The atmosphere between us was more settled than it had been, more comfortable.
"You sure you're really okay with this?" Tate asked me. "With me ..."
I still wasn’t sure, but I’d seen her excitement when I’d agreed. I couldn’t change my mind now just because I didn’t trust myself around her. "It should be fine," I said, which probably wasn't really the answer she'd been hoping for.
"Max," she said, stopping and turning to face me.
I stopped too, I knew what she was going to say, and needed to stop her. I’d made up my mind. “Tate," I began, but then paused. Maybe she was right. Maybe I should change my mind.
"I don't feel right going forward with this if you're not sure about it. If you don't like me for the role."
Something snapped inside me then. Maybe it was the cool clear air, maybe it was all the champagne. Maybe it was just Tate’s warm brown eyes, her strong independence. I stepped closer, and I could see those chocolate eyes glinting in the faint light, the line of her lips. "That's the problem," I said, my voice a low murmur. She was so close now, I could feel waves of heat emanating from her body, and something else, something like a magnet pulling me to her.
I needed to step back now, resist the impulse. Instead, I took a step closer, and she dropped one of her hands onto my chest, solidifying the connection between us.
God, she was gorgeous.
My mind was screaming at me to back away, to break contact. Logic, it reminded me, did not dictate getting this close to women who were not a good match. Touching them.
"It isn't that I don't like you for the role," I continued, so close now that Tate’s breath hit my neck as I spoke, looking down at where her hand lay on my chest.
I switched off my protesting mind, and stood almost apart from myself as one of my hands came up, slid into Tate’s silken hair just behind her ear. She leaned into the touch, a sigh escaping her, and an electric pulse went through me. I felt like I was held there, a tractor beam freezing us in place. My mind was still telling me to move back, to stop, but it was muffled now, a distant murmur. "It's more that I do like you," I went on, unable to stop as her eyes held mine. I couldn’t stop the relentless honesty pouring from my mouth. "It's that I like you too much, and it scares me to think of having you so close every day."
I tried to stop myself after the words were out, but everything in me was pulsing, reaching for Tate, an unbearable desire welling up inside me. I leaned in, closing the inches between us and slanted my mouth over hers. The second our lips met, my body became molten, languid, hot. She leaned into me, her arms slipping around my back, her chest pressed to mine as everything in me tensed.
I kissed her slowly, teasing and tasting at first, and then moving deeper, sliding my tongue against hers, taking her bottom lip gently in my teeth and then kissing her harder.
My mind had gone silent. I knew this was wrong. I knew there was nothing on which to base this connection, nothing solid. And still, everything about the kiss felt right, like our atoms were lining up, melding together. My body vibrated with wanting Tate.
But I knew it was wrong, and when I had the strength to do it, I stopped. For a moment, I rested my forehead to hers, both of us breathing hard, our arms still around one another.
"That's why it might be hard for me to work with you," I whispered.
"It will be fine," she whispered back, and I wondered which was the lie—the way her body had responded immediately to mine, or the words she was saying now?
It wouldn't be fine. How could I work with a woman who set my blood on fire with a look? But how could push away a woman like that now that I knew she existed?
We walked the rest of the way to the office in silence, the moon beginning to glow as the sky shifted from its post-sunset translucence to full dark.
Tate stopped at a car parked along the curb, a blue Subaru I realized she must have rented to accommodate the big dog, Charlie. "This is me."
"Okay. Well."
She searched my face with those huge dark eyes. "Do I ..." she shook her head lightly and her hair danced around her shoulders, begging me to touch it, to take it in my hand, wrap it around my fist. "What do I tell my company? Are we doing this?"
"Of course," I said, my voice masking all the confusion I felt. "That kiss was nothing. We were just letting off some steam, and now we're ready to work, don't you think?"
"Sure," she said, the word slow, doubtful.
"Won't happen again," I told her. "I promise."
