Imperfect Match

by Melanie Harlow

  We both sit at the table, waiting for the food to cook, and I figure this is the best chance to talk about the whole matchmaking thing. I have a limited amount of time to find his dream girl and get them to fall in love. It occurs to me I might lose my best friend in the process, which makes me sad. I let out a heavy sigh, and run my finger around the stem of the glass.

  “What’s that face?” he asks. “Something wrong?”

  I hate that he can read me so damn well. But I don’t tell him what I’m really thinking. “Nope. Just thinking of what I can ask you so I’m sure to find that perfect girl.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Well, ask your questions already, so we can get this over with and I can eat in peace.”

  “And then watch an hour of beautiful storytelling in the most heartbreaking way.”

  He groans. “I regret this already.”

  “As you should.”

  I spend the next thirty minutes grilling him and enjoying every second of his torture.

  The next day at work, I sit at my desk, sifting through the potential matches for Reid from the database of eligible females.

  There’s something wrong with all of them.

  “Hmm, too tall.”

  “Too stupid.”

  “Too ... blond.”

  I sigh and drop my face into my hands. I’ve been at this for four hours and I only have one maybe on the pile. He is seriously proving to be impossible to match. It doesn’t help that the list of requisite traits he came up with last night was asinine. There is no way any girl will have a check in every box, but I have to at least find the majority checked or he’ll toss her before she gets a chance.

  Stupid, stubborn man.

  I’m going to find another tearjerker show to torment him with because of all the grief this is putting me through.

  “How’s it going?” Mom asks.

  I look up from the list with more red X’s on it than circles, with a face that clearly says how much fun I’m not having.

  “That good, I see.”

  “You couldn’t have picked anyone else? Anyone? You had to assign me the man who has no desire to get married? All these women want to date someone who might actually propose someday. That’s never gonna be Reid.”

  She smiles with that motherly look she’s perfected and shrugs. “Life is full of challenges and I don’t think Reid knows what he wants. He will when he finds her. You just have to bring her to him, which is what we do, Willow. We force people to open their horizons to ideas they don’t think they believe in. Most of my clients couldn’t find the right person not because they didn’t want love, but because they weren’t willing to truly open their eyes.”

  “Right, but Reid didn’t come to us. You forced him on me.”

  “I gave him the option, and he walked through that door. He’s ready for love, he’s just afraid to take the risk.”

  “And you think I’m going to be able to show him the light?”

  Mom smiles and nods. “I know you will. He’ll see it.”

  My mother lives in a universe of eternal optimism. It’s exhausting most days, but then, she’s usually right, which makes it hard to argue with her. “Well, I need options and we are short on those.”

  “I have all the faith in the world that there’s someone in our database for him.”

  “I’m glad one of us does,” I mutter under my breath. “I’m leaving here in about five minutes. Reid and I are going to get him a few new outfits and then he’s forcing me to go to the comic store.”

  “Life is all about compromise, darling.”

  “Like you do with Dad?”

  She laughs through her nose. “No honey, that’s twenty-plus years of marriage and knowing when to smile and nod. Men like to think they’re important and have a say, when we all know the women are truly in charge.”

  “Good advice.”

  “I give it to all my clients after their weddings. Just like you can to Reid and his bride once you succeed.”

  Right. “Well, on that note. I should get going.” I grab my purse and kiss my mother on the cheek.

  “Have fun!” she calls as I walk out.

  “Yeah, nothing says fun like the comic store!” I say as the door closes behind me.

  On the elevator down, I shoot him a quick text reminding him that we’re going shopping. He has stood me up one too many times for my liking.

  Me: Meet me outside the store.

  * * *

  Reid: What store?

  * * *

  Oh my God. I knew it.

  Me: Reid! We have a shopping date.

  * * *

  Reid: Who is this? I don’t know this number.

  * * *

  I’m going to kill him.

  Me: Funny. I’ll see you in ten.

  * * *

  Reid: Seriously, stalking is a punishable crime. I request that you find another man for your attention.

  * * *

  Me: You realize I know where you live. Also, I feed you, and nothing says revenge like Ex-Lax.

  * * *

  Reid: Touché, my evil friend.

  I huff and put my AirPods in as I stroll down the Chicago streets. It’s so nice out today. It’s beautiful for October, and I couldn’t be happier. I have a cute fall sweater on, and with the sun, it feels at least ten degrees warmer than it probably is.

  I think about each female face I pass on the sidewalk in a different way, wondering if she could be the one for him. I catalog their features, whether they smile as I pass, their height, weight, and overall stature. I keep hoping for lightning to strike, to find that girl. The one that will change his mind about marriage, open his eyes and his horizons, like my mother said. She has faith, so why shouldn’t I?

  Then Reid can get hitched, and I can get pregnant.

  However, with each girl I study, I find something wrong. I start to question myself, and I wonder if I was being too hard on all the women in the database.

  Why aren’t they good enough to even show him? Why am I being so damn picky on his behalf? Maybe he’d like the tall girl. Maybe he will date someone who can’t spell. Maybe I’m not giving him enough credit.

