Page 134 of Close Match

Spinning around, I catch her lips in a hard and fast kiss. “Think that would be more interesting than evaluating the progressiveness between PTSD and alcoholism?”

“Pretty certain you’d have a more captive audience.” She cups my sac loosely.

“You seem to have a pretty good handle on that topic,” I growl as I bend down to nibble at her neck. My hands slide beneath her rear. I give a tug, and she boosts herself up. Turning, I plant her on the counter so I have better leverage to kiss her senseless.

* * *

“I must beinsane for trying to do this at my age.” I fling my laptop to the side. I don’t give a shit if the thing breaks, as it bounces off the couch. Pulling off my reading glasses, I toss them onto the end table in frustration.

“Monty, you’ve come so far.” Linnie plops down next to me with a pint of cookies and cream ice cream and two spoons. “This is just the first class in your PhD. Relax before you have a coronary.”

“This teacher is insane. I swear Dr. Lee is going to cause me to violate HIPAA laws to record what he says. He talks as fast as you do pirouettes.” I pinch my fingers in the corner of my eyes.

Linnie laughs ruefully. “That’s not as fast as it used to be.”

“I don’t think I got even half of the notes down, and I know I was typing as fast as I can.”

Spooning up a large bite of ice cream, she offers it to me. I sigh before taking the spoon. “You’ll get it, Monty. I know you will. You’re determined to work with those people,” Linnie declares with pride.

Leaning down, I touch my forehead to hers. “I know. I was feeling sorry for myself.”

She snorts. Grabbing my hand, she places it on her flat stomach. “Feel sorry for me. I’m the one who’s going to be huge with your child while all the nubile Columbia undergrads drool over my smart, sexy man.”

I roll my eyes.

“What you want to do, why you want to do it…I don’t care if it takes you ten years, Monty.”

“I do, babe.” And that’s the truth. When I realized I wanted to work at a rehabilitation center like the one that helped bring me back from the depths of an unceasing black hole to my life, I voraciously attacked classes. And during breaks, Linnie and I manage to make it down to the farm, though more often than not, it’s Mom and Dad coming up to visit. After all, Columbia’s Clinical Psychology program waits for no man. We’ll be tied to New York for at least the next three years. I groan aloud when I realize I’ll be forty-four at the earliest before I am truly able to help the people who, like me, need someone that can see beyond what they are doing to why they are doing it. Someone who isn’t going to give up. Someone who maybe can help them find a path to sobriety.

“Dr. Parrish,” she purrs. God, when she says it like that, my cock gets rock hard.

“Not helping,” I grit out. There’s no way I’m going to be able to prep for my clinical walk-through with Dr. Lee tomorrow if my fiancée keeps distracting me.

“Fine,” she huffs, moving away. Damn, she took the ice cream with her. My lips set into a frown. Just as I’m about to reach for my laptop, I hear her whisper in a dreamy voice, “Dr. and Mrs. Parrish.”

Done. I’m completely done. Hoping my brain remembers medical shorthand as well as it remembered military orders when I’d have no sleep, I dive for Linnie, tackling her against the soft cushions. Ripping the ice cream from her hand, I place it on the floor.

Her beautiful green eyes are sparkling up at me, innocently. “Was it something I said?”

“Yes.”

“What was that?”

Leaning down so my nose touches hers, I whisper, “You said my life started again that night. You were right. But you were wrong. It started the day you decided to take a chance on meeting your close match.”

Her lips graze mine when she reminds me, “And I not only found the other half of my blood, but I found the other half of my heart. Not bad for $195. Including New York sales tax, of course.”

Even as my body shakes with laughter, my lips capture hers in a fierce kiss of agreement.

Einstein, when he was asked about God, said that he saw a pattern but that he couldn’t imagine what that pattern led to. Everything has a pattern. For both of us, what appeared to be chaos took both of our lives down the path toward a simple DNA test to find out answers.

Neither of us could have imagined how it would change our lives. In our case, for the better.

The End