Page 9 of The Match

Jo’s mouth falls open, just as I suspected it would. “Gracious, girl! Why’d you say that?”

I screw up my face and then shove it into the collar of my T-shirt to hide. What I said to Mr. Broaden was so unprofessional and a drastic overreaction to what he said. Sure, he was a class-A jerk to me, but I shouldn’t have responded the way I did. I should have smiled politely, thanked him for his time, and then gone home and stuck a hundred pins in the voodoo doll I made of him. Instead, I cast a bad light on our company.

“Well, in my defense, he was rude to me first. But still, I shouldn’t have said what I did. And definitely not in front of his ten-year-old daughter.”

“All right, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to pop some popcorn, and then you’re going to start from the beginning.”

And that’s what I do. I tell her everything. Well, almost everything. I leave out the part about him being ridiculously hot and me replaying the scene in my head a hundred times, except changing the course our conversation took and ending it with us making out in the corner. She doesn’t need to know any of that.

When my monologue is finished, Jo laughs and tells me she would have done the same thing. But I don’t believe her, because she treats the company like it’s her baby. She’s helped train more than sixty dogs that have literally changed people’s lives—giving them freedom in ways that medicine couldn’t. She would never have let one stinging comment from an attractive guy undo her like it did me.

Jacob Broaden struck a nerve inside me. It still hurts.

Before I leave, Joanna and I discuss the plans I made that day for the fundraiser, and then I spend the rest of the night continuing to obsess over that five-minute conversation in the coffee shop. I teeter between being embarrassed of my actions or spitting angry that he would say something like that to me, because:

1) YES, I am hard up for money, and how dare he point that out.

2) Everyone knows that car salesmen are probably the most annoying humans ever, so I take great offense to that comparison.

3) He was right.

I was pushy and obnoxious. Not because I was afraid I would be fired if I didn’t meet my quota, but because something in me is validated every time I can do something positive in this organization. And that same little something whispers that just maybe one of these days, my parents will see the grand total of people I’ve helped and finally say, You know, Evie, I’m glad you took your own path in life. I’m proud of you!

I pop that dream bubble and move on.

Later that night, after Charlie and I are back in our own little corner of the world, we spend our time curled up on my tiny love seat, watching Friends reruns while I eat sherbet out of a mug. I think Charlie has a crush on Rachel, because any time she comes on the screen his ears perk up. Your ears never perk up for me like that anymore, buddy.

And then I realize that I’m jealous of the attention my dog is paying a fictional TV character, and I decide I really need to get a life. As if my mom can somehow sense that I am at an all-time low and could possibly be swayed into becoming her mini-me as she’s always dreamed, my phone pings.

MOM: Tyler told your dad that he asked you out again for this weekend and you turned him down. When are you going to start taking your life seriously and claim the future you’re destined for?

EVIE: What a little tattletale.

Remember the name of my dad’s law firm: Jones and Murray Law? Well, Tyler owns the Murray part of that title. He is two years older than me and the son of my dad’s best friend (who used to own the company before he decided to retire a few months ago and handed the company down to Tyler). The law firm has been in the hands of our families for the past three generations. This match between Tyler and me has been in the making since our great-grandfathers shook hands on opening day of the firm.

Only families as delusional as Tyler’s and mine would expect their children to marry in order to ensure that a business and all its money stays in the proper hands. I think the plan is for us to marry so I can immediately birth a son who they will both leave the entirety of the company to since my dad was never given a son. And not that I’d ever want that damn law firm anyway, but there’s no way my dad would ever hand it over to me. He and my mom are of the mindset that a woman’s only job is to look pretty, birth babies to take over her husband’s empire, and help him close business deals by fluttering her lashes and making his colleagues the best old-fashioned on the planet.

The sad part is, I almost agreed to this life that I never fit in because I felt like I didn’t have any other options. I was scared to live alone with epilepsy, and since I didn’t have any men busting down my door to marry me (thank goodness), my only option was to agree to my parents’ plan for my future.

That is, until I met Joanna and she gave me Charlie. Suddenly, a bright new future rolled out in front of me. One all sparkly and new, where I could live independently and work for my own living doing something I actually enjoyed. And most importantly, one where I didn’t have to marry Tyler Murray.

I left home three years ago and moved into my Thumbelina apartment because it was all I could afford, but I didn’t care one bit that it was tiny. It was all mine. My parents immediately cut me off in hopes that I’d starve and come running back to them wearing the patent-leather heels Mom has been polishing for me since I was in her womb.

I’d rather eat dirt.

To make sure I didn’t have to do either of those things, I found a part-time job where I could work remotely from home, basically importing data for a healthcare company, and the rest of my week was spent working side by side with Jo, molding adorable little puppies into dogs that save lives. It was a monumental day when she told me I could move from volunteer into a paid employee position in the company.

MOM: Evelyn Grace, why do you insist on being so childish? You are twenty-five years old. It’s time you started acting your age and thinking about your future.

I’m twenty-six, but whatever.

EVIE: Because I like Froot Loops better than the grown-up cereals. Say hi to Tattletale Tyler for me.

I know she won’t like that. Mom hates when I make jokes, especially during a conversation that she thinks should be life-changing for me.

Several minutes go by, and I turn off the TV and brush my teeth before climbing into my full-sized bed. My phone pings again. I groan and roll over to grab it off my bedside table, pulling Charlie in a little closer for the moral support I need before reading whatever biting comment my mom has texted me.

But when I unlock the screen, I’m confused to see a number I don’t recognize.

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