Page 3 of How a Vampire Falls

His eyebrows shot up, and he held up his hands. “Whoa. You really don’t know who I am.”

“Nope.”

“Okay, so not actual husband. Backup husband.”

“Because that’s totally less creepy.”

“From undergrad. You went to college in Virginia.”

“How do you know—?”

“The matchmaker test. I’m your match.” He pointed at his chest. “Ryker.”

She felt her mouth drop open in slow motion like a cartoon, but she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t stop staring either. This man…was her match? This drop-dead-gorgeous man was hermatchmaker match?

“No way,” she said.

“We signed a pledge, remember? If neither of us is romantically attached by age thirty, we find each other and—”

“Have you been internet stalking me?”

“No, no, not like that.” If he’d been human, he would have blushed. “I follow your artist socials. You make the coolest stuff.” He nodded to her models. “And you turned thirty last month—remember, our birthdays are part of the test results—and unless you’ve got a never-mentioned-online husband or boyfriend, you’re still single too. So…” He spread his hands in a gesture that accentuated their masculine broadness. “Here I am. Shooting my shot. Asking you out.”

“So you are aware we are not married.”

“That was supposed to be a joke.” But he had the grace to grimace as he said it.

“Okay.” She could offer a little grace in return. “But asking me out is for real? You are actually here to ask me on a date.”

“According to the terms of the project,” Ryker said.

“What are you, a lawyer?”

He laughed. The sound was pleasantly rough, a contrast to the satin texture of his voice. “My mom is. She’ll be thrilled to hear I was accused.”

Leslie sank into the camp chair behind her exhibit table. She ought to stop staring at him, but she didn’t really want to. Then reality booted back up in her brain. She shook her head.

“This is crazy,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because you—you kept track of me and—and came here in person—and took the pledge seriously! I mean, who actually took it seriously? Besides you?”

“I remember there were two human couples who got together that way, same anthropology class and everything.” He tilted his head. “You weren’t part of the class?”

“No. My roommate Hannah was. When they needed more participants, she asked me to help her out.”

“Good thing you said yes.”

“I said no.” She kept the smile off her face as his eyebrows shot up. “So she turned the ask into a dare.”

“Interesting.” His mouth turned up in a little smirk. “I didn’t take the class either. A friend of mine told me about it, and I volunteered.”

Somehow volunteering seemed entirely in character for him, despite the fact Leslie didn’t know him at all. She shook her head again.

“You forgot the whole thing,” he said with a curious tilt of his head. “Did you even look at our results? At my picture?”

“Just because I read the results back then doesn’t mean I held on to it or…or held out hope for it. It was a silly personality survey. It didn’t mean anything.”

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