of it?" I joined her at the table with my own mug.

  She crossed her arms, and leaned back in her chair. Mom's dark hair was streaked with grey and the lines on her face seemed to have deepened in the months since Dad had been gone. I was worried about her, though I knew grief wasn't something you just swallowed down and got over. "I don't know," she said, but she did seem to be thinking about it. "I don't want to be left with Charlie all day while you work. And I'd be alone there, just like I'm alone here."

  I sighed, leaning forward on my elbows. "If you want to look at it that way, I guess. Or you could think of it like this: you'd get a chance for a change of scenery in a gorgeous city where it's warm, and we could try some new restaurants and do some sightseeing when I'm not working."

  "You're always working."

  I acknowledged this with a little nod. It was hard to argue when she was right. I'd tried to take more time off to be here for Mom, but I was torn. For one thing, I liked my job and I was good at it, and on my way up the male-dominated ladder. And another thing was that Mom had not been easy to be around lately, and my own grief compo
unded with hers and made me feel like I was sinking sometimes. Work kept me busy and distracted. "Well, I'd love to have you."

  She gazed out the window and then turned back to me. "Why don't you take the week, get as much time off as you can while you're down there, and I'll take care of Charlie?"

  "You don't like Charlie. I was going to see if I could find a kennel."

  "Don't be silly. I don't like him like you do, but I can still feed him and take him out. And it might be nice to have company. Even him." She sighed, looking tired as she glanced out at the big brown dog playfully mouthing a soccer ball in the yard that my dad and I had kicked around when I was a girl.

  It was nice of her to offer, but I got a bit of a martyr vibe from Mom, and sensed that we were about to have the conversation I most disliked. One we'd had often, especially since Dad had died and Mom had started thinking about family in a different way.

  "You know, Tate..."

  Here it came.

  "Your job isn't exactly family friendly."

  "Which is why it's so convenient that I don't have a family."

  Mom wasn't a big fan of sarcasm, and she gave me a stern look, her eyebrows lowered slightly as she frowned. "I know. I just ... isn't it hard being alone?"

  "Mom," I said slowly, pulling patience from a very nearly empty well inside me. "My marriage wasn't like yours." My marriage had been impulsive and wrong, and that had been made painfully clear to me.

  "I remember." Mom had liked my ex-husband, Austin. I'd liked Austin too. Hell, I'd married the guy. He just seemed confused about the basic requirements of marriage. "But that was one man. You have to try again," she said.

  "Ever considered that maybe there isn't anyone out there who fits me?" I said.

  She rolled her eyes. "There is someone for everyone, Tatum. You just have to look. And your job keeps you running all over the country all the time. It's a wonder you manage to stay sane and in decent shape. You'll never be in one place long enough to settle down properly."