Page 1 of Love’s a Script (Hearts Collide #1)

Chapter One

Valentine’s Day is to matchmaking agencies as the first of January is to gyms. In other words, the fear of solitary futures (usually imagined, for some reason, in hilltop monasteries or cat-filled apartments) was heightened in the weeks leading up to the day of love.

Mary Neilson, a matchmaker at Hearts Collide Matchmaking, embraced the influx of motivated clients and held their concerns as tenderly as possible, regardless of how commonplace they were.

“I just want someone to split a giant éclair with. You know, like the ones from the Dutch Oven,” said Adrienne, a twenty-eight-year-old wedding photographer, and Mary’s first client of the day.

It would take work on Mary’s end to untangle what Adrienne truly wanted because she was what they at the agency called a “hodgepodge.” This type was unfocused, having spent years absorbing inconsistent ideas of The One through media, family, peers, and a one-off visit to a psychic.

A “hodgepodge” was not to be confused with a “unicorn seeker”: a client hoping for a partner with a statistically unlikely combo of characteristics.

A poetry-loving chemist who’s also a ballroom dancing champion, for instance.

And a “unicorn seeker” differed still from a “Pygmalion” in that the latter felt entitled to a mate who met all their specifications because they’d paid for a matchmaking service.

That said, not everyone fell neatly into an archetype.

Take Mary’s last client before lunch, Gavin.

A thirty-nine-year-old in tech sales who exercised a medical-journal-recommended number of times per week and played soccer in a community league.

He seemed like a lot of the straight men who walked through the agency’s doors until he said, “I’m a sperm donor influencer. ”

Mary didn’t allow her smile to slip as Gavin detailed his side gig and showed off the glitchy website where he sold “Share Your Spunk” T-shirts and water bottles.

At the end of their meeting, while walking him through the lobby to the exit, Mary told him what she told every person who came in seeking her help: “I can’t wait to find you your match. ”

On the way back to her office, the receptionist at the front desk waved Mary over. “Cassidy wants to see you,” she said.

“Cruise lead?” Mary asked, her posture straightening.

“Hard to say.”

Mary quickly set off down the hallway toward her boss’s office, fussing with the volume of her hair.

She knocked on the frosted glass door, and a responding voice told her to enter.

Inside, Cassidy was talking on the phone with earbuds while on a treadmill.

She pumped her arms back and forth, holding on to pink dumbbells.

Mary stepped off to the side to wait, nearly tripping over Cassidy’s assistant who was on the floor bearing her weight on an overflowing suitcase. The assistant’s smooth ponytail and turtleneck sweater had conspired to make her flushed face look like a pulsing zit.

“Do you need a hand?” Mary whispered.

The assistant hopped up to her feet. “No, I’ve got it,” she said, throwing her body on top of the piece of luggage again.

After a minute or two, Cassidy ended her call shouting, “Kiss my ass, Scott,” and pitching her earbuds across the room. “Don’t ever get married. If you do, skip the divorce proceedings and acquire some arsenic. What can I do for you, Mary?”

“I was told you wanted to see me.”

“Yes!” Cassidy said, now punching her dumbbells overhead. “I agreed to a quick radio interview about the mayor’s engagement this evening, but I forgot I’d be on a flight to Halifax. I’ll need you to fill in for me.”

“Of course. I’d be happy to.”

“Perfect, I knew I could count on you. Shay will send you the details and our talking points.”

The assistant, still struggling on the floor, affirmed with a feeble nod.

“Is that all?” Mary willed there to be more.

“It is,” Cassidy said. “Oh, could you fetch my earphones before you go?”

Disappointed, Mary did her boss’s bidding and left for the staff lounge to begin her lunch break.

She’d hardly stepped inside the break room when two of her colleagues cornered her against a counter.

Kaitlyn and Catelin—dubbed the Twins, on account of their names and the J.Crew sales they both shopped—stood on either side of Mary.

“We saw you go into Cassidy’s office,” Catelin said.

“Yes, she wanted to talk to me.”

“And,” said the other Kaitlyn, pressing forward, “what did she want?”

Mary looked between the two women, now understanding. “It wasn’t about cruise lead,” she told them. “I’m stepping in for her on a radio interview tonight.”

The Twins recoiled. An unpaid task outside of working hours was not an enviable position. They left the room quickly, tossing “Good luck” over their shoulders.

“Might need to start carrying a switchblade,” said Eden, a fellow matchmaker who’d watched the ambush from the lunch table. Her downturned eyes were always smudged with black liner, intensifying her doleful appearance.

“We’re not in a prison yard.”

“All’s missing are the jumpsuits and DIY tattoos,” Eden said dryly. “Everyone’s lost their damn mind around here.”

The cruise lead position—an inaugural opportunity to plan and execute the agency’s biggest matchmaking event on a cruise voyage—was coveted by all save for Eden.

Cruise lead promised obvious perks like a stipend and event-planning experience, and Mary had built the role up in her head further to where it would also temper what a therapist she’d seen virtually for two and a half sessions concluded was her “general concern of dispensability.”

Mary had taken a seat beside Eden with her meal when Sienna, another matchmaker, barreled into the break room, her always present water tumbler dangling from her hand like a loose thread on a garment. Her eyes wildly landed on Mary. “Did you get it? Cruise lead?”

Mary strained to swallow the food in her mouth before answering, “No, I was asked to step in for a radio interview.”

“Really? That’s a pretty big responsibility. It means Cassidy trusts you to represent the agency. Which probably makes you her front-runner.” Sienna had lived most of her life in a small town up north and had never left the country, so she was hungry for this sort of summer adventure.

“I don’t think you should read into it,” Mary said. “We’ve all been assigned extracurricular tasks before.”

This reasoning put Sienna at ease, and she made her exit with a lighter step. Mary tried returning to her lunch, but the break room had a revolving door and shortly ushered in Francine, a veteran amongst the matchmakers.

“Hello, beautiful ladies,” Francine said with an affected drawl found in old Hollywood movies. She surveyed the contents of the refrigerator as she rambled about the details of her morning until abruptly turning to Mary. “I heard you had a meeting with Cass?—”

“My god,” Eden said, slamming her fork onto the table. “She didn’t get cruise lead.”

Francine looked to Mary.

“I wasn’t offered the role,” Mary confirmed.

“Oh, that’s a relief,” Francine said. “Not that you don’t deserve it, but you know…”

After a stretch of uncomfortable silence, Francine quit pretending she’d come for anything more and excused herself.

“Madness,” Eden said when they were alone, and Mary couldn’t object.