by Amanda Tru
Bailey glared at him, causing Camden to grin back triumphantly. He loved getting under her skin.
Bailey told him to turn left, though she still didn’t reveal their destination. “This isn’t a blind date,” she clarified. “It isn’t really even a date, and you know it.”
“I’m not sure what your definition of a date is. So far, you’ve kidnapped me from work and are taking me to an unknown location for the evening.” Camden pumped his eyebrows in relentless teasing. “By definition, that’s either a crime or a date.”
Bailey rolled her eyes and finally admitted. “We’re going to the basketball game in Brighton Falls.”
“Really?” Camden asked excitedly. “It’s not my birthday, is it?”
Bailey folded her arms across her front and fixed her gaze straight out the front window. “See? That’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to get too excited that I got tickets for us. It’s completely professional. I already told you we were going to observe my second choice for our contest. Since you have refused to make a selection, I decided to make one myself.”
Camden glanced down at the time. “Well, if we have tickets to the game, we’d better hurry. We don’t want to miss the tip-off.”
Bailey playfully smacked Camden in the arm. “Hello? Being late is not my fault!”
Camden replied innocently, “If you’d simply told me we had tickets to the game, I would have known this qualified as more of the romantic-type date and would have planned accordingly.”
Bailey glowered, “Camden Hutchins, why do you delight in aggravating me?”
Camden just grinned. He really did enjoy teasing her. After the fiasco with his first contest selection, Camden really had no desire to make another entry in the contest at all. To him, it had only ever been a game, and he simply didn’t have time for it. He’d put Bailey off for the past couple weeks, idly hoping she’d simply forget about it. Unfortunately, she had not. When he’d announced that he was working from his apartment today, she’d also announced that she’d made her second contest selection, and he was required to go with her on the observation of that selection this evening.
He’d only ever participated in the contest to amuse and hopefully aggravate Bailey, and now it looked as if tonight would involve the exact same entertainment goal. At least they were going to a game. Camden preferred a game to a fancy dinner at a restaurant any day of the week.
While driving to the stadium, he amused himself the entire time by bantering with Bailey and generally giving her a hard time. In his mind, their teasing banter qualified as affectionate in nature and seemed to alleviate some of the tension that perpetually existed between them. He found it to be much preferable to the outright fighting when the tension built up so much that the volcano erupted.
Fortunately, they arrived late enough that some of the crowd had thinned as people found their seats right before the start of the game. Though Bailey wanted to bypass the concessions, Camden wouldn’t hear of it and managed to quickly load them down with enough food to feed their entire row.
They climbed down the stairs right as the game started and found the blue plastic chairs marked with their numbers. Bailey had purchased good seats for them, and Camden was impressed. Basketball tickets weren’t cheap. If she hadn’t been motivated to find the best angle with which to observe the couple she’d matched, Camden would have been flattered. He enjoyed basketball but rarely took time away from work to do something just for enjoyment.
Bailey settled into her seat beside him, and their hands brushed when both reaching for the popcorn.
Watch it, Camden warned himself. If he weren’t careful, it would be very easy to slip into pretending that this really was a date, and Bailey really had been thoughtful enough to plan a date she knew he would enjoy.
Camden soon got caught up in the game and didn’t even notice until after the first quarter that Bailey was unusually quiet. Turning his attention to her, he saw her eyes weren’t even watching the action on the court.
“Don’t you like basketball?” he finally asked.
“I like it just fine,” she replied, but her glance never shifted.
Camden drew an imaginary line from Bailey’s eyes to the couple she observed across the aisle and two rows up from where they sat. However, Bailey’s agitation was more distracting than both the couple and the game itself.
Bailey’s brow was furrowed, and Camden doubted that her lip would survive the whole game if she continued to chew it so relentlessly.
“Relax, Bailey,” Camden urged. “So what if the date doesn’t go well? You should know by now that we get both bad and good reviews. The good always outweighs the bad, and the website is just fine. As far as the contest, losing to me wouldn’t be the end of the world, would it?”
“It’s not that,” Bailey said, the worry on her face not easing in the least. “I know him.” She pointed to the man across the aisle.
“You set up a man you know personally?” Camden asked.
Bailey shrugged. “I don’t know him well. I met him at the airport when waiting for you back in December. He’s a nice guy.”
Halftime ended, and the noise level in the stadium once again increased to where holding a conversation became impossible. Unfortunately, Camden couldn’t watch the game with the same enjoyment. He couldn’t block out Bailey from his senses, and he was very much aware of her continued distress. Giving up watching the game, he turned his attention to the couple to figure out what exactly had her so upset.
A man with glasses and a shirt buttoned to the very top sat in his seat looking perfectly miserable. By contrast, the woman next to him stood to her feet and cheered loudly, thoroughly enjoying every play of the game. Camden watched for several minutes, noting that when something didn’t go well in the game, the woman screamed at the officials and the man looked as if he wanted to melt into the floor. The whole thing was quite painful to watch, and Camden suddenly understood why Bailey felt so miserable, knowing she instigated such an uncomfortable scene.
