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CARLISLE
Carlisle’s phone buzzed. Judging by the dark sky, someone had decided to text him at an obscene hour. He blinked blearily at the clock on his wall. The round frame was hard to see in the dark. His dad had gotten him the oak clock years before. If he was reading things right, the clock was just as irritated by the early hour which read five-forty-five in the morning. But that couldn’t be right. Nobody in their right mind would text someone before nine in the morning. The only person he knew who would do that was his boss.
He groaned, rolling over to grab the phone. Swiping the screen, he clicked on messages and turned away from the bright screen in the too-early darkness.
Have you been matched? Yep, Colin just couldn’t help texting him to see if he’d gone through with the program. She always elicited a little too much interest in his love life. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was interested in him. But Colin’s heart wasn’t in finding a replacement for what Carlisle considered an epic love.
He considered her message. Had he been matched? He had fallen asleep sometime after he finished the application for his profile. At one he'd stumbled to the bed. He hadn't taken time to check his emails. He’d just plugged in his phone, brushed his teeth, and crawled between the sheets.
Carlisle pressed the little red heart icon flashing across the screen.
You’ve been matched!
He'd been matched? Been matched to who? That fast. Carlisle suddenly realized that he didn’t want to be matched. He didn't want to be married. Not to a stranger. He suddenly wondered if maybe Shandie had been matched as well. They would be matched to people on opposite sides of the world and he'd probably never see her again. For some reason, this reality filled his chest with an aching loneliness. He couldn't quite figure out why, but he didn't like that he’d been matched one little bit.
Did he want to know? Did he want to see who he’d been matched to?
Not really.
But he checked anyway. Of course, he was curious. Curiosity was always stronger when it had to do with matters of the heart.
Clicking the icon again, Carlisle almost dropped his phone when Shandie's profile popped up under the matched heading. He turned and leaned back onto the pillow, blinking at the screen.
Shandie. How was he matched to her? Shandie had been so certain that they were such opposites. Did that mean she knew his first name was actually Jonathan? Would she search his background for anything unseemly? Wait, how had he been matched to Shandie? What could possibly... Before he could rethink it, he texted Colin back, still surprised and not sure how he should be feeling.
Yes, to Shandie.
He lowered the phone to his chest and stared up into the darkness in the general direction of the ceiling. He hadn't been matched to a stranger. He'd been matched in one night to someone he was attracted to and who he already knew he liked spending time with. Was the program broken? He hadn't heard from her and maybe she didn't know yet. If that was the case, then it was most likely a glitch in the program. Both applicants were supposed to be alerted at the same time.
If Shandie hadn’t been notified, then the computer was having problems.
If she had and she hadn’t texted him, she was either asleep or avoiding him. Both options were appealing to Carlisle.
The phone buzzed on his chest and he lifted it up to read Colin’s next text. Wow! That's great.
His fingers flew across the small keypad as he replied. You don't think it's weird?
Nope. I'd pay you to stay married and try the whole thing out, but that seems unethical :-)
Carlisle couldn’t help laughing at her reply. Of course she would say that. She had more invested in Carlisle’s love life or lack thereof than he did. Colin was in his corner. Colin was in Shandie's corner. It had been Colin’s idea for them to do the program and try the testing.
She knew matchmaking better than she knew anything.
Had the whole thing been set up? Would he put it past her?
Carlisle wouldn't put it past Colin, but he also wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. She was fast becoming the most renowned matchmaker he'd ever heard of and the fact that she had encouraged this specific match based on personal knowledge was more encouraging than if he’d been matched through a computer.
He needed to talk to Shandie.
Did she want to talk to him? They hadn't agreed on what time he would be showing up again. They hadn’t even talked about him returning. He watched his phone for the better part of the day, waiting for her to address their match or take the first step.
Maybe she was nervous. Maybe she felt like he did and was extremely uncomfortable with the fact that they'd been matched. Well, if she was feeling like he was, then he would do what he could to make her feel more comfortable. They needed to talk it over, anyway.
He stopped by the little Chinese place off the highway and grabbed his to-go order before heading to her house.
Standing on the doorstep, his hands shaky and with a lump in his throat, he had no idea what he was doing. There was no rain, no real wind, and the drop in temperature promised snow in the next week. Although, north Idaho’s weather was more temperamental and could decide to snow in twenty minutes or turn into a sun brandishing day and reach a high of eighty.
She answered the door, hesitation on her face – the kind of hesitation that screamed awkwardness.
So she knew. Of course, she knew. It was her program. If he had his email notification in the app set up for him, it would stand to reason she had some kind of notification set up for her as well. In one hand he held the to-go bag and in the other he patted his front pocket. “Hey, we’re matched.” Did he sound stupid? Too nonchalant? The last thing he wanted to do was insult her by being too informal with the match. But how else was he supposed to act?
