Page 11 of Most Likely to Match (The Matchbooks #2)

My music plays quietly through the earbud in my ear, the other sitting in the case on my desk. It’s not hard to look at Chloe’s face over and over. I don’t hold any anger or resentment. Mostly shame.

I fucked up.

I let my emotions get the better of me. I let my dick get the better of me.

I stole her fucking panties.

They’re still crumpled in the pocket of my pants, at the bottom of a pile of dirty clothes that I’ve avoided washing and not because I don’t want to do my laundry or because I’m avoiding seeing her panties and processing what happened.

I’m avoiding the laundry because I don’t want to wash them.

I haven’t taken them out and sniffed them or used them to masturbate; so there’s that, at least. I’m not that much of a creep. I simply want, hope, that if I were to take them from my pocket. If I were to hold them up to my nose. Maybe. Just maybe. They’d still smell like her .

“Fuck.”

I drop my head into my hands. “I am a fucked-up person,” I say, because someone needs to say it.

I get up from my desk, fast enough that the Scandinavian ready-to-assemble furniture shudders in my wake, and stomp to the pile of laundry, find the pants, and shove my hand into the front pocket.

Her panties are still there, thank god. I envelop them in my fist. They’re no longer warm from her.

They’re not wet. But my mind and body are happy to play tricks on me.

I stomp back over to the desk, stand next to the small waste basket beside it. My closed fist hovers over the basket. I can buy her new panties. She gave them to me anyway, flimsy compensation for years ago.

I can do whatever I want with them. “So do it,” I order myself. “Throw. Them. Out.”

I fall back down into my chair instead, hit pause on my phone, and pull up her number. Then I press Call. When she finally answers, I have laid the panties out flat on my desk.

“Dean?” Her voice is quiet, unused.

“Shit,” I breathe. “It’s late.” I wasn’t thinking.

“No. No.” The sound of movement interrupts her, behind it, the hushed noise of a laugh track. “I wasn’t sleeping.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“It’s fine —”

“Not about that,” I say, pressing my hand flat against the soft cotton. “About the other day. The library.”

Chloe is silent for long enough that I think she wants me to say more. “I was unprofessional and—”

“Forget about it,” she says. “I just mean, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Now it’s my turn to be silent.

“Let’s….” She sighs, soft, tired. I worry the pretty bow between my thumb and forefinger. “There are things you don’t want to talk about, right?”

“Right. ”

“And I don’t want to talk about this. Let’s start over.”

“Start over,” I say, an automaton.

“Core Cupid is sponsoring a food and wine show at the high school.”

“ Our high school?” Wine in a high school seems like a bad idea, even if school’s out for summer.

“Apparently the convention center got double booked, so they moved it. Did you want to come?” she asks, her voice cautiously hopeful. “It might be cool to put a face to the whole dating coach thing, and I’ll definitely need help talking to people.” She laughs like she’s made an inside joke.

I swallow a sudden rush of emotion in my throat. “You still want me to do that?”

She laughs, genuine. “Are you kidding me? Of course I do.” And then, quieter, “It’s a really good idea, Dean. And I think it will help a lot of people.”

I trace the waistband of her panties, the leg openings. I draw my finger down the front panel but stop before I reach the crotch.

“If you want me to be there,” I say. “I’ll be there.”

“I do,” she says. “I want you.”

Turns out “wine and food show” was a bit of a misnomer.

There is an entire night market in our old high school.

Core Cupid is simply sponsoring the wine and food tent, which has no actual tent, but is a collection of local restaurant booths and food trucks set up on the football field.

Attendees can also browse the gymnasium, the school’s towering foyer— which hasn’t been renovated since we went here, and back then, it hadn’t been changed since it was built in the ’80s— for vintage finds and arts and crafts by local creators.

There are photo booths and those 360-degree cameras, and apparently, later, a silent disco right here on the field.

And Chloe has clearly needed no help talking to people.

The event organizers have set up our booth inside the wine and food tent gate, and people keep thinking that Chloe is the person who has to check them in or validate their wrist bands, I guess.

They keep slowing in front of the booth, looking confused and offering their wrists.

Chloe smiles and has a kind redirect ready for them.

She offers little segues into what our booth is and what Core Cupid does and seems to have a sixth sense about the people who are interested and those who simply want to taste wine and eat food.