Having seen enough, Camden sat in his chair and took out his phone.
“What are you doing?” Bailey asked when he didn’t quickly finish with his phone and return to his feet.
Camden held up his hand, hoping to stop any further questions while he focused. “Just give me a minute, Bailey. I’m trying to mount a rescue operation.”
Bailey’s worried gaze alternated between Camden pushing buttons on his phone and Jeff Schwartz sitting miserably beside his cheering date. She’d really messed this one up.
When she’d come across Jeff’s profile on the website, she’d immediately recognized him as the shy man she’d encountered at the airport. She also remembered how his sister, Kari, had explained how awkwardly Jeff behaved around attractive woman and how much she’d wanted to help him find his perfect match. She immediately knew she wanted him to be her second selection. After all, she already had an advantage because she’d met him.
From that brief encounter, she already had a good idea of the kind of woman she should set him up with. He was such a nice guy, but he really needed someone outgoing who could get him out of his shell to enjoy all life had to offer. When choosing Jeff a match, she didn’t even bother looking at the results from Camden’s algorithm. Instead, she did it all on her own, selecting him a perfect match who seemed really nice although opposite him in many ways.
She’d watched carefully, not reading their messages back and forth, but closely monitoring if and when they set up a date. When the basketball game popped up on their schedules, Bailey knew she had the ideal opportunity to observe a fantastic date and get credit for it in a win with Camden. As luck would have it, Ashley had also posted their seat numbers on the schedule so Jeff would know which entrance to meet her at. Bailey had then bought the tickets that would give her the best view of observing their date. While the tickets hadn’t been cheap, she knew it was worth seeing her hard work pay off with witnessing a successful match.
The sec
ond they’d arrived at their seats and she found Jeff’s face, she knew she’d been terribly wrong. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for basketball. Maybe he did. However, his nicely pressed and starched shirt and slacks made for a sharp contrast to Ashley’s blue face paint and head-to-toe, brightly colored fan apparel. Maybe even that could be tolerable under the right circumstances.
However, these circumstances were far from right. Ashley’s exuberance shocked and embarrassed Jeff to such a degree that his poor face continually shifted from blazing red to deathly pale. Even his popcorn sat untouched beside him. That is until Ashley grabbed it to stuff some in her mouth. Then someone on her team got called for a foul, and she launched the whole bucket in a geyser of protest that rained buttery fluff all over mortified Jeff.
Ashley wasn’t heartless. She tried to get Jeff involved, even tugging him up to attempt to dance during one of the time-outs. That incident only succeeded in dousing the front of Jeff’s shirt with ketchup and mustard when he tripped and fell against the hotdog Ashley held in her other hand.
Bailey couldn’t take watching the scene any longer, and yet she couldn’t look away. Tears pricked her eyes as her mind sorted through possibilities. Camden was right. Jeff really did need a rescue. She just wasn’t sure how to go about doing it.
Camden suddenly stood and turned around as if looking for something.
“What is it?” Bailey asked, trying to speak over the stadium’s uproar.
Camden leaned close to her ear and whispered, his breath tickling her hair. “Over there. She’s a client.”
Bailey looked at him in confusion. What did that have to do with rescuing Jeff?
“Stay here,” Camden whispered again before climbing up the aisle toward the woman he’d just pointed to.
Bailey looked at her more closely. It looked like she was with a group of friends. Though she was enjoying the game, cheering and clapping in all the right places, she lacked Ashley’s face paint and overwhelming exuberance. She was happy but calm and didn’t seem to be at all upset no matter who scored, fouled, or what.
Bailey watched as Camden walked right up to her and spoke while she and her friends eagerly listened. When he stepped away, the young woman followed. Feeling an inkling of what Camden was attempting, Bailey hurried over to the aisle to intercept. She arrived right as Camden got Jeff and Ashley’s attention and began speaking.
Flashing a charming smile Ashley’s way, he said, “Hi, I’m sorry to bother you. I hope you don’t mind, but we’re going to steal Jeff away for the rest of the game.” Gesturing to Bailey, he explained. “He’s a friend of Bailey’s, and she’d really like to spend a few minutes with him and introduce him to one of my friends.”
At the sight of Bailey, recognition dawned in Jeff’s eyes, and he leaped to his feet.
“Sure, whatever,” Ashley said, barely turning to respond before jumping up and cheering for another basket scored. “See ya, Jeff. It was nice meeting you. Maybe we can do this again sometime. Do you like hockey?”
Thankfully, Jeff didn’t need to respond before someone committed a foul, making Ashley completely forget that she’d even asked a question.
“Bailey, it’s good to see you,” Jeff said eagerly, following the small group up the steps.
“Jeff, there’s been a mistake,” Camden said, preventing Bailey from responding. “It turns out Ashley isn’t a strong match for your profile. According to your answers, you should have been paired with someone on a different list, and it just so happens, one of those ladies is right here. Jeff Schwartz, I’d like to introduce you to Julie Davies.”
Jeff’s gaze swung from Julie back to Bailey as if seeking to confirm the accuracy of Camden’s statements.
