Wyatt was sitting at the computer trying to figure out the LK Brides questionnaire. Blair had told him it would be easy, but he’d already been at it for over an hour. He was agonizing over every question. There were so many options, he couldn’t figure out which one was the right choice.

Once he had filled this out, he would be on his way to find his mate. But if he lied or got the questions wrong, it would all be messed up. Everyone had kept telling him how great the matches were. LK never got it wrong. But if you filled out the questionnaire wrong, you might get matched with the wrong mate.

There was no one for him to ask. Blair was supposed to be there, but she was late. He had started the questionnaire by himself, and now he was panicking.

This wasn’t like him. Wy didn’t worry about tests. If he made mistakes, it didn’t really matter. But this was too important. Everyone he knew had a match but him, and he hated being the last of his friends to find someone. There were no signs of him finding anyone anytime soon, either. He’d met a great girl at the Christmas Crew interview, but she wasn’t interested in him like that. No woman was. That was what had spurred him to do this.

Dottie wasn’t interested in him, like most girls. He didn’t know what it was about him, but he always got it wrong. He always managed to turn the good ones off. That was why this was so important.

He heard the front door of the trailer open and turned to see Blair coming in. “Thank God you’re here. I’m messing this whole thing up. I knew I shouldn’t have started it on my own.”

She shrugged off her coat. “There’s no way you can get it wrong. Just answer the questions honestly.”

Blair blew on her hands to warm them as she came over. Wy stood up so she could sit and took her hands in his own to help warm her up. “You can turn the heat up if you want. I’ve been shifted most of the time, so I didn’t think it was cold in here.”

“It’s fine. The rest of me is blazing hot. I’ve had the heat set as low as I could. Our house is so cold, Nate has to wear his coat and gloves inside.”

“Shifting wouldn’t help him.”

“Nope. His tiger hates it.” She eased into the computer chair. “How far have you gotten?”

“I’m on question seven.”

Blair’s eyes opened wide. “Wy! This is going to take you all night. This shouldn’t take longer than an hour, buddy.”

“I know,” he said morosely. “I’m too nervous. I can’t figure out what answer is the right one.”

“Oh, Wyatt. There are no right answers.” Blair shook her head. “I’m going to read the questions out loud, and you’re going to answer them. This way, you won’t have to be nervous about it. Go sit on the couch.”

Wyatt got up reluctantly and went to the couch. Over the next hour, Blair read him all the questions and helped him answer them. Finally, an hour and a half later, they were done.

She stretched loudly. “See, that wasn’t so bad.”

“Until I get some kind of weird match.”

“You can’t get a weird match,” Blair laughed. “Actually, that wouldn’t be so bad. You’re pretty weird. The stranger the girl seems, the better.”

“Want something to eat?” Wyatt asked hopefully.

“Can’t. We’re meeting Nate’s mom for dinner. Wish me luck.”

He crossed his fingers and held them up to her solemnly. “Good luck.”

“And good luck to you, too. I’m sure you’ll get a match soon.”

Blair heaved a deep sigh as she left. She was having a tough time with Nate’s family. Nate’s mom wanted to be in the delivery room for the baby’s birth, but Blair didn’t want her there. It seemed like a silly thing to fight over. They should all do whatever Blair wanted. She was the one who’d be pushing the baby out.

He didn’t understand family drama like that. He had made sure to ask LK for a match who wasn’t into silly fights, either. It was one of the things he would never have looked for, but it was a big compatibility factor.

The questionnaire had asked about so many different things that he was feeling confident they would find him someone perfect. There were so many things he hadn’t even thought about, like, Are you a morning person or an evening person? And What’s your favorite pizza topping?

He had no idea how some of those things were related to having a successful relationship, but he trusted that they were important.

Wyatt made himself a turkey sandwich and took a can of pop from the fridge. He ate quickly, standing up in the kitchen, and then shifted back to his gorilla form. It was so much nicer being in the house like this. Not only could he save money on heat, it was just easier to think when he was a gorilla. There were none of the worries he had as a human, and he didn’t feel so lonely.

