Dylan

The billionaire is having a ball.

Seattle was buzzing with the news. Everyone wanted an invitation—almost everyone, anyway. The Pair Us social media pages lit up with the news. The ladies were excited and busily sharing their costume Pinterest boards with each other. The announcement of the ball nearly crashed the Pair Us website within minutes. The guys and I had to ride to the rescue. According to Lottie, women were applying to be members in record numbers in hopes of getting an invitation. Ashley and the entire staff were working overtime to screen them. There was more demand than space available. Ashley was going to have to hold a lottery.

The ball was pure PR genius. Not surprising, since it was Lazer's brainchild. More women in the database member dating pool meant more male clients signing up. Follow the women, the dating equivalent of follow the money.

Not everyone was thrilled, which brought me full circle. Attendance was mandatory for Cam and me. We were the only two of our group who were still single, and that stuck in Ashley and Lazer's craw. Lazer was type-A all the way. He wasn't going to be happy until all of us were happily settled with the woman of our dreams and he could stop reaching into his wallet to pay our matchmaker. It didn't matter that our matchmaker was his fiancée.

Austin and Jeremy would have to make an appearance, too. But they had dates in the form of a wife or fiancée.

Cam and I were grousing about this damned ball over a beer at my place. It was our usual video-gaming night. We had our game controllers in hand and the TV on in front of us. No gaming was going on, other than the usual one-upmanship that was a trademark of our friendship.

I slumped on one end of the sofa.

Cam was on the other. "This ball is a damned distraction we don't need. Ashley is riding my ass about it. She doesn't understand why we're so distracted and busy with the new venture. And she wants me to take a dance refresher course."

I laughed at him. "Funny. She hasn't mentioned a refresher course to me."

The sale of our dating app had made Cam, Jeremy, Austin, and me multi-multimillionaires. If we managed our money properly, we'd never have to work again. But living the life of leisure didn't suit us. We were gamers in all areas of life. We wrote code and took risks because we were problem solvers and it was fun. Sitting around? Boring.

It was hard to describe to someone how addictive making the first million and having that first success was. There was always another goal to hit. Lazer was still the only billionaire among us. That was the next goal—get that zero in the net worth, earn that third comma.

Come up with a better idea for a product. Write better code. Engage in better marketing. The next challenge was always more exciting. Right now, we were hot on the trail of the next big thing. Who had time to stop in the middle? You pause, you lose. Great ideas seem to strike people who are looking for them simultaneously. If we took too long, some other nerd would hit the market with our product.

None of that made any difference to Ashley. Finding us our soul mate was her addiction, her next challenge. I understood where she was coming from, but that didn't make it any less inconvenient.

Cam finished his beer. "What are you wearing to the ball?"

I got up, went to the fridge, and tossed him another. "What are we? Women? Discussing what we're wearing." I shook my head.

"Shut up and answer the question, asshole." He opened his beer.

"What do you think?" I shook my head. "I'm going as a space cowboy."

"There's a surprise," Cam said.

I ignored his sarcasm. "You?"

"As a commando."

I rolled my eyes. "You're original, too."

He laughed. "Which costume? You have about a hundred. Or am I underestimating?"

I laughed. I had quite a few, but a hundred was an exaggeration. "Half of them are too big now."

Cam lifted his beer in tribute to me. "To looking good."

"I'm going to wear black," I said, mentally running through my options. "Black is badass. The ladies like badass. Black leather and black carbon pads and shin guards. I'll accent with my brown leather cross-body holster and blade sheath."

Cam rolled his eyes. "Space helmet or cowboy hat? You'll need a mask with the hat—Ashley's rule. Everyone wears a mask."

Masks made no difference to my decision. I could handle masks. "This ball is on earth, a planet with breathable atmosphere—hat, definitely. It's more comfortable."

"Duster?"

"Definitely."

"You've picked out all your weaponry already?"

"I'm mulling over my options." I'd been playing space cowboys since we first started cosplaying, since my first Halloween with the guys. Now that I had real money, I'd been able to buy, and even have custom-made, all the fake weaponry I wanted. I had an arsenal.

Cam got to his feet. "Let's take a look at what you've got and see what we can put together." He followed me to the guestroom where I stored all my costumery.

