Mr. Match: The Boxed Set

by Delancey Stewart

  I slid into bed, trying not to think about Tate there with me, trying not to remember the deep roll of her laugh or the way her hair had draped over me when she'd straddled me on the mattress.

  But it was pointless. All I thought about was Tate.

  Chapter 143

  Giant Dog Sweaters

  Tatum

  I was lonelier than I'd ever been in my life. Mom and Charlie both gaped at me when I'd told them I was going home. They'd opened their mouths in matching expressions of disbelief just before Mom informed me that she wasn't coming back with me, and that Charlie would be staying with her. It hadn’t been a huge shock, they’d been bonding. But I had to admit, I had thought Charlie would be with me in my misery.

  So I'd loaded my few things into my car and driven home. Away from the happiness I'd felt in San Diego. Away from Max.

  "It wasn't a good fit in the end," I told Foster when I reported for work the following Monday. And I wanted to do the right thing for the client." It wasn't a lie, after all.

  Foster regarded me coolly, one side of his mouth hooking up for the briefest of moments before he blew out a breath and spread his hands before him, his eyebrows raised. "Okay, Tate. If that's the best thing for everyone."

  "It is," I said. "I'm sure of it." My heart twisted at the statement like it was trying to tell me I was wrong. But I knew I was right. I was staying on track. Moving forward. This is what I did.

  "Okay." He didn't sound like he believed me at all, and I wondered if there was more to the deal than he'd told me about in the first place. But Foster wouldn't do that to me. He wouldn't hide important details about a client or work I was involved in. Not at this point in my career. I let it go.

  I'd sent in the interim CEO, a man named Alexander Craft with a solid reputation for helping companies hold stable in times of turmoil. I had the sense Max wouldn't like him, but it didn't really matter. He was temporary. Just until we found the right final solution.

  Since I hadn't been expected, there was nothing for me to dive into immediately at work, and I didn't benefit from having extra time on my hands. My collection of tiny crocheted items grew somewhat ludicrous, and I decided to try making something bigger. I didn't want to make a sweater for myself and doubted Mom would wear one if I made one for her—not her style. So I found a pattern for dog sweaters. And then I multiplied it by about a million and made a sweater for Charlie. Of course if he was going to stay in San Diego he'd never need it.

  I missed the enormous mutt. I missed his understanding adoration and unquestioning faith in me.

  And I missed Max. I missed him the way a watch would miss some intrinsic piece that helped it run properly. I was still functioning, but I had the feeling I'd never be quite right again.

  Chapter 144

  Alex Craft: Toolshed Choad

  Max

  I was finishing up another horrible day at the office with Alexander, the choad Tate had sent in to replace her. The guy was probably competent, but he kept referring to the science and math of my company as "the little matchmaking algorithm," which was seriously pissing me off. He was one of those typical business guys—degree in finance, a few extra pounds mysteriously clinging to the parts of ones body that didn't typically get fat, and no sense of humor at all.

  He settled himself into Tate's office the next business day after she'd left, and started asking questions, not all of them relevant to the expansion plans for Mr. Match.

  "What's with the expression on that one?" he asked at one point, thumbing over his doughy shoulder at Megan, who had just left his office.

  The eyebrow. "Maybe she just doesn't like you," I suggested, crossing my arms and leaning my shoulder against the doorframe.

  He scoffed. "Like it matters."

  Alex was not a good fit here. Especially because he demanded the staff call him Mr. Craft and wanted me to call him Alexander. That was two syllables more than the troll was worth to me. "Alex," I said, keeping my voice steady. "Matchmaking is a people business. You get that, right?"

  He raised an eyebrow at me, making his pasty, bankery face look like a comic book character’s, his little wisps of comb over barely managing to serve as hair over the arched brow. "Your point?"

  "I think it behooves anyone running such a business to be something of a people person."

  "Is that what you are? I thought you were a soccer player." He grinned, as if there was some element of humor in this response, and I actually took a second to figure out if I'd missed a joke somehow.

  But no, Alex was just a toolshed. "I'm a soccer player," I agreed. "One with a championship under my belt. I'm also the founder and creator of this company. I personally hired the people who work here, and since they precede you by several years, I'd appreciate it if you'd give them the respect and consideration they deserve." I realized as I spoke that none of my staff could have been a leak. There was no way they would have worked for me this long and suddenly decided to share the fun factoid they knew. "They're loyal and smart, and there's a good chance you could actually learn from them."

  Alex didn't dignify this statement with an answer. He turned back to Tate's desk and began smashing his fat fingers into the keys. I felt bad for the keyboard.

  "Yeah, so." I hated an unsatisfying end to an argument. I turned and went back to my office feeling angst-ridden and restless. This was wrong in so many ways.

  I sat back down at my desk just as a text came through from Cat.

  Cat: Tallulah is going to call you.

  Me: Why are you preceding this with an announcement? I think you're missing the basic function of the technology. She can just. Call.

  Cat: You're such a dick when your heart is broken.

  The next second, my phone did ring, and Tallulah's name popped onto the screen.

  "Hello?" I tried not to sound suicidal as I answered. Tallulah was a nice girl—if a little gung-ho—she didn't need to hear me wallowing in the depths of my despair.