Before he went to bed, he checked his emails. He was excited to see an email from Tim saying that Dottie had gotten the job. He had wanted something more, like reindeer wrangler or being one of Santa’s personal helpers, when he’d first heard about the Winter Wonderland job. But now he was very happy that he was going to be an elf in the toy shop.

He also had an email from LK Brides. He expected it to be a confirmation email, but he was very surprised to see that it was in fact news that he’d been matched.

Wyatt texted Blair right away. She texted back lots of emojis and said she was excited for him to begin his journey.

Wyatt was excited too, but it was all going very fast. He had heard of people waiting years to get a good match. He couldn’t believe he’d found one in just a few hours. He replied, saying that he wanted to start communicating. It didn’t take long before the woman opened a message chain with him.

Excited and nervous, Wyatt clicked on the private message link. His gorilla was so nervous, it didn’t even try to take control. If his animal was nervous, Wy wasn’t sure what to think about the process. His fears were quickly assuaged when he saw his match’s profile.

He almost fell out of his chair, he stood up so fast. He raked a hand through his thick hair and laughed nervously. This was impossible.

His match was Dottie, the woman he had met earlier that very day. He had been so sure she wasn’t interested in him. Nothing about her body language had given him any hint that she was attracted to him.

If she hadn’t been interested before, he wasn’t so sure she’d want to date him. He couldn’t email her again that night. He might as well wait to talk to her in the morning.

He had to wait for Blair to tell him what to say. He would ask her what she thought before he did anything.

He got on social media and made an update to his status. “Best day ever!”

Wyatt could barely sleep that night. Their training started the next day, and it was going to be a jam-packed day. There wasn’t much time to prepare before the Winter Wonderland opened. Now, he was going to have to worry about asking Dottie out during the whole day, too. There was no way he would be able to talk to Blair before he saw Dottie again.

He thought about skipping the first day, but he couldn’t do that. He was too excited about the job. He was going to try to play it cool with Dottie all day. She probably wouldn’t even want to talk to him again.

 “Fancy seeing you here!” Dottie walked up from behind him as he was going into the building. “I can’t believe you got hired too.”

“Yeah, I’m an elf too. We’re both going to be in the workshop.”

She squealed and then jumped up to hug him. Wyatt caught her in his arms easily. She was so tiny. He loved feeling her in his arms. He could hold her all day and night, but he put her down.

“That’s so great,” she said when he’d put her down. “We’re going to have so much fun. But it is a little funny. You’re going to be the biggest elf!”

“I know. Maybe I can get a cool nickname, like Tiny.”

Dottie giggled. “I’m so glad we’re going to see each other every day.”

The way she looked at him made his heart flip over in his chest like it was doing Olympic-level gymnastics. His gorilla wasn’t nervous anymore. It was just excited. Maybe she did like him. She wouldn’t be looking at him like that if she didn’t. She was probably waiting for him to make the first move.

He cleared his throat. “Speaking of that, what would you think about seeing me tonight? Maybe we could have dinner or something?”

She stopped walking. “Oh, well, I’m having dinner with my parents tonight. The pot roast is already in the slow cooker and everything.”

“Well, maybe tomorrow night? I’m free whenever. I don’t really have dinner with anyone ever.”

She looked at her shoes. “That’s not a good idea.”

“Why?” he asked, surprised. “Would you rather we just talk through PM at first? Because that’s fine with me too.”

“What?”

“You know, on LK Brides. I didn’t message you back last night because I figured we could talk in person today. But we can message instead. It’s no big deal.”

“Could you excuse me for a second?”

She hurried away before he could answer. He didn’t know what he had said, but obviously, he’d already ruined everything. He was going to apologize when she came back and only ever talk to her on private message.

But he wasn’t going to give up. She was his match and probably his mate. He was going to do his best not to mess this up again.