We were soon deep into a discussion of the merits of different pieces of fake weaponry and cowboy accessories. There were as many styles of space cowboys as there were people who dressed like them—all the way from retro and Old West with only a laser gun to separate them from regular cowboys, to high-tech, high-gadget cowboy warriors, with the nod to being a cowboy in the hat and the boots. Over the years, I'd played them all. This time I was leaning toward high tech.

Soon my guestroom was strewn with cowboy equipment and garb. Cam had a good eye for weaponry and costumes, but his vision differed from mine. He insisted on a more traditional cowboy look.

"Lazer and Ashley are up to something with this ball," Cam said out of the blue.

I agreed with him. I'd been thinking the same thing since the announcement. "Yeah. I wouldn't put it past Lazer to be pulling a fast one on us."

Cam nodded. "Yep. He has something up his sleeve. Otherwise, why require us to go?"

I nodded.

"My guess—this costume ball will be salted with matches for you and me."

"Sounds arrogant, but the same thought has crossed my mind." I grinned. "MWFU—more women for us."

"Nice acronym." He held a hat out to me. "Try this one."

I dutifully set it on my head.

He studied me, frowned, and shook his head. "No." He took it from me and handed me another. "You ever hear back from Ashley about the girl you knew from school? What was her name? Laura?"

I laughed. "Ashley had to eat crow and admit that matching up two people who don't like each other is a bad idea."

Not liking each other wasn't exactly right, but it was close enough to explain it to Cam. Intricacies of emotion were often lost on him.

Cam made a growl deep in his throat. "You're still gullible as hell, Dylan. You know she doesn't give up that easily. This ball is a trap, the modern-day version of the box canyon. I'd expect this costume party to be stocked with big, tall women, one of them Laura. Be careful. If I were you, I'd go only for the short chicks."

I eyed him. "Short chicks make me nervous. They're too dainty for my tastes. Thinking of myself with one is like imagining a bear mating with a Chihuahua."

He laughed.

"You think Lazer is throwing this party, spending all this money, just so Ashley can throw a girl from high school at me?"

Cam raised an eyebrow, giving me a look that said, Duh, yeah.

I grinned. "You're right. That's exactly like Lazer." I put on another hat and looked at myself in the mirror. "Let them try."

"Famous last words, cowboy." Cam squinted and nodded as he looked at me in my hat. "I like that one. It looks good on you and tames that mass of wild hair. Go with it."

I turned my head sideways and looked in the mirror again. "Yeah. Good eye. You're right." I took the hat off. "Don't worry about me. I can look out for myself. What about you? Has Ashley been throwing anyone at you lately that you've been avoiding?"

---

Laura

A masquerade ball.

With ballroom dancing and lessons included, not to mention dinner and drinks. Everyone wanted an invitation.

The ball idea was genius and had piqued my desire to be invited from the moment of the announcement. Cinderella was my favorite fairytale, after all. I'd spent many hours in my youth reading Mom's old Regency romances. The best ones featured a handsome duke and a young woman looking for her dashing duke at a ball, preferably a masquerade ball. I wasn't brilliant with costumes, but Stephanie, one of my best friends, was. She was a buyer for Flashionista. She knew her stuff and was good with needle and thread.

Not like I had much chance of getting one of the coveted invitations. They were holding a lottery for them. As everyone knows, banking on winning the lottery is a fool's game, not a life plan. Even winning a lottery for a ball falls into that category. I threw my name in the lottery pool anyway, because as they say, hope springs eternal, even for math nerds who know the odds. And in my case, more than the odds were stacked against me.

Dylan had never texted, which was both a relief and disappointing at the same time. But then again, I hadn't exactly given Ashley my full approval. My love life was at a dead standstill. I'd take anything to revive it—even a dose of humble pie. And deep down, I wanted to explain everything to him. After all this time, I still felt I owed him an explanation and an apology.

Apparently my reservations about Dylan had dissuaded Ashley from pursuing a match between us. Probably didn't want to ruin her matching success average. She hadn't contacted me again with any other interested parties, either. All of those factors contributed to the long odds of me scoring an invitation.

I may be naïve, but I'm not so dumb as to think the lottery wouldn't be rigged to stack the ball with winning matches for Pair Us clients. And why not? It was smart business. Certainly, the screening process could be used to take out "undesirables," meaning anyone who didn't have the possibility of matching one of their clients.

