Chapter One – Chloe

 

Not all Mondays are made equal.

Some start with you spilling your coffee or starting your period.

Others start with unsatisfying sexual dreams about your best friend’s brother.

If I got another dildo brochure through my door, I was going to scream.

Sure, this was New Orleans, and there were sex shops everywhere, but I didn’t need them through my door, either. Not to mention that walking into a sex shop wasn’t my thing.

I much preferred the privacy of online.

There were two reasons for why I was getting these brochures. Either the mail person was so useless they couldn’t tell the difference between mine and Peyton’s offices, or I was being punked.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Dom was behind it. It was the kind of shit he’d pull just to piss me off.

I rolled up the brochure and, barefoot, crossed my office and the hall to Peyton’s. “Hey,” I said, opening the door. “This came in the mail and I—”

I stopped dead at the sight of the little blonde girl on the sofa. Almost as quickly as I registered Briony’s presence, I whipped the brochure behind my back, so she couldn’t see it.

No matter. She was engrossed in a video on a tablet with a bright pink case. She didn’t even know I was here.

“What’s up?” Peyton asked, rolling her chair to the side so she could see me around her huge PC screen.

I glanced at Briony and pointed, raising an eyebrow in question.

She sighed. “Elliott had to go fix something for an old lady in Baton Rouge, so I said I’d bring her to work with me until his mom is done at the spa.”

“Baton Rouge? Don’t they have builders? That’s a good hour and a half away.”

She held out her hands. “Apparently, he did work for her before she moved from New Orleans to be closer to her daughter. She’s set in her ways.”

“No kidding.” I glanced again at Briony. “I can’t compute you looking after a child.”

“I lived with Dom for twenty-two years, Chlo. I’m sure I used to babysit him, not the other way around.”

There, she had a point.

“True story,” I said.

“What came in the mail?” she asked. “Is it behind your back?”

“Yes, but it’s not a discussion we should have around her,” I said, nodding my head toward Briony.

Peyton held up a finger and slid her chair to the other side. “Hey, Bri?”

Nothing.

“Briony,” she repeated a little more firmly.

She looked up and over at her. “Yeah, Peydon?”

“Sweetie, can you put your headphones on for a few minutes, please? I need to talk grown-up stuff with Chloe.”

“Okay, sured.” Briony picked up the lead of headphones I hadn’t noticed until now. Sticking out her tongue, she put the lead into the tablet with great precision, then put the headphones on her head. After a moment of adjustment, she gave Peyton a thumb up.

Peyton responded with the same, including a cheesy smile, and slid back over toward me. “Okay, shoot.”

I tossed the brochure on her desk. “Is this yours?”

She picked it up. Amusement slowly curved her lips, and when she looked up at me, her eyes sparkled. “No. Why do you have it?”

“Ugh.” I dropped into the chair on the other side of her desk. “They’ve been getting delivered to me for the last few months. I didn’t sign up for them.”

She snorted, only just controlling her laughter. “Sorry, Chlo. Maybe a wrong address?”

I shook my head, taking the brochure and rolling it up. “Nope. They have my name on, and the office address.”

“Maybe you signed up for something, and it was one of those places who share addresses.” She tapped a finger against her lips. “You know, like when you agree to marketing emails from one website, then all of a sudden, your inbox is like fucking eBay threw up in it.”

I glanced at Briony again, but she didn’t even move.

“She can’t hear,” Peyton said. “The volume of those headphones would be audible to a deaf person. Seriously.”

I paused before I replied. In the slight moment of silence, I heard the low buzz of music from Briony’s direction. “Kids. They’re weird.”

“You would know. You share an office with one.” She grinned. “Did he lose his key yet?”

“I’m not going to answer that because I’m afraid to jinx it.” I folded my arms over my chest, still holding the brochure. “It’s been three weeks, and I think that might be a miracle.”

Three weeks after the big blow-out fight at Peyton’s house, I’d relented and given Dom his key back.

It was amazing. He could find Where’s Wally in minutes, but his key? No. He couldn’t find that if it was in front of his face, and if he did find it, he tormented me by hiding the damn thing in various places around the office.

Tylenol bottle. A drawer. A vase. Down the sofa.

All places I could and did find them. We’d basically existed in a state of neither of us admitting that we knew the other was bullshitting for a good few weeks now.

“He’ll lose it now you asked,” I muttered as an afterthought.

She rolled her eyes. “He’d lose it anyway.”

“True.”

“So, did you ask him yet?”

I fiddled with the hem of my shirt. “No. How am I supposed to ask him to set me up with someone when I don’t want to be set up?”

“Chloe.” She leaned forward, hands on the desk, palms up. “You’re done, Chlo. You’ve literally been in love with him for most of your life, and aside from that fight a couple of weeks ago, never even been close to telling him. Even then, you said you “had” a crush on him.”

I squirmed in my seat. “I’m not in love with him.”

“Chloe! For the love of God!”

“Fine.” I threw out my arms. “I’ll admit it, but I need to get over him, Peyt. I just don’t think having him set me up with someone is the right way to do it.”

“Of course, it is,” she replied. “Y’all are experts are matching people. Have him match you with the best possible person, and boom. You’ll get over the shithead in no time.”

I stared at her flatly. “If it were that easy, don’t you think I’d be over him by now?”

“No. I think you’re attached to the idea that he’ll eventually come around. Get real, Chlo. It’s not going to happen. If it would, it would have happened by now.”

