Matched for Me

by Knox, Abby

  I smile. “Elmer Fudd?”

  “Negative,” Lars says.

  “Tasmanian Devil?”

  He’s getting annoyed. “Also negative.”

  “I got it! Foghorn Leghorn?”

  “No.”

  I shriek with joy. “Oh! Oh! Oh! Pepe Le Pew!”

  Lars is ready to throttle me through the channel. “It’s fuckin’ Wile E. Coyote. I’m…”

  I laugh. “Oh! You mean the scruffy dumb-dumb who blows himself up every day? Sounds about right.”

  He growls, “Rude ass.”

  I reply, “Butthead.”

  Fletcher grunts like a T-Rex and grabs my walkie and spits out into it, “That’s enough, siblings. Back to work, Coyote.”

  “Copy that, Road Runner. Will report back if Sylvester is spotted.”

  I grab the walkie back and hiss into it, “Doing a great job, Coyote, because I spotted Sylvester in the building just a minute ago.”

  “Fuck! Road Runner! Do you see him?”

  “Negative, but stay where you are, he could be anywhere.”

  I squint. “Is this two-man brain trust-slash-security detail packing actual heat at my matchmaking event?”

  “Uh no.”

  I cock my head at Fletcher. He looks away. He’s hiding something. It may not be a rifle, but it’s something.

  Before signing off I say, “I better not see a gun, a rifle or whatever the fuck your current favorite firepower is on the premises, you got that? You’re gonna scare my people away!”

  “Copy that, Tweety. Will hide the grenades. Coyote over and out.”

  I look at Fletcher severely. “This is already out of hand,” I say. “I wish you would have told me my brother was involved.”

  Fletcher plants his arm around me and smiles, “And because we have backup, we’ll find your loser stalker and pin his ass to the wall. Not a problem. Now, come on, honey. We’ve got an event to run.”

  13

  Fletcher

  We roam arm in arm around the ballroom and visit all the stations, where LuLu explains each one. I don’t totally understand it all, but I am stupid happy just listening to her talk.

  There are three different matchmaking areas—speed-dating, lock-and-key, and a mini pheromone party. Each area has a corresponding station just for LGBTQ participants along the opposite wall of the ballroom.

  To tell the truth, it’s a pretty weird event that I helped to organize. The speed-dating thing, I get. Just about everybody has done it. Well, except for me.

  Then there’s the lock-and-key station. Here, LuLu helps her volunteers assign lanyards with locks for females, and lanyards with keys for males. Everyone is instructed to try out keys in locks, and when you find a match, you spend five minutes talking to that person, with the help of some ice breaker questions provided by the volunteers.

  Third, the pheromone station.

  “Tell me how this works again?” I ask her.

  It feels good to have LuLu’s arm through mine. Not like she has a choice. I don’t want anyone fucking close to her but me, and not just for security reasons.

  “Well,” she says, “Anyone who wanted to do the pheromone experiment had to wear a clean white tee-shirt for three days straight, and then bring it in, secured in a ziplock bag with their assigned number. So then, anyone can choose any shirt and take a whiff. If they find a scent they like, one of the volunteers takes a photo of that person with that number, and then the bearer of that shirt finds that person and maybe they make a connection.”

  “I think I get it. I would know your scent right away.”

  “Would you now?” she says.

  I boom a little too loudly, on purpose. “I would hope so. You are my wife, aren’t you?”

  LuLu gives me a sly smile and I pull her to me and kiss her on the neck.

  “Honey,” she says. “Behave yourself. I’m working.”

  “I know, but it’s Valentine’s Day. I can’t keep my hands off you. Something in the air,” I growl.

  LuLu turns to one of the volunteers staring at us and says, “He’s always been like this. We could barely make it through our wedding ceremony without him kissing me too early.”

  I can’t take it anymore and I pull her into a nearby photo booth where curious eyes can’t see us.

  She gasps. “Fletcher!”

  I weave my fingers through her hair and bring it to my nose and take a whiff.

  “I know your scent from top to bottom. Guava shampoo.”

  She sighs. “You brought me in here to smell my hair? That’s easy, you saw me opening that for Christmas from my mom. Hell, you probably ordered it for her.”

  “OK,” I say. “Let’s move on.”

  I pull back the leather jacket off her shoulders, grab a fist full of her blouse. She gasps as I pull it to my face. “Woolite, and lavender deodorant. And coconut oil moisturizer. That’s you.”

  “Again, you stock my bathroom,” she says.

  My lips go to the spot behind her ear, close to her hairline. I kiss her there, and when I do, her hand goes to my thigh and clenches down. “Fletcher, what is this? What are we doing?”

  “Giving everyone something to talk about. But what this scent back here is, I don’t know. Cinnamon candy. Like little Red Hots.”

  “The red heart candies we have in bowls on all the tables here? You’ve got Valentine’s Day on the brain, buddy.”

  “No, I could not give a fuck about Valentine’s Day.”

  She rears back and pulls her hand away.

  “I can’t believe you just said that. I’m in the love business. In terms of making a living, the lead-up to this day is like one long Black Friday.”