In the days since talking with Ashley, I'd gone over our conversation in my mind and with my friends. Had I made the right choice? The jury was still out, or maybe deadlocked and hung was a better description. All of them but Steph, however, were working with incomplete information about the complicated relationship I'd had with Dylan.

So maybe I shouldn't have tossed aside a chance with him so cavalierly. Maybe I should have "womaned up" and taken the chance to clear the air.

My mind returned to high school and what everyone was up to. Even before his current success, Dylan and I were two of the three most successful in our class, along with one guy who'd inherited his dad's ranch.

The guy I'd gone to prom with? I hated even thinking about him. There should have been some satisfaction in knowing he was a dud, living in a trailer and going nowhere. He'd never become the rodeo star people expected.

I tried not to think about missed chances and the ball. I pushed them as far away from my thoughts as my mind would let me.

And then—out of the blue—a miracle occurred. I was having lunch with Stephanie when an invitation popped into my inbox, kindly asking the favor of my response within twenty-four hours. The invitation was classy, elegant, and very pretty. We were both stunned as we stared at it, half expecting it to disappear.

"Wow." Steph's eyes went wide. She fidgeted like she did when she was excited. "You must be in the first wave. I haven't heard a peep about anyone else getting one yet. And you know that as soon as they started going out social media would light up." She held her hand out for my phone so she could get a better look. "Interesting invitation. I've never seen one before with fine print and quid pro quos."

"Fine print?"

She nodded. "It's like a lawyer wrote it." She began reading, "Part of the fun of a masquerade is the surprise, the titillation—"

"Titillation—oooooh. Is that an appropriate word for a matchmaking company to use?"

Steph looked heavenward and continued, "Shut up and listen. This is important. Part of the fun of a masquerade is the surprise, the titillation of meeting a seductive stranger who could be your one true love. In light of this, every attendee will be required to wear a mask at all times. No cheating.

"Everyone who's invited to this ball will have at least one match in the crowd, probably many more than one. Your mission, should you choose to accept our invitation, is to find that match. If you should need a little help, our matchmakers will be on hand to give you a gentle nudge in the right direction. To help our matchmakers identify people, each attendee will be required to register their costume choice before the ball. Don't worry—your costume will be kept in strict confidence. As always with Pair Us, because your safety and security are important to us, all invitees have been carefully screened.

"We're confident the ball will not just be great fun, but the opportunity of a lifetime to find your soul mate. To add to the fun and mystery, even the guest list is being kept secret. All guests are asked not to reveal online or elsewhere that they've been invited, or to reveal to anyone outside of the Pair Us staff whether you'll be attending or not and what costume you'll be wearing. Anyone who posts about receiving an invitation, whether or not they will attend, or what costume they will be wearing before the event will have their invitation rescinded and revoked immediately.

"We're excited about the ball and hope to see you there. Let the mystery of love begin…"

Steph held her finger over my phone as if she was about to press a button. "Do you want the pleasure of accepting, or shall I do it for you? Because there's no way you're hesitating or not accepting. You're going to this thing and I'm going to make your costume."

Steph knew me well. Sometimes I overthought things. This wasn't one of those times. I grabbed the phone and accepted the invitation, grinning wildly. "Happy?"

"Ecstatic. And so are you, judging by the look on your face."

"I never thought I'd win," I said. "I'm not that lucky."

"You are too lucky," she said. "Your problem isn't luck. Your problem is skepticism. You don't enter drawings because you don't see the point when the odds are against you, and you hate giving out your email address and personal info. You don't have enough statistical data to say you're unlucky." She was throwing my own words back at me. "But this pretty much proves that you are…lucky. And soon to get luckier." She waggled her eyebrows comically.

I shrugged and looked at my phone again, smiling at the "thank you for your response" screen. "This is interesting—the guest responses are all hidden."

"That makes sense, doesn't it? If they're trying to keep the guest list secret."

I nodded. She was right. I was too ditzy with happiness to think straight. "Do you think this is a big experiment for Pair Us?"

"You think too much like an engineer. What kind of experiment?"

"Whether two people can find their match in a crowd. Whether two matches will hit it off better when the pressure of their identity is off."

Steph pursed her lips, finally shaking her head. "Maybe. I think it's more likely it's just a great singles mixer to augment their services and a fabulous PR move. And they're offering those nudges, remember?"