Something flashed across her face. Disappointment? It was growing too dark to tell, even with the streetlight just down the block. "Okay." She dug in her bag, pulled out her keys. "Well, I'll be in tomorrow morning then. I guess I'd better get a key."
"I'll have one made for you tomorrow," I told her. "It'll be fine, Tate."
"Right."
She got into her car and I closed the door when she was settled, watching her pull away.
"Nice work, asshole," I told myself, and I pulled out my own keys and let myself back into the Mr. Match offices.
INTERLUDE
MAX
For all my rocket-science smarts, it turned out I was an idiot.
What kind of guy makes out with a woman who's about to become his boss, for one thing?
For another, that move? That pull-her-into-my-arms and tell her I was having "feelings" move? That was a rookie mistake.
I think I actually used the word like to describe my feelings. Because I'm a third grader.
Fuck me, this was a mess.
Everything had been fine until I'd given in to the impulse to kiss her. We'd made the deal, I'd decided I could handle having her close every day, that I could focus enough on the end goal to smother the weird simmering feeling I had whenever she was around. Then I'd had the brilliant idea to discuss things over dinner.
That had been the beginning of the end.
Watching the sunset illuminate Tate's dark eyes and set her hair glowing around her shoulders had done something crazy to me. My blood had felt hot and foreign inside my veins and my words had been coming out all scrambled. I'd been so distracted by the way her skin had burnished in the last rays from the window, by the way she'd bitten her fleshy bottom lip as she'd tried to figure out what I was attempting to tell her, that I don't even know what I ended up saying.
And on the street, I'd basically just given up.
Fuck. I was Max Winchell. I had the things I'd always wanted specifically because I didn't give up, and I didn't give in to impulse. I focused, I worked, I attained. There was probably some soccer poster somewhere with my picture on it and those exact words at the bottom.
Wanna know what I didn't do? I didn't give in to impulsive desires that had nothing to do with my goals. I hadn't done it in high school when all my friends were smoking pot, I hadn't done it in college when everyone was out drinking the nights before we had big games—at least not after I’d learned my lesson with Bendy Samantha, and I shouldn't be doing it now, when my body seemed to be taking over from my mind with a woman who was a colleague, and most likely not my match.
But she'd filled out the intake form.
When she'd told me that, my mind had clicked into a plan—I'd just check it out, run it against my own. Just to see. Just in case.
Kissing her like his, before I had any idea at all whether we were a match was just moronic and stupid. It muddied the waters between us, was going to complicate the work we needed to do, and confused things in general.
And fuck me, it had felt good.
Sinking my hand into that smooth thick hair had been like sliding my fingers through satin. And Tate's lips?
Were soft and yielding, but just firm enough to let me know she was kissing me back.
Her tongue met mine and everything in me focused down to her. To her body pressing into mine like molten honey meeting every part of my body with a curve, a line, a warm soft hand. To her fingers digging into my back and pulling me closer.
But there wa
s no point.
This was a very bad idea.
I pulled away, told myself not to stare into those wide glazed eyes, forced myself to ignore the way her chest moved as she regained her breath.
A feeling of defeat slipped through me as I let her go, lost the warmth of Tate in my arms. I'd failed. I'd given into a ridiculous and unfounded desire that wasn't just a potentially bad idea because we almost certainly weren't a match; it was a bad idea because we were going to work together. Any seven-year old could confirm it was a rookie move.
"It will be fine," Tate had said, and I could tell she didn't believe it either.
Shit.
Chapter 15
Wednesday is the new Wednesday
MAX
Two hours later, I was still digging through the database, running every search I could think of, but Tate wasn't there. I tried every variation of her name, even did some answer searches on questions I was pretty sure I knew the answers to. I couldn't find her.
Finally, I dug into the payment portal to see if I could find a card with her name on it.
Bingo. She was there.
I traced the payment to the record number and went back into the database, ran one more search.
And a record came up. She'd used a false name.
Smart girl.