  Before I can come to any conclusions, I plow into someone and nearly go over backward. “Shit! Sorry.”

  Reid’s blue eyes meet mine as he catches me, and then his grin widens. “Wills. I always knew you’d try to fall at my feet.”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “You okay?” His hands are gripping my shoulders, keeping me from falling over, and I nod, straightening up.

  “Yeah, I was in my head.”

  “Scary place that is.”

  “Not as scary as I was going to be if you didn’t show.”

  He shakes his head and opens the large glass door of the department store. “After you, my lady.”

  “Thank you, kind sir.” Delighted with his manners, I touch his arm as I walk past him and then he slaps me on the ass.

  I give him a dirty look over my shoulder. “And they say chivalry is dead.”

  “That was for the Ex-Lax comment. Never threaten my food again.”

  I flip him off and decide to exact my revenge in other ways. After all, I control his dates for the next six months.

  After an hour of Reid complaining as I pick out new clothes that don’t consist of Spiderman T-shirts and track pants, we’re finally done. I swear, he’s the most difficult human on the planet some days.

  We found some nice formal and casual clothes. The kind of first-impression outfits that women appreciate. No one wants to date a slob, which he’s really not. He’s just a little juvenile sometimes. I find it endearing and funny, but other girls might not.

  “What are we doing tonight?” he asks as we walk out.

  “Well, I’m working. I have to find your next hot date.”

  He groans under his breath. “Why do you hate me?”

  “Because you’ll need company when I have my baby—”

  “Not by some douchebag with a turkey ba
ster.”

  I huff. “When it happens, and I’m a mom, things will change for us. I don’t hate you, I just want you to be happy too.”

  Reid starts to loosen his tie, which I know is a telltale sign that he’s uncomfortable and doesn’t want to talk about this, but maybe my mother was right. Maybe the two of us keep holding the other back because we’re comfortable.

  He’s a great guy. He’s everything that most women want, except maybe for the fact that he can’t boil water and isn’t very willing to share the remote, and yet he’s alone. I know Glinda was a bitch in the end, but that was years ago. Since then, he’s been dating the dumbest girls he can find so there’s no danger of entering a real relationship, and the rest of his time he spends with me.

  Lord knows I never want to admit my mother could be right, but ... I can see it.

  “Things will change, Reid. We’re both going to have to realize that and maybe it’s time we grow up.”

  “I think we’re pretty fucking grown up. And you and I both know I don’t want a wife. I refuse to be my fucking father.”

  I bite my lip. It’s so hard to watch him beat himself up over someone that he’s nothing like. His father is cold and distant. Reid is warm and sweet. He cares about his family. He took his brother Leo in with no questions asked. I wish he wouldn’t be so rough on himself.

  “One day you’re going to wake up and realize that you and Vince Fortino are not the same person.”

  “His blood is still mine.”

  I touch his arm, squeezing gently. “Reid, that may be true, but your heart is nothing like his.”

  “Glinda didn’t think so.”

  Don’t even get me started on that bitch. “She was an idiot. She’s still an idiot, wherever she is.”

  He smiles and I see him trying to hide the hurt that lies under it all. “Maybe, but I can’t fuck up a marriage like he did if I don’t enter one.”

  “I’ve never known you to shy away from a risk.”

  “This isn’t a risk, Willow. It’s guaranteed failure. I’m not cut out for it. And why are you so anxious to get rid of me, all of a sudden?” He elbows me in the ribs.

  “I’m not,” I protest.

  “Well, good. Because I like how things are. I don’t want them to change. Do you?”

  I’m not sure how to answer. In a way, I don’t want things to change either. I’ve always known that if either of us finds the one, what we have will be gone. But thinking it could happen sooner rather than later is a little sad, even if it does mean reaching my goal of becoming a mom.

  Because I love my time with Reid. I love our easy friendship and the way we have no expectations or demands. He is truly my best friend and if he gets married, he’ll belong to someone else. And the baby I’m going to have will be my priority, instead of him.

  But life has to move forward, doesn’t it?

  “Yes, Reid. I do want things to change,” I admit. “I want to start the next phase of my life, raise a child, and have ... something.”

  He stops walking and looks at me. “You do have something. You have us.”

  I look up into his blue eyes and touch his chest. “I have us. I know. You’re my best friend, and I love you. Always will. And I want you by my side through everything. But …”

  “But you want a Butterball.”

  “What?”

  “A turkey-baster baby.”

  I sigh heavily. “This is why we can’t ever have a serious conversation. You’re an infant.”

  He pulls me close. “See? You don’t need a kid, you got me.”

  I groan and bang my head against his chest, wishing I could magically transport to a place where men weren’t so stupid.

  Reid doesn’t have to understand it, I just need him to support me. Hopefully, once I find him the love of his life, he won’t give a crap about my baby-making parts.

  This will be a win-win.

  Won’t it?

  Four

  Reid

  “So she’s going to just shoot some shit up her vag and get a baby?” my idiot brother Leo asks on Sunday evening.

  “I’m sure it’s a little more in-depth than that.”