“Like you and Elliott?”

“Totally different situation and you know it. Dom is not good enough for you.” She sat back, arms folded across her chest. “He’s never shown you any sign that he’s interested in you. The best thing you can do is grow a pair to ask him to find you a date.”

“Whatever,” I muttered. “I have work to do. Behave yourself.”

Peyton burst out laughing as I turned and walked out of her office. All I wanted to know was who was sending me dildo brochures and how I could stop it.

I didn’t want her dating advice. The woman had never dated until she reconnected with Elliott. Her idea of “dating” had been having sex with one person more than three times until Dom challenged her to do it without falling in love.

Not gonna lie, I was glad he refused to take her money or Mellie and I would have owed her a tidy two-hundred-and-fifty dollars each, and I was saving for shoes.

Shoes trumped friendship responsibility. Besides, I never made her fall in love.

I slid back in behind my desk, throwing the brochure in the trash. It rattled against the sides of the wire metal can before settling, half fallen over, against the wall.

I made a “psh” sound, waved my hand at it, and turned back to my desk.

How was I supposed to match people when my own life was a hot mess? I mean, holy shit. I’d spent five years matching other people, while I’d been in love with my co-worker and brother’s best friend the entire time.

I could count on one hand the number of people I’d dated. I didn’t even need one hand to count who I’d slept with.

Who the hell was I to match people to date?

What was I doing?

God, Peyton was right. I needed to move on. I needed to put an end to my feelings, once and for all. Me and Dom were never going to happen. That was evident when he hadn’t mentioned my slip of the tongue when I told him that having a crush on him was the biggest mistake I’d ever made.

Seriously. He’d never mentioned it. Not even eluded to it.

I had to accept it. I was twenty-seven. It was time for me to stop holding onto a girlish dream and look to the future.

Not only was it pathetic, but I could literally hear my ovaries counting down. They tick-tocked at me every damn month, reminding me with the inevitably painful waterfall of a period that made me want to slice out my uterus with several forks.

Waiting for something that would never happen was no longer an option.

But how did you get over someone you’d been in love with for years? Was dating really the answer? It wasn’t as if I could just cut Dom out of my life.

Hell, I didn’t even know why I was in love with the fool. He was useless and prone to losing just about everything. He was a total pain in my ass who made me ridiculously mad at least three times a week.

The heart wanted what the heart wanted.

My heart wanted a goddamn idiot.

I blew out a long breath and logged into the server for the website. We each had our specialties, and similar to Peyton, my speciality was matching strong women with guys who could handle them.

It was kind of like finding the person in your life who’d remove the spider from your bathtub.

It was serious business, and you needed to choose wisely. Pussies weren’t allowed.

Except, in my business, they were. As long as they were attached to a woman.

I opened the newest email in my inbox. Sometimes, the tailor-made dating style Stupid Cupid offered was intense and exhausting, and I knew I was looking at one of those situations.

She was forty-two. Single. An attorney. She was only available at specific times, and because she was a high-flier, any prospective boyfriend had to accept that cancellations were a part of her life.

I wanted to nap just thinking about it.

Seriously. The work that would go into her was exhausting, but it’d be worth it when I nailed it.

Not if.

When.

I didn’t screw up my matches. Sure, they didn’t always work out, but that was after a few months when clients either grew apart or realized they weren’t compatible.

That was life. The natural order of things.

I should know.

I tapped my fingers against the desk as I stared at my screen. I wanted to tell this woman no, but, how could I? She needed help. It was my job.

I had no choice.

I replied to her with an extensive survey designed to help me match her with her perfect guy. Every word felt like bullshit.

Did perfect exist?

Of course, wine and wearing no pants were right up there with perfect.

If only this were as simple as that.

But guys? Were soulmates a thing? Was there genuinely somebody out there for everybody? And if there was, how did you find them?

Was it a coincidence? Did the universe plan it all? Or were some of us destined never to find our other half?

Ugh. This was too much soul-searching before lunchtime. I needed at least another two cups of coffee and half my body weight in carbs before I tackled the mysteries of the universe.

Maybe even then it’d be questionable.

I blew out a breath and walked into the small kitchen just off the side of Dom’s office. A glance at the clock told me he was late, something I wasn’t surprised about, even though he lived up-freaking-stairs.

I switched on the coffee machine and leaned against the small counter. The kitchenette was only big enough for a coffee machine, a microwave oven, a sink, and a small mini-fridge, but it was perfect to keep me from killing people on a semi-regular basis.

Why had I gone into a business that required me to be nice to people?

Oh, that’s right. I’d been desperate for a job and unable to get one.

Desperation makes you do stupid things. Like open a dating website with the guy you’ve been in love with almost your entire life.

I should have had coffee before I made that choice.

Or a therapist.

Good lord. Why had nobody stopped me doing this? And why was I now questioning it?

Because I had to move on? Because I knew there was no chance that Dom would ever see me as anything other than his sister’s best friend?

Yes. Because this was awkward.

I mean, hell. I still had the lingering frustration of a dirty dream from last night. My alarm had blared at me like a freaking siren before I’d been able to, well, finish the dream. And Dom had been the person in the dream doing all kinds of deliciously dirty things to me.

Shit, I had a problem. A big, big problem.

How could I get over him if I was dreaming about him?

How the hell was I supposed to ask him to find me a date?

And what the fuck did I do if he said yes?