I would have done the same thing, so why did I feel let down when the name "Susan Rose" came up?
"All right, Susan," I said, pushing my shirtsleeves up my arms farther. I was about to run the record against my own, but something made me hesitate.
A fleeting memory of Tate's face in the moonlight flashed through my mind, a physical jolt unsettled me as I felt her in my arms again, felt the way my body had responded to her. It had felt right, almost chemical.
But that's what attraction was. It was chemical.
And attraction didn't always result in longevity. There were too many other factors to risk impulsive entanglements.
I'd learned that lesson already. The hard way. Remember Samantha?
My finger hovered over the enter key, but my phone buzzed at the same moment, and I turned away, digging in my pocket to pull it out.
It was Trace. Relief flooded through me. I turned away from the computer.
"Hello?"
"Max," he said, his everything's-always-great voice rolling through my phone. Trace had a way of being in the world I kind of envied. He was happy, he was settled. But even before he'd been in love, he just was. He didn't seem caught up in his head, didn't have ninety different agendas rattling around. He was Trace.
"What's up?" I was glad for the distraction.
"Some of the guys are at McDaughtry's. Come out."
McDaughtry's was just down the street. I could walk. Clear my head.
I leaned back in the chair, my eyes on the screen in front of me. "Nah. Not tonight." The computer was beckoning me. I knew I shouldn’t run the profiles, but I also knew I was going to do it.
"Why? What are you doing right now?" I turned away from the computer, my mind still churning over the kiss with Tate. With my new boss.
"Not much, just kind of—"
"I bet you're sitting in front of your computer like always." He waited. "Tell me I'm wrong."
God, I wanted to tell him he was wrong. "Yeah."
"Give it a rest. Come have a drink. The season starts for real soon and we won't get a chance."
I sighed, and then reached out and pushed the laptop screen shut before I could rethink it. "Yeah. Okay. I'll be there in fifteen."
"Awesome. See you in a few."
"See you," I said, and without letting myself think about Susan Rose or Tate Archer, or a kiss in the moonlight or bendy gymnasts from long, long ago, I turned off the lights, set the alarm, and left the office.
I'd get out of my head for a while, have a few drinks, be with the guys. All of this—whatever it was—would wait.
* * *
The bar was relatively quiet. It was midweek after all, and even if Thursday was the new Friday and Sunday was the new Monday or whatever shit people were saying at this point, as far as I could tell Wednesday was still just Wednesday. And most people had work in the morning.
"What's up, men? Erica?" I slid into a seat at the table in the back where we usually hung out if we weren't too excited to sit.
Tonight the guys, and Erica, were sprawled around the table, leaning back, legs kicked out, beer on the table. Everyone looked relaxed as we headed for our last couple weeks of preseason. We had one more match coming up, but for the most part we were on vacation, and the horrible Hawaiian shirt Trace Johnson wore served to remind us all that even when we were on vacation, fashion shouldn't be.
"You got here fast," Trace said, narrowing his eyes at me.
"I drive fast." I smiled at him. Trace didn't know I had an office downtown. He didn't know I was Mr. Match, and I was happy to keep it that way. In my experience with the enthusiastic and easygoing Trace Johnson, secrets were not his strong suit. His sister Erica, on the other hand, probably knew. She was snuggled up on Fuerte's lap, whispering something into his ear, her long dark hair hanging down her back. She turned and gave me a wave as Fuerte sent me a quick nod of acknowledgement.
"Why the face?" Erick Evans was next to me, frowning.
I shrugged. "That's a question for God, I guess. I was born with it." I consciously worked to rearrange my face. I didn’t need to be looking moony for everyone to see.
"Funny." He let the sarcasm slide off him. "Seriously, you look miffed. Or sad?"
Evans was a good guy, but we'd never really been the heart-to-heart types. "I'm okay, just need to grab a drink," I said. "You want anything?"