  “Wh-what I mean is. You’re my match.”

  She stares at me for a moment.

  “But I thought we were just pretending…”

  “Did you not read my dating profile?”

  “I thought you told me to delete it, so I just…didn’t read it.”

  “You weren’t even the least bit curious?”

  She bites her lip.

  “I’m so sorry. What did it say?”

  “It’s hard to say these things out loud, that’s why I wrote it down.”

  She takes my hand. “But maybe you can try. You can just tell me…that kiss from before. That was real, wasn’t it?”

  I close my eyes. My lips find their way to her neck. I inhale her scent. She breathes and slips her fingers into my hair.

  “N-nothing has ever f-felt as real to me as that kiss,” I tell her, brushing my lips against her neck. I grit my teeth. I hate that talking about my feelings is making me stutter. What the fuck is that?

  She lets out a little moan. “I haven’t been able to think about anything else. Oh my god, I’m so happy you said that. And I’m so pissed you left town.”

  “I just wish you’d read my profile. It’s all there,” I grit out.

  “If you can’t tell me, then show me,” she says.

  “Little girl, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

  Her breasts heave with her ragged breath. I can see them right down the plunging neckline of her red blouse.

  “I’m not a little girl.”

  My hand moves on its own to her knee and slides up between her thighs. I need to get these pants off of her. Goddamnit why did she have to wear dress pants? I need in between those thighs right now, to taste her. Slide into her and make her mine. Make her stop saying anything but my name while my tongue slips into her warm pussy.

  I’m blazing a trail of licks and kisses down her neck and over her chest. I let go of her thigh and fill my hand with one of her breasts. The taut little nipple is begging to be sucked.

  I cover her cleavage with kisses as I consider my limited options. A photo booth with a flimsy curtain is not exactly private.

  Just then, the walkie talkie crackles, and Lars is interrupting us.

  “Road Runner, do you copy? I found something suspicious out here.”

  LuLu exha
les in frustration. “Leave it to my butthead brother to throw a cold shower on me.”

  “Shit. Copy, Coyote. What’s up?”

  “Just meet me outside and make sure Tweety is in her cage.”

  14

  LuLu

  “Let me get right to the point. I love you.”

  My hand goes over my mouth.

  Of course I had not deleted Fletcher’s dating profile.

  Why I had not read it until now, I don’t know, but I’m kicking myself.

  I’ve skimmed over all the vital details:

  “Height: 6’5

  Weight: 215

  Age: 40.

  Eye color: Brown

  Hair color: Black. Some gray.

  Beard: Kind of. Also gray.

  Hobbies: Watching LuLu read books. Thinking about what LuLu is doing. Wondering what LuLu is thinking. Carrying LuLu’s bags.

  Employment: Care and feeding of LuLu’s brother.

  Relationship history: Doesn’t matter. I can’t remember.

  Looking for: LuLu’s attention.

  Future goals: Like 12 babies with LuLu.”

  If the stats hadn’t already won me over, the essay has me sobbing.

  It continues: “You’ve been driving me nuts since the age of 15, when you insisted on drinking your coffee out of fancy glitter coffee mugs.

  When you brought me cake at your graduation party, it was the first time I smiled about anything in years.

  I’ve wanted you since the moment you arrived home at Christmas.

  LuLu, I love you, and I know it’s the real thing because I have never felt anything like this before.

  If you leave to go back to Austin without me, I’ll follow you. If you don’t feel the same way, I’m going to spend the rest of my life taking care of you anyway, whether you want me to or not. If you don't love me, just tell me. I’ll disappear, but I'll still be watching you. Protecting you.

  As you’ve guessed by now, I don’t need you to find me a match. We’re already matched to each other. We might have always been this way and just not known it.

  Maybe Lars sought me out after we left the service for this very reason, he just doesn’t know it yet.

  I’ll respect whatever decision you make.”

  I close the file and look around the room.

  People are pairing off right and left like nobody’s business.

  The smattering of people who aren’t already matched are moving on to the final matchmaking station of the day.

  Others are simply enjoying the wine and good conversation.

  I know now what I have to do.

  15

  Fletcher

  Outside, Lars walks me all the way around the building to the employee parking lot and shows me a car with Texas plates.

  “Awfully far to come for a matchmaking event, don’t you think?”

  “I’ve memorized the dude’s plates since we ran them. These are not his,” I say.

  It’s not even the same make and model car that Chad drives.

  I tell Lars this, but he seems highly suspicious. I never know about his instincts. He runs headlong into conclusions. Sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don’t.

  “Look at the plates, it’s a rental,” Lars says.

  “But you know as well as I do that doesn’t mean anything. Rentals can come from anywhere.”

  I examine the back seat of the compact Honda. Nothing looks suspicious.

  “Where’s LuLu?” Lars asks.

  “She wanted to stay inside.”

  “Why didn’t you insist she stay with you?”

  “Because unlike you, I can handle it when a woman doesn’t want me attached to her 24/7.”

  “Can you? Why is your hand shaking then?”

  I look down at my hands and he’s not wrong.

  “Whatever, man. OK, you’ve shown me a car that might or might not be his, what else you got?”

