The Matchmaker

by Kitty Parker

  "Why do you and Chris hate each other?" I demanded. And I did not stomp my foot like a child, either, despite the temptation. Why was it that Darien managed to reduce my age to 5-year-old levels?

  He rolled his eyes. "Just get in the car. It's cold."

  I glared. He groaned. He should know better than to try to outwait me. Even if he did win about half the time.

  "I'll tell you if you get in the car," he compromised. Still glaring, I yanked the front door open and sat down sulkily, my arms crossed tightly across my chest. I wasn't capitulating, exactly, but March was still coming in like a lion and outside the courtyard where Chris and I had been studying, it was frozen. Protesting would do me no good if I got hypothermia as well. Although then, Darien might feel bad for me and tell… ah well, too late.

  Darien glanced at me and than back at wheel as I jerked the door closed with exaggerated anger, trying (badly) to hide his grin. Idiot.

  "So?" I prompted brusquely. Curiosity wasn't the only reason I wanted to know, after all, just the main one. I also wanted to know what could rouse such hatred in Darien, who, while not even-tempered in any sense of the word, rarely deigned to hate anyone.

  He rolled his eyes, but conceded. Ha. I win. "He doesn't like how popular I am, and I don't like how he treats girls." I stared blankly at him, not laughing skeptically only by a great effort of will.

  "You don't approve of how he treats girls?" I repeated disbelievingly, snorting quietly. The only differences I could see were of the subtlest sort.

  "That would be correct," he replied loftily. Finally, I could let out all the pent up urges to roll my eyes I'd had to suppress with Chris!

  "Because you're so different," I drawled sarcastically as we pulled up to a red light. He spun to face me (ignoring all the driving principles I had been taught), sapphire eyes blazing angrily. I met his fiery eyes squarely.

  "The girls I hook up with know exactly who and what I am." He spat each word with deadly precision. "I don't pretend to care about them, and I don't chase them down. If that breaks their hearts, it's not my fault. But Mann… He pretends to like them, and he actively pursues them until they're totally infatuated, and then he destroys them. He likes messing with their hearts, and that's something I would never do." His eyes, fierce as the sun, felt like they could see right through me.

  "The light's green," I pointed out, almost cowed by the intensity in his voice. Who knew Darien could argue that passionately? Maybe he would make it as a lawyer someday.

  He must have understood my unspoken concession, because he turned back to the road, the fire banking in his eyes. Silence pervaded the car, and not our usual comfortable silence either.

  "So, how was tutoring today?" he finally asked, knuckles white against the steering wheel, "Is Mann as stupid as he looks?"

  "He's not stupid," I protested, though my defense was more devil's advocate than any protective instinct. Protecting the unarmed was all well and good, but not when the weak wasn't tolerable. "He just doesn't apply himself."

  "Whereas I apply myself so much," he retorted. I could hear something beneath the sarcasm, but hell if I could identify it. I had an odd feeling though, that if I only knew what it was, a lot of things would be answered. Later, I would know just how right I was.

  "Ignoring the fact that you do, if you like the class," I countered calmly, "He's not as smart as you, but he's not stupid either. Happy now?" Why did he care so much? Was it only pride? He usually didn't care that much about intelligence.

  A lazy grin spread over his face, though why he looked so pleased I certainly didn't know.

  "Was that a compliment I just heard? From Emma Laycha? Is it even possible?" he teased, his grip on the wheel loosening in infinitesimal intervals. I wrinkled my nose at him in mock annoyance. I was free to act childlike now that I had learned everything I wanted to. And acting immature is fun, in small doses. And in select company.

  "Don't get used to it," I retorted, turning to the window with a dignified toss of my hair. Wasn't I allowed to be nice, every once in a while, and give a friend an indirect compliment? So what if it happened extremely rarely, that didn't mean it was impossible, only improbable.

  "Don't worry," he assured me as we pulled into my driveway, his voice an amused chuckle that reverberated through his chest and came out with none of Mann's practiced pleasantness but more sincerity than Chris's could ever hold, "I will."