He lifted a full pint glass for me to see and then took a long swig. "Okay man. If you ever need to talk though," he said.
"Thanks." I got back up and went to the bar. Beer was not my favorite thing, and so close to season, I didn't feel like packing on the carbs.
Jones, the bartender, saw me waiting and lifted an eyebrow as he bent down, grabbing a glass for someone on the other side of the bar. "Usual, Max?"
"Yeah, thanks Jones."
I waited while the older man moved around behind the bar, watching his efficient grace. Fuerte stepped up next to me. "Everything good, Max?"
"Yeah, just getting a drink."
"There's a reason we don't play poker anymore," he told me.
I turned to face him. Fuerte had been a friend a long time. It's not very cool or macho to say it, but I'd always felt a bond with him I didn't necessarily get off-field with the other guys. Fernando just got me, for some reason. "True."
Jones returned with my drink, and Fuerte waited for me to speak. The weird thing was that I wanted to talk, maybe I needed to. And Fuerte knowing almost everything about Mr. Match made it easy to talk to him.
"I've just got a lot going on right now," I started. "I'm trying to get the site off my plate before the season starts, and—"
"You selling it?" he interrupted, looking worried. Fuerte had gotten together with Erica, thanks to Mr. Match, so I could see why he'd be personally invested.
I explained everything quickly, from my initial desire to sell to Tate's plans to expand and have me handle operations only.
"So she's taking over," he said. "Sounds good. You like her?" I didn’t think he was asking this in a romantic way, but I needed to talk, so that’s how I answered.
"Yeah. That's the problem."
He shook his head lightly, took a sip of his drink and set it on the bar, waiting for me to explain.
"It's weird," I tried. "When she's around, I can’t think straight. I get distracted by ridiculous shit, like her hair. It's like my brain just takes a back seat to the rest of me. I feel fucking weird around her."
"You want her," Fuerte said easily. "Maybe you take her home one night and get it out of your system?"
I stared at him, wishing it was that easy. Suddenly I had images of Tate on my bed, her legs wrapped around my waist. This was not helping
matters. "That's literally the worst advice anyone's ever given me about anything."
"Probably not true," he said. "I heard Toofer suggest you put your head in the shitter and flush a couple weeks ago."
"That wasn't real advice. I'm guessing yours is."
"It's not the worst thing you could do. Maybe once you've had her, you won't wonder what it's like. Maybe you're just bored."
I sank onto the stool behind me, picked up my drink and stirred the vodka into the diet tonic for a second. "I don't think so. I kind of tried that tonight." I thought if I kissed her, I might get her out of my system.
Fuerte's eyebrows rose. "Really?" He sat on the stool beside me, looking more interested.
"I mean, I didn't ... we didn't ... We had a meeting to talk about the plan. She's basically going to be the boss for a while. We have to work together, you know? And still, when we were outside, I walked her back to the office and kissed her." The kiss rolled through me again, the way her hair had felt in my fingers, the way she'd sighed into me, melting and wrapping me in her arms. I felt my body beginning to respond, to tighten, just at the memory of it, and willed it to stop.
"So it's not just an infatuation," Fuerte observed. "You really like her."
He said it like it was a fact, obvious. "Maybe, but it doesn't matter if I do. Shit doesn't work that way."
He sighed. "So your plan is to ignore your feelings, work together, let her find another CEO to take her place in a few months, and then say goodbye when she heads back up north."
I nodded once. "Yeah." It sounded perfectly logical.
"I thought you were supposed to be a fucking genius?"
I was. I am. I stared at him, felt my eyes narrow. "And?"
"You can't just ignore that shit. It'll explode."
I frowned at him. It didn’t matter. It was an impossible situation. "There are too many reasons why it's a shitty idea. We work together, for one."
"So do Chip and Joanna Gaines," Fuerte said, nodding like he'd just made a slam dunk in this debate.
Scoring the Boss: Mr. Match Book 4 Page 11