  While we’re talking, I hear a text tone on my phone.

  I check my screen and there’s a message from LuLu.

  “I’m upstairs in the suite finishing all the swag bags for all the participants, and I’m going to need some help bringing them down. Can you come up?”

  She gives me the suite number.

  How are the two of us supposed to carry a couple hundred gift bags down by ourselves? She should have let me handle the swag bag logistics from the get go.

  I tell Lars to continue keeping an eye out for anything strange, and I head back inside.

  I snag a couple of rolling carts from the kitchen and load them on to the elevator. I get a few curious looks from staff, but nobody stops me. It’s amazing what I can get away with when I use my well-honed “I own the place” face and walk like I’m on a mission.

  I park the carts outside the suite where she asked me to meet her and I use the code she gave me.

  As soon as I step inside, I see gift bags on the kitchenette countertops, on the floor, in the closet. Everywhere. But no LuLu.

  “LuLu?”

  She’s not in the main room, but I hear her voice from somewhere in the suite. “In here.”

  I follow the sound of her voice and it leads me into one of the suite’s bedrooms.

  The first thing I notice is the white knee socks she must have been wearing under her pant suit all day. If memory serves, those are the same ones she used to wear in high school. With mini skirts. Fuck.

  My eyes go from her legs upward. She’s wearing a white thong, her bra and nothing else. And she’s sitting on the bed, waiting for me.

  LuLu is looking at me not with hope or self-consciousness. She’s looking at me like a woman.

  My woman.

  Her brown eyes are studying me, challenging me.

  She’s laying it all on the line. Putting herself out there like I should have done days ago. Weeks ago.

  She wants me and now we’re done dancing around it.

  There’s only one dance left to do.

  And we’re going to dance it, over and over and fucking over, if I have my way.

  Her full, sweet lips are parted as she breathes in at the sight of me. She looks calm except that I can see the rise and fall in her gorgeous tanned chest. She’s anxious, or really turned on.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi,” she says.

  “You said you needed some help?”

  She closes her lips in a shy smile and that familiar tug at the corner of her mouth is happening again. Breaking me. Subduing me.

  “Fletcher,” she says, and it’s all I need to let go of my final defenses.

  I’m on the bed in half a second. I kneel in front of her and she rises up to meet me.

  I’ve got a hold of her face as our lips crash together. Her arms go around me. Finally, I’m going to ruin my beautiful girl without a care about what could happen after that.

  16

  LuLu

  My Fletcher has finally come for me.

  Why did we wait so long?

  I’m so overcome with emotion, I try to tell him how I feel, but he won’t let me talk. He just keeps kissing me. Hungrily. Forcefully. Making me forget what it was I wanted to say.

  I surrender to his mouth, his eager lips, his breath against me that seems almost relieved that we’re doing this.

  His tongue pushes past my lips, finding mine. My hands go to his chest, his shoulders… I need something to hang on to or I might float away with happiness.

  I grab on to his rippling triceps. He presses me back into the mattress.

  Fletcher lets go and looks down at me with an expression I cannot identify.

  “What is it? Is something wrong?”

  He smiles. “Everything is right in my world. I just want to look at you.”

  I lie there letting his eyes dance over my body, almost as intense as his hands. He studies my face. He gazes at my neck, my breasts, which respond by sending electricity to my nipples. They grow tight and ache for his hands, his mouth.

  His eyes turn dark as h
is gaze touches my abdomen and then lower. I self-consciously rub my legs together, and I hear him respond with a low groan of pleasure.

  I wonder where he’s going to touch me first.

  I know how to read people, but he’s a tough one.

  And then I have my answer.

  His hands go to my hair.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking in the moment.”

  I pout. “Oh, and here I thought you were gonna fuck me.”

  “Is that what you want?” His voice is gravelly with dark need.

  “Fletcher,” I say. “I’ve been thinking about your cock since you hugged me at the coffee shop.”

  “Only since then?”

  “Are you trying to get me to admit something?”

  He slowly, lethally, leans down until he’s hovering over me. “I want to know everything about you.”

  “You have every means necessary to know everything there is to know about me on paper. You’ve known me since I was 15. Surely you can dig up anything you want to know.”

  “None of that has anything to do with the real you. That’s the woman I crave. The woman who sticks a fork in me every time she walks into the room. The woman who makes me rock hard with need. Who does this to me.”

  Fletcher takes my hand. The pebble of excitement in my belly turns into a warm ember that grows and rises.

  He plants my hand on his crotch and I can feel his hard rod in my hand. My breath catches.

  I spread my fingers to gauge the length of it. It’s so big I don’t know what it might do to me, but I’m willing to find out. I need to find out.

  “Take it out,” he grinds out.

  I lick my lips and do as he says. I’m all his now. I don’t have to wonder how to crack through his tough exterior anymore. He’s showing me exactly what he wants, and I want to give it to him.

  I unbutton, unzip, tug and soon all the material that bound him up is gone and I’m holding his thick cock in my hands. It’s tight and red and throbs at my touch. Its substantial girth rises to a beautiful, smooth tip.