  * * *

  Darien

  * * *

  To be absolutely truthful, I had no idea why Mann pissed me off so much. Well, I didn't know what was at the heart of the problem; the side issues I was quite clear about. He was inching up on my status of most wanted boy in school, but I had had other challengers before, and I had pitied them more than anything else. I certainly hadn't hated them as fiercely as I did Mann. He just rubbed me the wrong way, maybe because of everything I had told Emma. But that wasn't all of it. Contempt would not have inspired my abhorrence, and if that was all, Emma's defense of him would not have made me so furious at him that I was still fuming after I had dropped Emma off and stormed into my house.

  "Master Darien?" Alfred materialized beside me, jolting me out of my blind rage, though the fury was still simmering and distracting me. He was such a hypocritical bastard- Mann, not Alfred.

  I drew a long breath and composed myself. After a second, I trusted myself enough to speak acceptably. "Yeah?"

  "Your mother is upstairs. She wishes to take you to dinner tonight." His courteous monotone and emotionless expression made it take a while for this unprecedented proclamation to sink in. But when it finally did, it struck me with all the force of a cinderblock dropped off the Empire State Building.

  "Really?" I asked disbelievingly. He had to be joking…but Alfred never joked. My mother was incapable doing something like that; it seemed almost caring, something a mother would do.

  A slight smile cracked Alfred's mask, a phenomena rare enough to convince me of his veracity; not that I had any real doubts. Alfred lied about as often as pigs flew. Probably less, actually, as pigs probably went on planes occasionally. "Yes," he informed me, no amusement in his voice to echo the slight curl of his lips, "You are to depart for the restaurant at six o'clock."

  "What about Troy?" I demanded, desperate for an excuse to get out of this. There had to be some sort of ulterior motive for her to do this, other than torturing me. Dinner alone with my mother (at least 4 hours, knowing the kind of restaurants she frequented) would be nothing less than agony.

  "I am pleased to look after Master Troy for that time," Alfred replied solemnly. I wasn't fooled at all. I knew very well how much fun those two had when Alfred finally decided to unbend. He had practically raised me, after all. Not to mention that all our video games' high scores were Alfred's.

  "Fine," I snapped as I strode past Alfred and upstairs, my former anger diverted by this new quandary, "throw me to the wolves."

  Alfred's enigmatic almost smile, as confusing and non-committal in its way as Emma's smirk, chased me to my room.

  o0O0o0O0o

  "Darien." My mother was waiting for me in the entrance hall when I came back downstairs, dressed as I had suspected would be fitting, semi-formally in a black pants suit. Her ice blue eyes flicked up and down, studying my apparel in a way uncannily like how Emma had before New Year's Eve, making me suddenly glad I had opted to change into a button down shirt and tie rather than the polo I had worn to school.

  "Mother." I kissed her proffered cheek as expected. We were an affectionate family, after all, even if I had never seen Emma or Lex treat either of their parents that way. My parents needed to work on the quality of our script.

  An awkward silence.

  Finally she suggested, "Shall we go?"

  "As you wish." No emotion, that was the key. She had driven that into me from an early age.

  As it was fairly informal, she moved purposefully towards the BMW, rather than the limo she rode in for important meetings. I was vaguely disap
pointed, though I hadn't expected anything else; the limo was pretty sweet. Correctly assuming that she would insist on driving (my father convincing her to get a chauffeur for the limo had been an epic battle, one of the few fights I had seen between my parents) I took my seat on the passenger side, face still stonily serene. She sat in the driver's seat with the perfect assurance she did everything else; including the dismissal of her own children.

  A tense quiet occupied the car ride. Neither of us had any reason to talk to each other, nor did we have anything to say. We were seated in the same manner, at a small table in the corner, isolated enough from the crowded restaurant to give the illusion of privacy.

  "So," she eventually broke the silence after we had placed our orders in impeccable French (long years of being taken to French restaurants were the reason I could skip French with impunity) and the waiter had disappeared in the same mysterious way Alfred did, "How has school been?" Way to not be cliché, mother.