  "Max!" There was that gung-ho attitude now. My eardrum might have been bleeding.

  "Hey T. Can I call you that? Your name tangles my tongue a bit."

  "You can call me whatever. I wanted to ask you about something."

  "Sure," I said. I expected she might have a question about the charity tournament. Maybe about soccer. I absolutely did not expect what came next.

  "Are you Mr. Match?"

  My mouth dropped open and my brain stuttered like a piece of software trying to load and hanging up in the same spot over and over. "Uh ..."

  "Yeah, I know, it's a secret and everything, but I've been asking a few of the Sharks after that news piece at the tournament and everything, and it just seems pretty obvious and everything. Awesome, by the way. I mean, wow. Like you need the extra cash that must bring in, right? But anyway, so I'm guessing you are."

  The Sharks. My mind spun. Fuerte was a shit liar. If she'd asked him directly, there was no way he'd be able to cover. I wasn't worried about Hamish, no one understood half of what he said anyway. But there was also a chance the information had worked its way into the Johnson twinhood, and that would be disastrous. If Fuerte told Erica, she probably told Trace, and Trace kept secrets about as well as Alex out there kept his opinions to himself.

  "If the answer was yes, what would your interest in the topic be?" I put a hand over my face, preparing myself for her to tell me she'd already shared this idea with other people.

  "You want it to stay a secret, right?" she asked.

  "That's the idea, yeah." I said.

  "I have a proposal for you," she told me.

  "I'm listening." I took my hand off my face and leaned my elbows on my desk, listening as Talullah Jeffries revealed her brilliant plan.

  Chapter 145

  Lana was a Jerk

  Tatum

  The first weekend back home was the worst. I'd finished Charlie's enormous sweater, and wasn't eager to embark on more pointless projects. And to be honest, almost everything suddenly seemed pointless, including
the stack of research I'd brought home from the office.

  I spent Saturday morning paging through the files, but found I had to reread almost everything as my mind wandered away from me, fixating on a point some six hundred miles south. In San Diego.

  Certain that if I could just clear my head I would find some path forward, I pulled on running shoes and went outside. For the first twenty minutes, I ran, telling myself that the familiar neighborhood of my childhood was a comfort. I passed my elementary school, jogged by my parents' old house, and even waved at a friend I'd known well as a kid who was now mostly an acquaintance. But I didn't feel at home here anymore. I slowed to a walk as my mind turned over the realizations blooming within me.

  This was not where I wanted to be.

  With or without Max. With or without Mr. Match, Palo Alto didn't feel right.

  I missed my mother and my dog. I missed the beach and the palm trees. I missed the light atmosphere that had flowed in and out of every moment I'd spent in San Diego. With or without Max.

  "I can't do this," I said, looking around at my past. That's what this was—the narrow streets lined with parked cars, the cookie cutter ranch homes of our neighborhood, the oppressive commute I faced every day to the office even though I lived only a few miles away. What had felt like some kind of birthright before now felt like a weight around my neck. I didn't want it.

  Back inside my house, which was even more crowded than normal, thanks to all of Mom's things being shoved in every bit of free space, I sat down at the little kitchen table and made the phone call that I thought would be nearly impossible. But when Foster answered, I felt only relief.

  "I understand," he said, his voice thoughtful and low but not angry or surprised.

  "You do?"

  "Tate," he said, and there was something fatherly in his tone that made my heart squeeze with missing my own dad. "You've worked your ass off for the firm. And I thought, when I sensed that you'd found something besides work down there in San Diego, that maybe you'd finally found what you were looking for. Do you know what I'm saying?"

  "Not really," I said, my heart twisting in my chest. Maybe I did know. Maybe it was time to acknowledge it.

  "With Max Winchell."

  A spike of fear lanced my chest. Did he know? "The company, you mean? Mr. Match?"

  "I mean with Mr. Match himself. I thought maybe you were happy. That you might have found your own match."

  "Foster, he's a client." I spit out the obvious fact, the thing that had kept me inside this cage of misery almost since meeting Max.

  "And sometimes we can't control the circumstances," Foster told me. "The heart wants what the heart wants. Tell me if I'm off base here, Tate."

  I sighed, utter defeat sliding through me like a dark fog. If I was the next Lana Holmes, it was too late to do anything about it. "You're not off base."

  "Then why did you come back?" he asked.

  "We all know what happened to Lana," I reminded him. "I've worked too hard for too long—"

  "Let me stop you right there," he said, interrupting me. "Lana was a special snowflake. She came a few years before you, so you didn't have the pleasure of knowing her well, but Tate, there's no comparison here. She clawed her way up the ladder with manipulation and threats of sexual harassment, and she'd been involved in several client scandals. No one was shocked about the straw that broke the camel's back, it was just the first time she'd made enough of a mess to warrant letting her go. She didn't work half as hard as you, and she never had a reputation as solid or smart as yours. You're practically bulletproof around here."

  I felt my eyes widening as I processed this information. I’d been killing myself trying to earn respect at work and he was telling me it was already mine? That maybe I could have relaxed just a bit? "Wow, I ..."

