by Vivian Lux
Olivia folded her hands primly in her lap. “Well, Jarrett,” she said, matching Kyle’s condescension, “I have to say that I was disappointed in the results.”
Kyle blinked.
“Me, too,” I piped up, quick to have Olivia’s back. “For one thing, I went out on a date last night,” I turned my head away from Kyle’s zooming upward eyebrows. “And, well, he and I both had quite a lot of interest in each other.” Olivia snorted under her breath. I made like I hadn’t heard her. “Once we used the app, though,” I plowed on, “We found that our compatibility was only at twenty-percent.”
“Same situation over here,” Olivia piped up. “And the app matched me with a few guys that ended up being total duds.”
“A few?” I mouthed to her over Kyle’s shoulder, eyebrows raised.
She waved me off. “I’m wondering if we need to retool our questions.”
Kyle looked perturbed. “These are the same complaints I’ve been getting from the focus groups,” he said irritably.
“So you know we’re not bullshitting you then,” Olivia clarified.
“Well,” Kyle spread his hands. “How do we fix this, ladies?”
Olivia was silent, but a sudden idea struck me. “I think,” I began. “I think the algorithms are slanted much too hard to focus on perfectly matched interests. After all, who wants to be with a clone of themselves?”
“Besides Kyle,” Olivia said, just under her breath.
“I heard that,” Kyle said. “Go on, Candace.” He looked intrigued.
“The saying is, ‘opposites attract,’ right? Perhaps we ought to be focusing our algorithms not on people who have completely matching interests, but on interests that oppose each other. Your introvert with your extrovert. Your sports lover with your homemaker. People who, instead of matching each other, complement each other. Fill in the gaps to make a whole, rounded person.” My parents, for one, I thought. But also… “People that can introduce their partners to new and exciting things, instead of the same old, same old they’ve already done.”
Like hockey practice and locker room oral.
Kyle’s bushy eyebrows were wiggling like particularly unappealing caterpillars. “Hunter,” he said, “that is exactly the kind of feedback we need to differentiate this service from all the other dating apps out there. Brilliant.”
I beamed, and even Olivia look impressed.
Then he dropped a bomb in my lap. “I’m putting you in charge of implementing these changes. As of this moment, you are the head of development.”
He walked away, leaving us both stunned.
“Did that seriously just happen?” I asked Olivia.
“Holy shit!” Olivia gasped. Then she raised an eyebrow. “Am I allowed to swear in front of you, boss lady?
“Oh fuck off,” I laughed. Then I clapped with glee. “That’s kind of awesome.”
“How did you even come up with all that stuff?” She paused. “Wait, don’t tell me. You are particularly inspired these days?”
“Ian actually did help me test it,” I confessed. “Oh my God, I have to tell him! I owe this all to him.”
“You don’t owe him anything. This is your own brilliance and dedication,” Olivia corrected.
But I was already reaching for my phone. “I can tell him at dinner, with my parents there, too,” I sighed happily, already picturing the scene. My parents were always worrying about my dating life and my career. If I walked into their home on the arm of my strapping new boyfriend and announced my new promotion, there was no way they could worry about me anymore.
Olivia leaned over. “Candace…” she said warningly.
“Stop,” I held up my hand. “I promise you, he’ll be happy to hear from me.”
The phone rang. I waited to hear his smooth baritone again. A tingle of expectation traveled down my spine and settled heavily in my core.
The phone picked up. “Again?” Ian answered on the first ring. “Stop calling me so much. Have some goddamned dignity.”
Then he hung up on me.
Chapter Ten
Ian
“Carter! Take five!” Coach Randall shouted. His face was weathered like an old baseball glove, but when it crinkled into a smile and it was the best thing you ever saw. He regarded me with that fond smile that always made me stand up straighter. “Actually...make that fifteen, son,” he said.