  "As good as usual," I responded blandly. Not that she would know what usual meant. For all she knew, that could mean I was like Mann, shooting up whenever I had an instant and even when I didn't.

  She acknowledged my sally with the minute twist of the thin lips I had inherited. It didn't reach her eyes. "Of course, you wouldn't expect me to understand what that means for you."

  I shrugged impassively. That was more perception than I would have attributed to her, but then again, her ability to read people was one of the reasons she had risen so far and so fast in her profession.

  Another silence. This one I stopped by a polite inquiry into her work, which she could elaborate on at great length with very little effort from me. That occupied us until the food came, but eating could only engage part of our attention, and her business had only so much I didn't know about it. It would be mine eventually.

  "So," she inquired, choosing a new inoffensive topic with an ease I guessed had to be acquired but seemed as natural to her as breathing, like all the social graces. "How is that young lady you're friends with? Emma Laycha, I believe?"

  That brought my guard up with the precise clang of a drawbridge closing. "Fine," I allowed suspiciously. Why did she want to know about Emma? Why did she care about her? And how did she know we were still friends?

  My mother smiled a smile as real as anything I had ever seen on her before, except when she looked at my father. Great. So now Emma merited my mother's approval and liking, but not her own sons.

  "That's good," she said, an oddly speculative look in the eyes that glanced sidelong at me. I immediately felt like a wild animal, caged in the zoo, beneath the heavy gaze of constant viewers. "She seemed to be an intelligent girl."

  "She is," I agreed, keeping my face emotionless despite my continuing bemusement at my mother's interest. Maybe Emma would do well in life and stuff; that had no reason to intrigue her.

  She nodded consideringly, a hint of laughter warming her eyes that didn't reach her mouth. I suddenly realized I could never, in all my 17 years of life, remember her laughing. What would her laughter be like? I shut off that train of thought quickly, realizing how academic it was. My mother would never laugh, not for me. Still, the ice in her eyes wasn't quite as cold as she observed, "She reminds me of myself at her age."

  I had to bite my tongue to keep my jaw from dropping. My mom never shared things about her past (so there were a few similarities between her and Emma), especially not anything other than the bare facts. But if my mother had started out like Emma… I didn't want to even consider the possibility of Emma turning out like my mother.

  Some of my shock and disgust must have made its way to my face however hard I tried to conceal it, because another smile, not quite as full-hearted as before, but still remarkably uncalculated found its way onto her lips.

  "Didn't think I could ever be like your little friend?" she asked in what would have been with anyone else a teasing voice. I ignored the little voice in my head that laughed at what Emma would have thought about being called a 'little friend.'

  "Not precisely," I countered coolly, still not trusting this new warmth. My parents held no affection for me; I knew that. I had no reason to confide in her, no reason to return that dubious love.

  The smile died as quickly as it had come, and the eyes that met me were remorseful. "No," she agreed sorrowfully, tragic eyes piercing my shields and reading my mind with all the skill moms are supposed to have, "that's not all of it, is it?"

  The next time we spoke, and for the rest of the evening, it was all controlled pleasantries.

  o0O0o0O0o

  "And then it was like nothing had changed!" I exclaimed into my phone, pacing my room like a caged lion. I had just finished telling Emma what had happened at dinner. Usually, I would have called Brock and ranted to him, but it had occurred to me that Emma might be able to understand what my mother was thinking better than he could. "And I have no idea what's happening! My parents don't act that way!"

  "Like a parent?" she interjected sarcastically. She probably rolled her eyes, too. She hadn't seemed as offended by my mother's comparison as I thought she would have. In fact, she seemed pleased.

  "Exactly!" I slammed my fist onto my desk, wincing slightly as it rebounded. I didn't have the strength to punch random hard objects, however good it was at venting my emotions. That didn't stop me, obviously, but it did make my hand hurt a lot whenever I did. "She's never acted like this before! I don't think I've ever had dinner alone with her before; let alone because she planned it spontaneously." Yes, I knew that was an oxymoron. No, I didn't care.