Bailey nodded and confirmed. “Jeff, this is my business partner Camden Hutchins, and he’s right. You should have never been matched with Ashley. She’s a great gal, she just isn’t for you.”
Camden nodded. “If you want, Julie said there’s an extra seat right by where she and her friends are sitting, and you’re welcome to join them.”
“I don’t know. I think I may have already exceeded my basketball quota for the night,” Jeff said nervously, not even looking at Julie. After all, she was quite pretty.
“That’s okay,” Julie said with an easy-going smile. “Now that we know each other’s names, maybe we can connect on the Betwixt website.”
“Hey, Julie!” one of her friends yelled. “That was your guy who made that basket. Make sure you mark it down.”
Julie immediately took out her phone and began pushing buttons.
“Is that an app?” Jeff asked, looking at the screen of her phone with interest.
“Oh, yeah,” Julie said self-consciously. “It’s just a game my friends and I play. When we go to any kind of sports game, we each pick a player or a team. We then keep track of every stat that player logs in the game and put it into this little app I created. The app assigns varying values to each task and scores the player accordingly. At the end of the game, the losing friend buys the other friends’ ice cream. It’s kinda silly, but it’s fun.”
Julie ducked her head as if embarrassed that she’d even bothered to explain it. “Sorry, I probably should have just said it was a game and left it at that,” she amended.
“You created the app?” Jeff asked with equal amounts of interest and awe.
Julie nodded. “It’s a pretty simple one. Just for fun.”
“Who are you?” Jeff asked as if completely mesmerized.
Practically, Julie responded. “I’m a graduate student at the university. My focus is math with an emphasis in technical engineering. My master’s paper is on statistics, so this app was a precursor to that project.”
“My background is in technology,” Jeff shared. “I’d love to see how your app works.”
“Julie, your guy just scored again!” Her friend yelled. “You’re ahead in points.”
“Come on!” Julie invited with a delighted smile. “I’ll show you.”
Stunned, Bailey watched Jeff happily follow Julie to the seats near her friends.
“It worked!” she said. “It really worked!”
Then, remembering the other half of her original match, she spun back around in concern. “What about Ashley? Shouldn’t we find her someone more compatible?”
Camden shook his head, an amused smile lifting the corners of his lips. “No. Look at her. For all Ashley knows, it was a great date. She’s having such a wonderful time that she automatically assumes Jeff feels the same way. It doesn’t even occur to her that he didn’t enjoy the game as much as she did.”
Watching Ashley’s fist-pumping cheers, she knew Camden was right. Even as she watched, Ashley high-fived multiple other fans in her vicinity, and Bailey saw that she wasn’t lacking in social interaction to pass the evening.
She turned back to see Jeff and Julie’s heads bowed over her phone, and a slow smile of satisfaction spread through her body. That’s what she’d been looking for. Even if she hadn’t been the one to arrange the match, she was still thrilled with seeing Jeff find a special someone.
“That’s interesting,” she heard Camden say right before the crowd cheered again.
Before she could be heard to ask what he meant, Camden looked up from his phone and headed to the doors leading out of the arena. Bailey followed, inhaling with relief as the doors shut behind her, cutting off the noise.
“How did you know Julie was a Betwixt client and was on Jeff’s list?” she asked Camden eagerly, her words sounding loud in the concrete network of hallways encircling the arena.
Camden didn’t pause to talk. Instead, he walked down the hallway as if looking for something.
“Are you going to answer me?” Bailey demanded when he didn’t respond.
Camden turned to face her, warily looking either direction. “Can’t you just let it go, Bailey? Isn’t it enough that I found a match for Jeff and that he’s happy? Why do you need to know the how?”
Bailey li
fted an eyebrow, not willing to back off. “Tell me how,” she ordered.
Camden sighed and motioned her to one side of the hallway. Though there was no one else close in proximity, he still spoke quietly. “Given a specific set of circumstances, I can track the location of Betwixt app users. Of course, on the website, we call it a safety feature when users grant permission for location tracking.”
Bailey’s eyes narrowed. “What are the ‘specific set of circumstances’? I doubt users realize they can be tracked when not on a date. Julie clearly wasn’t on a date, so how did you find her?”
“She didn’t close the app,” Camden said. “Even if the app is in the background, it remains active and can be tracked if needed. Kind of like a ‘find your phone’ feature, but in my case, I can pull up a map for a certain location and see all of the active Betwixt users in that area. If they close the app, it doesn’t work, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t actually close their apps.”
Bailey immediately took out her own phone. Pressing the home button twice, she groaned, seeing that she had at least ten different apps still open. She ignored Camden’s laughter as she quickly swiped each of them upward to close.
“There she is!” Camden said suddenly, hurrying over to a concession stand.
Bailey followed, wondering how he could possibly still be hungry after eating the massive amount of food he’d bought earlier.
With no customers at the booth, it looked as if the single employee was working to close up shop for the night.
“Hi,” she greeted as Camden approached. “I’m just shutting this one down since the game is almost over. I have a few things still available, but they have more choices at the booth near the front entrance. That one will stay open after the game.”