I nodded, smiling inwardly to hear him call me ‘son.’ He didn’t do it often, I guess to not make things weird with the rest of our teammates. But even though I was twenty-six years old and long since grown up from the sad, angry teenaged boy he took under his wing, I still treasured it every time said it.
I skated to the bench and sat down heavily, then poured some Gatorade down my throat.
Just when my breathing returned to normal, I heard my phone start buzzing.
The number was not one I recognize, but I decided to answer it anyway. Maybe it was Candace’s home number?
“Hello?”
“Ian,” the female voice on the other end said.
It felt like someone reached out and grabbed my heart with his hand and squeezed as hard as he could. I didn’t recognize the number, but I sure as hell recognized that voice. “Why the hell are you calling me, Lisette?”
My ex gave a small, nervous laugh. “Just wanted to hear your voice, that’s all.”
“Well, here it is, my voice telling you goodbye and to never call me again.”
“Wait, Ian!”
I swallowed hard, my hand hovering over the end button. “What?” I asked her.
It was funny, I hadn’t even thought about her in weeks. But just the sound of her voice was enough to completely derail whatever progress I had made. Instantly my body was on red alert, and my brain started skipping like a slideshow on repeat. My hand on the doorknob, the sound of her moans filling my ears, her naked body wrapped around him… Whoever the fuck he was, he didn’t even matter, because all I saw was her. Her eyes shut tight, her lips parted as she fucked someone who wasn’t me, while the engagement ring I had given her six months before still sparkled on her finger.
“I was hoping we might get a chance to talk.” There was a little wobble in her voice, that slight, helpless tremor that so excited me once upon a time. “I miss you.”
“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” I growled.” If Brad were here right now, he would snatch the phone out of my hand, then maybe knock some sense into me. You don’t need to take her calls! he would thunder at me. You’re being too goddamn nice.
Nice.
That’s why she did it, cheating on me like that. Because I was too nice to her. “I needed some danger,” she’d cried tearfully, her naked body stilled entwined in the sweaty sheets. The dude, whatever his name was, had already fled, shouting that he didn’t know he was fucking Ian Carter’s girl, and that he was sorry, so sorry…
But none of that mattered.
I had resolved, then and there, that nice wasn’t what worked for me.
Nice guys clearly finished last.
“Fuck you, Lisette,” I growled. She gave a little gasp at my cruelty, and I liked that. I wanted her to hurt. She deserved it. “Fuck you and your lies. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want you in my life in any way, do you hear me? No more Mr. Nice Guy. We’re done with that. We are done.”
She hiccupped a little, and then took a deep breath, ready to ignore everything I had just told her, ready to railroad me, like she always did, into being nice to her again.
I snapped the phone shut.
Then it rang again. I didn’t even need to look. Fucking bitch, couldn’t take a hint. “Again? Stop calling me so much,” I sneered into the phone. “Have some goddamned dignity.” I stabbed the phone to off and then immediately went into my recent calls to block Lisette’s number.
But instead of Lisette’s number at the top, it was Candace’s.
I stared at my phone in an open-mouthed daze. No matter how I tried to
piece it back together, it came right back down to…
Candace had called.
I swore at Candace.
Hung up on Candace.
Fuck.
I’m fucked.
She was too nice to treat badly, even if it was a mistake. This was too new to fuck up so thoroughly, even if I had an excuse.
I held my phone like a drowning man holds a life preserver, as if I could will it to travel back in time and erase my blunder.
“If you are done with all your personal phone calls,” Randall rumbled from the ice. “The rest of the team is waiting for you.”
I tamped down my terror and hurled my phone back to my pack. “Sorry Coach,” I said, jamming my helmet back onto my head with more force than necessary.
Randall gave me that look, the same disappointed one he wore when Brad and I had been caught setting fires in the abandoned warehouse in Austin. “Ian,” he said quietly.