  "Maybe she knows that and is trying to make up for it," Emma proposed calmly. Over the phone lines, something creaked as she shifted position.

  "Why now then?" I thundered. I must have walked this room 1000 times in the 45 minutes I'd been home, but I hardly noticed I was moving. "Why not when Troy or I needed her?"

  "I don't know," Emma replied tiredly, her cool voice washing over me and settling my hackles. She had that effect on people, when she felt like exerting it, and I was no exception. "But it is happening. Shouldn't you be happy?"

  "Only if she keeps it up," I retorted, still furious, "But I won't trust it. If I get my hopes up, she'll just dash them. And if I tell Troy…" I trailed off. She would understand the tacit warning. Troy would get his dreams smashed, and he wouldn't understand why. I would not have our mother do that to him; she had done it enough to me.

  "At least she's trying," Emma pointed out, all icy anger. There was a faint sound of something scratching from her side. Was she taking notes or something? I really didn't care, as long as she was listening to me. "The least you could do is cut her some slack."

  "I did-" she cut off my protest.

  "Not really," her voice softened, coaxing more than commanding. This was her most dangerous voice, really, because it always caught me off guard. Primed for the whip, I was vulnerable to the silken bridle. "Just give her a chance, Darien." And now she was skeptically challenging, the doubt in her voice pricking my pride, "Can you do that much?"

  "Yes," I admitted reluctantly, my steps slowing. I groaned and collapsed onto my desk chair. Why couldn't my parents be normal? "I can do-"

  "Hold on a sec, Darien," she interrupted me. I could hear faint voices from the other end, one of them definitely Emma's and the other's male, and than some indignant shrieks and a few thuds.

  "Hey, Dar?" Lex's voice now, and he was panting like he had been exercising. He had probably stolen the phone and was holding it above Emma's head now, judging from the creaks that made it sound like he was in motion, "Em needs to go now so I can kick her ass in Acquire™." Beyond Lex, Emma snorted, conveying very well her doubt he would do anything of the sort. Lex ignored her. "So she'll talk to you sometime. Later." The dial tone clicked on, cutting off the sound of Emma and Lex's amiable bickering.

  I stared at the phone for a moment after they hung up on me. Of course Emma wouldn't get my suspicions, with her cookie-cutter family and loving mother. She didn't
understand what it was like to have parents like mine, who really didn't give a damn about me. She couldn't comprehend how hard it was for me to 'just give her a chance.' But somehow, the past 45 minutes had made me feel better anyway.

  Chapter 26

  * * *

  Emma

  * * *

  "No."

  "Emma, please?" Chris looked pleadingly at me, every fiber in his body conveying disappointment. I wasn't fooled in the least. "It's just a little get together, for the team. We'll catch the end of March Madness, hang out… why won't you go with me?"

  I threw my hands into the air in frustration as I strode out of the library, Chris easily keeping pace, his long legs taking one stride for every two I took. Damn tall people! "No," I repeated, trying to maintain my calm. Could he not understand that simple word? Was his head really that dense? He had never shown signs of this thick-headedness in the month and a half I had been tutoring him. Could he not see that I was a lost cause?

  "Why not?" The question wasn't posed aggressively, only with resigned curiosity. For that reason, and that reason only, I answered him; albeit reluctantly. Curiosity killed the cat after all.

  "Because-"

  He didn't let me finish. Fine than, the cat could die. "Is it because of something McGavern told you?" he demanded belligerently, eyes narrowed. I wondered if this was a glimpse of the real Chris Mann, because if it was, I did not like what I saw. "Because that's all lies; he's just jealous-"

  I cut off his petulant protest. He had reached the limit of my tolerance, and I was done with both Mann and the conversation.

  "No," I snapped firmly, my head jerking around to glare at him, "It's because I don't do parties, not because of anything Darien said. Besides," and I had to add this, because he couldn't get away with insulting one of my friends. I was the only one who could diss my friends. I swept critical eyes up his body, meeting his eyes with lazy contempt. He didn't have a patch on Darien, whatever his fan girls said. "I don't see anything for him to be jealous of."