  Normally I’d never go to Leo about this, but Willow isn’t around—she met some girlfriends for lunch, and then said she was going to the gym and to bed early.

  So I’m stuck with this idiot for tonight.

  “Why doesn’t she do like all the girls did in high school? Tell her to get drunk, forget to take her birth control and call it a day. Boom. Baby.”

  “It’s a wonder your girlfriend left you.”

  “I know, right?” He pushes his head to the side with a nod. “It’s her loss.”

  Yeah, that’s it. And my gain.

  I was content living on my own, and I didn’t want to deal with a damn roommate, let alone my brother. He drives me fucking crazy. He’s lazy, he’s a slob, and he can’t even cook. I’m sure the girls Willow picks are going to love having to adopt my brother along with dating me.

  “Speaking of loss, do you have the money you seem to have misplaced?” I ask him.

  He looks guilty. “About that …”

  And another month I have to cover his end of the rent. “Leo,” I groan.

  “I’ll have it. Soon.”

  “Not soon enough. I’m throwing you out.”

  He laughs because he knows I won’t. Our parents are two people who never should’ve procreated. Leo and I only have each other to depend on, and some days I wonder if we’ll ever get over the shit we grew up with. I thought I was done with it all when I walked away from my parents at age twenty-two. I gave up my rather large trust fund and never looked back.

  Daddy Dearest was pissed that I didn’t want to work for Fortino Hospitality Group, and he cut me off completely. Then he tried to groom Leo into taking my spot, but Leo hadn’t spent his entire adolescence going to board meetings and shadowing Vince, as I had to call my father in the office. For all the things my brother is, an executive he is not. He was a trophy kid, if such a thing exists. Leo was a star pitcher, and he was supposed to do great things in athletics—but they drove him so hard, he burned out by high school. I was supposed to be a businessman, a second-generation power-hungry CEO. It was all about appearances.

  I would’ve rather been poor and loved than deal with the pressure to be perfect. We could never live up.

  Leo laughs. “You’d miss me if I were gone.”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” I roll my eyes. “I’d miss you like I’d miss the plague.”

  That’s a lie, I like having him around sometimes. But what was supposed to be a few months has turned into a year, and in that time I’ve realized my little brother needs a lot more than just a place to live.

  He needs guidance. He needs a decent haircut. He needs lessons on How to Adult. I like comics just as much as he does, but my wardrobe does not consist solely of jeans and faded Marvel T-shirts with holes in the armpits.

  The one thing I envy about Leo is his job—I’d like to work at Midnight Comic too, doing nothing but hanging out and talking about comic books and graphic novels and other geeky shit all day. But no. I have a real job that makes real money so I can live in a real apartment and eat real food, even if Willow does have to cook it half the time.

  I wonder what she made for dinner tonight. Leo and I are watching Swamp Thing and pigging out on pizza and breadsticks, but it’s not nearly as good as Willow’s ziti. Or her chili. Or this thing she makes with eggplant and tomatoes and rice that I thought was going to be disgusting (because eggs and plants do not go together on a plate) but was actually delicious.

  I look at the slice of pizza I’m holding and can’t bring myself to eat another bite. Maybe there’s leftover ziti from Friday in Willow’s fridge. Is she home from the gym yet?

  “I’ll be right back,” I say to Leo, getting off the couch. “You don’t have to pause it.” Before leaving my place, I grab the spare key Willow gave me to hers. As I leave my apartment, I realize th
at I’m not going to hers only for food. I hope she’s there. I miss her.

  And that conversation we had yesterday is still bothering me a little bit. I don’t like the idea of our lives moving forward in separate directions. Maybe it’s selfish, but I kind of like having her all to myself.

  I knock first, but there’s no answer, so I let myself in. The living room lights are off, and it doesn’t look like she’s home. Snapping on the kitchen light, I go directly to the fridge and open it up, getting excited about what I might find. There’s some healthy-looking green leafy stuff, something that looks like it might be chicken salad with grapes in it, and a white box that looks like it might contain her lunch leftovers. I open the lid and sniff—mmmm, lemon and garlic and artichokes over lightly breaded chicken.

  Graciously leaving that for her in case she was planning to eat it for dinner tonight, I move things around until I see what I’m looking for—a plastic container of ziti. I recognize it because it’s identical to the one she sent home with me Friday night, which Leo ate sometime after I went to bed despite the fact that I left a note on it that said LEO: DO NOT EAT.

  I decide he doesn’t deserve any more of it, so I pull the container from the fridge and grab a fork from her drawer. Without even bothering to warm it up, I lean back against her counter and dig in. Even cold, it’s fucking delicious.

  “Reid!”

  I look up from the ziti in surprise and see Willow standing in the archway between the kitchen and living room wearing nothing but a towel, her hair dripping.

  “Jesus, Wills! You scared me.”

  “You break into my apartment and I scared you?”

  “Yes.” I take another bite and try to keep my eyes in my head where they belong, but damn. I know it’s Willow and we’re just friends and all, but that towel is short and her legs are fantastic and the top of her boobs are sort of pushed up above her arms, which are folded across her chest. Plus she’s wet. She’ll have to forgive the stare.