  "No one would stop you from being happy," he said. "Especially me."

  I leaned onto the tabletop, the enormity of the decision I'd made out of fear of something that evidently would never have happened pushing me down. "It's too later, Foster, I—"

  "Just hold on," he said. "Things didn't go quite the way we wanted—not for you either. But this isn't over. The reason I pushed you to take the CEO position, even for a little while, was because I wanted you to get comfortable down there. I wanted you to tell me you loved it and were ready to move."

  That was essentially what I'd just told him, if you threw in a mopey voice and a bit of romantic entanglement and heartbreak. "Why?"

  "The firm wants to open a San Diego office and your name has come up multiple times as the best candidate to run it. It's the reason I sent you to look at Winchell's company down there."

  "You're kidding." I sat back, letting this information ripple through me. It was the promotion I’d been hoping for, just in a different shape. And he was making it sound like it was still possible. A flare of joy lit in my chest, and my limbs felt lighter than they had in days.

  "You're the best fit for the job. And it's still yours if you want it."

  I didn't need to think about that. I needed a fresh start, with or without Max. And while it might be hard being in San Diego, knowing he was nearby and not seeing him, I wanted to be with my mother and Charlie, and I loved everything about the city. "Yes," I said. "I'm in."

  "Get your butt back down there. I'm sending some links to potential office space. You'll need to get us set up and then hire a few folks. I've got another guy from the office here going down too. Lance West."

  I knew Lance. Fresh out of business school. He was ambitious and eager. He'd make a good start to my staff. I couldn't believe I was thinking about my staff. My office. "Great. I'll get going. Today."

  Foster laughed. "I'm gonna miss you around here, Tate, but this feels like the right thing."

  "It does. Thanks, Foster."

  I was in the car two hours after I'd hung up the phone. I'd worry about the house later. For now, I felt like I was heading for the future, and for the first time since I'd walked away from Max, I felt hopeful.

  Chapter 146

  Catatonic Soccer Players

  Max

  Rose Archer had not hesitated a single second when I'd asked if she might be willing to give me Tatum's address in Palo Alto, and Coach had hesitated just a moment longer when I’d informed him I’d be driving myself home from our opening game in Sacramento.

  Sacramento was only three hours and change from Tatum's place, so I was going to play the game, and then rent a car and go grovel. I’d miss the bus ride home, but hopefully it would be more than worth it. I’d beg her to see the truth—that we were meant to be, even if it defied logic and reason. And though it wasn't necessarily in my nature to grovel twice, I was going to do it.

  We played that opening game against Sac, and I managed to hold my own this time. I made one scoring drive through the defensive line at their goal, Tatum's deep brown eyes in my mind the whole time.

  She might not be willing to try again, but at least I'd know I had tried everything. If I couldn't convince her, it wouldn't be because I hadn't given it everything I had. She was worth it. The feeling I had inside me when I thought of her—hope, happiness, joy, even—was worth it.

  But I pulled up outside the little house matching the address Rose had given me, knowing it was already too late. The house didn't look any different from every other house on the street, except maybe for the empty driveway. But I could feel it when I walked up to the door. She wasn't here. Something was wrong.

  "She's moving," a female voice said as I stood in the yard staring at the house. I'd rung the bell seven times, but the house was silent. Vacant.

  I turned to find a woman in athletic attire and a high ponytail wearing more eye makeup than you'd expect for someone clearly dressed for some kind of athletic pursuit. "She's ... moving?" I asked.

  "Yep. Asked me to keep an eye on the place until she gets it sold."

  My heart fell. "Do you know where she went?"

  The woman laughed, and I got the sense there wa
sn’t a lot going on behind those made-up eyes. “I think she said San Antonio. Or Santa Fe?” She quirked her lips to the side and wrinkled her nose.

  "Oh." I looked back at the house once more, wishing Tatum was inside, wishing I could go to the door and beg her to take me back. "Thanks," I told the woman, and got back into my car. Tate really was done with me. She wasn’t just going to go home and resume her old life. It sounded like she was going to completely start over someplace new.

  The drive back to San Diego was miserable and long, and mind-numbingly monotonous. And when I got there in the middle of the night, I went home and climbed into bed.

  For a fucking genius, I'd managed to make a complete mess of my life.

  The next morning, my phone rang relentlessly.

  Cat.

  "What?" I moaned, pulling the phone beneath the covers with me. It was my intention not to get up at all today. I'd considered going back to Rose to ask where exactly Tate was moving to, but if Tate hadn't told me herself, it was pretty clear she didn't want me to know. She was moving on. Writing off the part of her life that had included me entirely. I had to let her. Chasing her down now wouldn't do anyone any good. After all, I’d chased Bendy Samantha, and look where that had gotten me. I was taking no for an answer this time.

  "Get dressed."

  "Fuck right off," I suggested.

  "Hey!"

  "Sorry.” It was probably wrong to tell my sister to fuck off, but I wasn’t quite myself. “But I need some time, Cat. It's really over with Tate. Completely over."

  "Right. Get dressed."

  What part of let me die in my misery was she not getting? "Again, I suggest you go fuck—"