She’s wearing a dress. Again. One that falls in a gentle ruffle at mid-calf, dark blue sprinkled with little white flowers— daisies— cap sleeves, and sneakers.

Her hair is gathered in a loose, long braid down her back.

We’ve been here for a few hours. The market started at six, but we were here at three to set up.

Her nose is sun-kissed from the late afternoon sun and her cheeks flushed from the summer heat that won’t wane as the sun sets. If anything, the humidity grows.

“Are you hungry?” I ask, looking for ways to be helpful. As sponsors, we get free food tickets.

She watches the group of women walk away, giggling and whispering, a frown bracketing her eyebrows as she stares after them.

“Chloe?” I ask, holding my ticket up.

She blinks, startled. “Oh. Yes. Sure. Thanks.”

“Anything in particular you’d like to eat?” There’s an arepas booth, bibimbap, a vegan BBQ truck, as well as copious baked goods and small-batch creameries.

Chloe stares out across the field but with a disinterested, almost blank look. “Um…I don’t know. I…”

Another group stops at the booth, and the transition from this sudden, hollow-shelled version of Chloe to the perky, charming one is fast enough to cause whiplash.

“Hi there! I’m Chloe,” she says. “This is Dean, Core Cupid’s dating coach.”

She answers their questions about why a computer algorithm is better for matchmaking then meeting people “the old-fashioned way” (it isn’t; it’s just another option for people who might be interested), and explains how she ensures client safety while also enforcing the “no googling rule” (extensive background checks, a public first date policy, and a safety check-in app that’s free to download upon membership).

One of the people scans the QR code that will give Chloe permission to email them later before they walk away, but when she turns to face me again, there’s no celebration in her eyes.

Chloe’s status as a “popular girl” in high school always surprised me.

She’s gorgeous, which seemed to be one of very few requirements for popularity in my small sample size, but popularity as an unofficial position always seemed, at least to me, to require a commitment to social activity.

Something Chloe struggled with as a teen and, if the blank look on her face is any indication, still does.

“How about this?” I say instead. I wrap my hands around her arms and move her away from the booth, stepping into her place. “You go get food.” I press the food tickets into her hand. “Browse inside if you need to. Go find a quiet corner to sit in. Or go sit in your car.”

Chloe offered to pick me up, but I skateboarded over. I haven’t totally lost the skill, but if I’m going to be living at my parents’ for a while, I might as well try to get as good as I used to be; I was decent at best.

“No.” She shakes her head, pushing the tickets away. “No. No. I have to stay here. It’s my business. I can’t ask you to take over.”

“You’re not asking me.” I push the tickets back at her. “In fact, I am insisting. At some point in the last hour, you went from normal Chloe to…” I gesture at her. “Well, this.”

She frowns and I wince.

“It’s not meant to sound as rude as it did.”

This time she keeps the tickets, but her mouth still twists with protest.

“It’s okay if all this takes a lot out of you,” I say.

“It doesn’t,” she snaps.

I hold up my hands, letting her have this one.

It’s so strange to be with a person you knew once.

I am getting to know her again but also feel like I never stopped knowing her.

Chloe always hated to be told she couldn’t do something, like needing a break or admitting she could use more time is a mark on her character .

This immediate jump to anger and defensiveness is new to me, though.

“Sorry,” she mutters. “It’s just…” She shakes her head, and for a moment I think I catch the glint of tears in her eyes.

“Am I doing enough? Is this…” She gestures to the event happening around us.

“Enough to turn things around?” She bites her lower lip and avoids eye contact.

“This can’t fail,” she says, almost to herself. “ I can’t fail.”

“I’m not you,” I say. “I can’t talk about your business the way you can. But I can talk about dating and why coaching can be helpful. You brought me here to speak to this, so, you know…” I shrug. “Let me off leash.”

Chloe inhales a deep, chest-expanding breath.

The hair at her temples and around the base of her neck has started to frizz in the evening humidity, and I make fists to stop myself from smoothing the strands down.

I pluck at my own t-shirt, damp with sweat.

“Go inside,” I say. “Cool off. Grab some food, and if you can bring me back something, that’s great. I’m not picky.”

I don’t know what it’s like for her to be back here, but for obvious reasons, I’d prefer not to have to wander around my old high school again.

“And maybe after a bit of a break and something to eat, all of this won’t feel like so…much.”