I swallowed, shame burning through my body like wildfire. Randall didn’t know about what happened with Lisette. I never told him—couldn’t bring myself to admit it. No one knew, except for Brad. Getting cheated on is not something that is easy to bring up in conversation, especially not with your erstwhile father/coach. All he knew was that my engagement ended abruptly, and within a few weeks I had turned into the biggest manwhore on the planet. He hated it. He’d want me to fix things with Candace, he’d expect me to have the balls to admit my mistake and accept whatever consequences there were because of it.
“Yeah, Coach,” I barked, doing my best to keep my voice even.
“You making good decisions?”
Good decisions. Bastard knows exactly how to hit me. “Yeah,” I grunted. Then my shoulders slumped. “No…”
“Well, I have faith you’ll make the right choice,” he said, and turned to walk away.
The right choice.
There was no doubt in my mind about what that was. I wanted to see Candace again—no, needed to see her again. I needed to apologize for letting my anger with Lisette spill over into her life. And I needed her to know that what we had was more important to me than just some quick finger fuck in the locker room. When she smiled at me, I felt a twinge of pride. The same pride I felt when Coach Randall called me son. It was the pride that came from knowing I was a better person than most people believed me to be. Coach Randall knew I was a good guy. Maybe not a nice guy, but a good one.
Candace seemed to think so, too.
“I’ll be there in a sec, guys,” I shouted out into the rink.
Then I grabbed my phone again.
Chapter Eleven
Candace
The sound of a toilet flushing echoed through the tile restroom. I turned my face so that Marissa from HR couldn’t see me.
Olivia leaned over, deftly shielding me with her body. “How’s it going, Marissa!” she called loudly.
The very pregnant HR director smiled wanly. “I’ll be happy when this baby comes out and stops dancing on my bladder,” she smiled ruefully. I could see her face reflected in the mirror, but she couldn’t see me.
Which was for the best. My face was completely swollen and streaked with red. My puffy eyes glittered with as yet unshed tears.
I was a hot mess. On the outside, and definitely on the inside.
“Clear,” Olivia hissed as the ladies’ room door banged closed.
I responded by loudly blowing my nose into toilet tissue. “This is pathetic,” I pronounced.
Olivia didn’t say anything, only handed me another square.
I honked my nose again. “I mean, really, you were right. I should have listened to you. Why didn’t I listen to you?”
“A question for the ages, darling,” Olivia said soothingly. She ran some paper towel under the faucet. “Fix your mascara,” she ordered.
“I mean, I just met him,” I went on. “But we seemed to hit it off so well. Three days ago, I didn’t even know he existed, and now I’m crying in a bathroom over him. You are right, I move way too fucking fast.”
“Dab,” Olivia said sternly, shoving the wet towel in my hand.
I did as I was ordered, dabbing the black streaks away from the corners of my eyes. “I really need to start wearing waterproof mascara all the time,” I joked lamely.
“You really don’t need to beat yourself up so badly about this,” Olivia said. “He didn’t tell you to go fuck yourself—”
“He may as well have,” I muttered darkly.
Olivia ignored me. “He didn’t tell you he never wanted to see you again. All he said was… Wait—what did he say exactly?”
“He told me to stop calling, and to have some dignity, then he hung up the phone.”
Olivia winced. “Sheesh. Is he having a bad day or something?”
“I would have asked him,” I spread my hands, “but he fucking hung up on me.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Candelabra—”
“I know,” I said, holding up my hands to ward off her impending ‘I-told-you-so.’ “You told me he wasn’t a nice guy, and I didn’t listen. This is what I get.” I shook my head. “I was so certain I had found someone.”
Olivia grabbed me by the shoulders. “You did. You did find someone. And he was an ass to you, and you have every reason to demand why. Don’t go all Disney princess, ‘it wasn’t meant to be.’ That’s bullshit, Candy. What you need to do is take a breath, step away from the self-reflection, and just let what you have be what it is.” She smiled softly. “Or—let it be what it isn’t. You’re going to be okay either way.”
