Page 70 of Failure to Match

“Shouldn’t you wait until you get the results? If you pass, there’s no point in another evaluation.”

He clicked his tongue. “We barely talked. Your results would be based on incomplete data, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

“Yes, but I’ve gone on two fake dates with you so far and they’ve both ended in some sort of physical disaster for me. The universe is definitely trying to tell us something, and I’m pretty tempted to listen.”

He chuckled again. “All right, so let’s say this one’s a real date instead. You know, just so we can appease the almighty universe.”

My eyes narrowed. “You’re mocking me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Miss Paquin. I firmly believe that the cosmos is conspiring against the two of us going on fake dates and is communicating its grievances via gruesome murder attempts. That makes total logical sense to me, which is why I’m saying we should just go on a real one, instead—see if it likes that better.”

I crossed my arms. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think youwantedto go on a date with me.”

“Nonsense.” He continued to tease his fingers through my hair, even though they kept coming back empty. “I just want to ensure you have all the data you need to do your job.”

“You don’t want me to do my job,” I pointed out. “In fact, you’ve done everything you can over the last nine months to make it as difficult as possible for me to do my job.”

“Another miscalculation.”

What did that even mean? “What does a miscalculation have anything to do with you not taking our personality tests?”

He sighed. “How would you like it if someone was blackmailing you into going on blind dates? How easy would you make things for them?”

My teeth clamped together. He had a point.

“I wasn’t trying to make life difficult for you. I was just—” He cut off, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “I apologize for my behavior that night, but just know I had my reasons. And I’m willing to take some of the responsibility for making yourprofessional life difficult, but your employer was also at fault. I didn’t force you to work all that overtime, Jamie.”

Again, he had a point.

I dragged my teeth over my bottom lip, thinking. “I’m sorry too,” I eventually said. It was only fair. “I’ve been... burnt out and frustrated, and I think I’ve put a little more blame on you than is maybe warranted.”

He nodded. “I appreciate that.”

Look at us, being all mature and civil.

“Cool.” And, for whatever reason, Molly’s request chose that exact moment to ring through my head.

“He could really use a friend, you know. Someone closer to his own age. Someone not on his payroll.”

So, after a strangely dense silence, during which our eyes were locked in another breathless staring contest, I said, “Hey, do you... do you maybe want to tone down some of the, um, animosity we’ve got going on, and maybe... maybe we could try to be friends or something?”

That was about as eloquently as I could put an idea that had an extremely high chance of being immediately shut down.

Sure enough, Jackson’s brow gave a surprised little tick. “You want to be myfriend.”

I didn’t understand the emphasis he put on the word, or why his eyes narrowed when he said it, but “I don’t know. Maybe.”

He didn’t respond. Not a good sign.

“I mean, to be honest, this whole hating each other thing is already becoming kind of tiring, don’t you think?” As it turned out, my personality was not all that suited for revenge. Being at emotional war with another human was exhausting.

I wasn’t convinced I could do a full month of it.

“And so, you’d like for us to be...friends.”

He clearly hated the idea.

“Well, maybe we could start with just being more civil.”

---