I nodded. "At least it's something to occupy me and look forward to."

"Yeah, like the marriage market from those old romances you're always reading. This is your season." She knew my penchant for Regency romances.

I laughed. "And I'm the old spinster who's facing her last chance at love? And hoping for some old aristocrat who needs a mother for his children."

"You aren't old."

"Not by today's standards. But for then, I'm ancient."

"Let's be happy we live in today's world, then." Steph was good at making up silly lyrics to existing melodies. She began softly, and teasingly, singing the billionaire is having a ball. And Laura is going to find her true love.

"You're full of it." I stared at my phone again. "I don't expect to meet Prince Charming at this thing. The odds of that are long, maybe even exponentially set against me."

Steph stopped singing, suddenly frowning, deep in thought.

"What?"

"Hmmmm…I don't know," she said. "I was just thinking—maybe you aren't lucky."

"You just said I was." I shook my head at her fickleness. "Backtracking so soon? Changed your mind—I shouldn't go to this ball?"

"Did I say that? You're going and that's final. No doubt there." She raised her brow, giving me an expectant look, like I should be catching on by now. "What if you aren't lucky—what if you were selected? Dylan is one of the eligible bachelors Pair Us is touting as a perk of this thing. Meet and marry a hot multimillionaire. Has your matchmaker given up so easily?"

I laughed. "You're full of it. Dylan will stay far away from me, believe me. He's already proven he's leery of me. And there's no way anyone would go to these lengths, and this expense, to get us together. That's crazy."

"No one's saying they've done it all just for you. But if it's a perk of the plan…" Steph gave me her smug, knowing look. "Has Dylan given up?"

I rolled my eyes at her ridiculous question. She knew our past history, the full story, every embarrassing and emotional detail. "He hasn't gotten in touch, and that's probably wise. Why revisit that particularly painful time?"

"Maybe he's curious," she said. "Maybe he's still waiting to hear why you apparently shunned him. You should still tell him why and what really happened."

"He won't be hard to avoid. I'll just stay away from tall guys dressed as cowboys."

Steph frowned. "Laura—"

"Don't."

She sighed and looked sympathetic. "You like tall men. You liked Dylan."

I shrugged. "I don't have to like cowboys. Cowboys were the problem."

"Don't sabotage yourself." She wagged her finger at me. She knew how much I hated when she did that.

I grabbed her finger and grinned. "I'm not worried. How many tall guys will dress as cowboys?"

She leaned toward me. "How do you know he'll be dressed as a cowboy?"

"Maybe because that's what he was every Halloween," I said. "I think it was a compensation thing, or maybe wish fulfillment. Dylan was always way too large and stocky to be a cowboy."

"Well, if you want to know what I think…" she said.

"Do I?"

"You should put the past behind you and go after any hot guy who catches your fancy—cowboy or Dylan or not. There are worse things in the dating world than getting a second chance with a guy you blew it with when you were young." Her eyes narrowed as she looked me over. "We are going to make you so hot that no one will be able to resist you."

"Stop it," I said. "Wipe that look off your face. I'm not in college anymore. I'm not going as slutty anything."

Yeah, in college, we were slutty everything—from slutty witch to slutty kitten and even slutty crayon.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh ye of little faith. I've come a long way, baby, with my costume design skills since then. And you have a much larger budget for supplies."

"True," I said.

"This should be a spare-no-expense outfit." She leaned toward me. "I have connections now, too. I can get some pretty hot clothes and accessories at one of our Flashionista sample sales for almost nothing. And we're in luck—Flash is having one this Friday. I was going to ask you if you want to come."

She was my costume jewelry, handbag, clothing, and shoe connection. We regularly hit the sample sales together. What we couldn't find at a sample sale, I bought off Flashionista's website. They were a flash-sale fashion site with wonderfully steep discounts on up-and-coming boutique and designer clothing. Steph had an eye for what was trending and would become popular. She was always game for helping me put together a fashionable outfit. I was one of the best dressed engineers around. And very affordably so, thanks to Flashionista.

"What do you want to be?" Steph said, eyeing me as if she was already taking my measurements and plotting a costume in her mind.

"Guess."

"No." She shook her head.

I raised an eyebrow and gave her my optimistic look.

"Only if you give me free rein."