I grabbed the wadded up toilet paper and wiped ineffectually at my nose. “But why would he be so mean?”
Olivia threw up her hands, exasperated. “Candy, girl, I love you. I want to take you and stick you in a museum as the last known sample of a true romantic. You’re a rare specimen, and I think it’s really freaking good for my cynical ass to have you in my life. But honey, when you’re hurting, I’m hurting, so we gotta work on you not getting hurt so easily, okay? My heart can’t take it.”
I sniffled, then laughed, and then sniffled again.
“That’s a girl, show me another smile,” Olivia encouraged me. “See now, with that smile, the whole world should be at your feet. You don’t need to give your heart away so easily. Guard it, okay? It’s a fucking national treasure.”
I sniffled, and then pulled her in for a spontaneous hug. “You are not allowed to ever take any job without me coming with you. Who else is going to give me pep talks in the bathroom?”
“Well, definitely not your brand-new production team,” Olivia quipped. “In fact, I don’t really think my superior should really be sniffling into my shoulder right now. I smell a sexual harassment lawsuit.”
I burst out laughing. “Baby, I’ve been harassing you since we were fifteen. If you haven’t learned to deal with it by now—”
“Oh, I secretly like it,” Olivia smiled. “Good to see you smiling again, Candy-girl. Now what do you say? How about we emerge from the bathroom before our male coworkers start getting the wrong idea about us two?”
“How do I look?” I asked her, widening my eyes.
She pursed her lips. “Maybe we’ll tell people you got stung over lunch and are allergic to bee stings?”
“Well—fuck,” I said. But I followed her from the bathroom with my head held high.
Olivia was right. She always was. I had literally just met Ian into three days ago. And things were definitely moving too fast. But that’s what I did. That’s what I always did. I lost my dignity, just like he said. Maybe instead of getting mad at him, I should get mad at myself for always making the same kinds of mistakes. Maybe it was time I stopped looking for the one, that stellar guy that I could bring home to my parents. Then my parents could sigh with relief because their oldest daughter finally had the kind of love she grew up seeing. It was too much pressure, both on me and on any guy I met. How could anyone possibly live up to those standards?
Back at my desk, I
buried my face in my computer screen, immersing myself so completely in my new position that I didn’t even notice my phone until Olivia appeared at my shoulder. “Your voicemail chime has been going off every ten minutes, and I’m about ready to throw it across the room.”
“Really?” Sure enough, the little red envelope was showing in the upper corner. “I’ll turn off the notification, sorry.”
“Well, aren’t you going to see who it is?”
“Whoever it is, I’ll deal with them later.”
“I swear to God, if you want something done right, you need to do it yourself.” Olivia snatched my phone from out of my hands and deftly dialed my password.
“Hey,” I protested lamely. “How do you even know that?”
Olivia rolled her eyes at me, and tossed her hair over her shoulder to put my phone to her ear. Then her eyes went wide.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“You should listen to these. I mean, I still maintain that I am right, as a general rule, but—” she thrust the phone into my hand, “but you should listen to these.”
I press the playback button on the first message, completely mystified.
“Hey Candace, it’s Ian,” that baritone said. “Can we please talk?”
Chapter Twelve
Ian
When I pulled up front of Candace’s building, she was already standing on the stoop. She wore a practical, puffy black jacket, and skeptical expression.
"Hey," I said, opening my door.
"Hi." She peered out at me from under her hood. "You're not going to yell at me again, right?"
I clenched and then unclenched my fist. "It was an accident."
"Do you always answer the phone that way?"
I felt heat rise into my cheeks. "No, and as I told you, that wasn't meant for you."
She pressed her lips together, saying nothing, but I could see the skepticism. I hated myself for losing my temper and I hated Lisette even more for driving me to lose it.
Candace moved towards the passenger side door, just as I was rounding to the front of my car to get it for her. “Stop!” I called out to her as her hand closed around the handle.