Her discomfort melted from her expression and a slow smile spread across her lips. “I saw that. I'm surprised you still came.” She motioned for him to come in and sit down. He walked by and she inhaled. “That smells delicious. Chinese is one of my favorites. They’re super hard to get to deliver.” She moved in front of him as he paused off to the side.
Carlisle followed her into the dining room. It was the first time we'd been in the formal room together on an official capacity. He’d have to bring more Chinese to get the face-to-face interaction her intimate dining room was going to afford them.
He pulled open the bag and slid her to-go box across the table to her with a set of plastic utensils and a napkin. “I got you sweet and sour chicken because it's the best they have there.” He sat down and pulled out a set of disposable chopsticks.
She tapped the table, drawing his gaze. “Can I have a set of those?”
He hadn't even considered she would want sticks. Few people did anymore. He passed the extra set across to her and cracked his own pair apart. He had to address the topic he just didn’t want to face. “What do you think? Was our match a mistake? Was this part of the testing? We’re really not supposed to be matched, right?”
Shandie jerked back, blinking at him as if she was offended. “First of all, you don’t have to stay matched to me. I don’t care. Either way, though, my program doesn't make mistakes. So...” She jerked her finger between the two of them. “We're a good match. No matter what you think, if Colin’s parameters are worth anything, my program matched us because we are a match. It's that simple.”
Carlisle narrowed his eyes. “How can we be a match? I'm not sure that...” He let his words trail away. He scooped up a bite of chow mein and shook his head. It wasn't a joke. The matching had not been a joke for him. Did he allow his excitement to grow or was she even interested?
Her shoulders sagged and she pushed her food around the bottom of the box. She avoided his gaze while pushing a chunk of chicken in figure-8s through her rice. “I'm not sure either. The fact is, we’re matched. Did you fill out the quiz one-hundred-percent accurately?”
Refusing to be offended at her suggestion that he would cheat on the questionnaire, Carlisle jerked his head up and down as he chewed mechanically. “Yep, every single one of them.”
She tilted her head and half-shrugged. “If you did it right, and I did the same, and we were matched... The compatibility rate was high enough to match us. My program matched us. It's not a joke. I'm taking this very seriously. What do you want to do? Do you just want to leave it?”
Carlisle glanced up, meeting the challenge in her gaze. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do. He'd been more than relieved when he'd found out he’d been matched to her, and all ideas or thoughts of quitting had vanished from his mind. That didn't mean he wasn't nervous that the program had been wrong. It seemed too coincidental that they had been matched when they worked together on the program. What if they’d answered the questions on a subconscious level with their answers leaning toward each other?
Did he just want to leave it? Not pursue it? What if she didn’t? “I'm not sure.” He pinched a morsel of sweet-and-sour ribs. They fell into an awkward silence laced with a twinge of comfort. He would rather sit there in discomfort than anywhere else. “If we tried being matched, like truly matched? I would want to try it. Like honestly give it a shot. What do you think?” He lifted his gaze to hers and watched her as she chewed thoughtfully.
She twisted her lips to the side and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “If we did it, Colin could use our story for a great testimony for the company.”
Carlisle put his chopsticks on the table. He sat back, hands flat on the tops of his thighs. “I don't want to get married for a marketing plan. I can’t do that.”
She scoffed, chewing a large mouthful of rice and sauce. She wiped at her mouth and swallowed. Pointing her chopsticks his direction, she arched an eyebrow. “Then why get married?”
Crossing his arms, Carlisle considered her. “I can’t think of a lot of reasons to get married, a marketing plan isn’t one of them. Ignoring the obvious answer of love, let’s look at what you said. You said you’d probably get married, if the program matched you. Well, the program matched you. To me.” It was his turn to push his food around the plate. “I'm a little insulted that you think I wouldn’t answer honestly. I want to find someone who isn’t judgmental and you want to be matched to someone who understands your situation.”
“Yeah, but...” She shook her head, and pressed her lips together. “I didn’t mean you wouldn’t be honest, I just thought that maybe you wouldn’t want to have your profile really matched so maybe you had filled it out and tried to get matched to me.” She sighed. “Like maybe you were hoping we wouldn’t be matched.”
He understood where she was coming from, but that didn’t mean he agreed with her. “We have an advantage over these other couples. We know each other. At least we’re not going into this blind. We can always take an out after six months with no hard feelings. We can sort it out together. If we did this? If we really tried it, I could see us at least learning something.”
Shandie lifted her gaze to his and they eyed each other over their food. As if already linked, they nodded together. Without dropping their gazes, they pulled out their phones. For a split second, they glanced at their phones and accepted the match.
They grinned as their phones dinged with the acceptance emails.
Things were going to change, and Carlisle hoped for the better.
