"Tate. There's something here. I can't explain it either, but I don't think denying it will make it go away. If you leave now—"
"You told me there was little chance of an impulsive match working out in the long run," I reminded him. "And that's what this is—impulse, right? There's no logic here. We weren't matched by your algorithm, we just have some kind of chemistry, some kind of physical connection."
"I think we both feel more than that." His voice was solemn, his mouth a hard line when I turned back around to look at him. Why was he saying his now? I needed him to stick to his guns, to tell me that only logic and math could assure success in love.
“No. It doesn't matter. It would never work. I'd lose my job, or at least my reputation, and I'm only here temporarily anyway. Even if it could work, the distance between us—"
"Could be worked out," Max said. "I get that you're scared."
I stared at him, wishing I’d never come to San Diego at the exact same time I felt like I’d never actually breathed before I’d taken a breath next to Max. "I'm not scared. I'm just the only one in this room who's willing to look at this from a logical perspective. It doesn't make sense, Max. It's a bad idea. We are not a match." Why did I have to tell him this?
"Maybe we are," he said. "I haven't run the algorithm."
I shook my head. "It wouldn't matter. I can't stay. This way I'm just leaving a little earlier than planned, making it easier on both of us." I gathered up my things and shoved them into my bag. "I have to go."
"I think you're making a mistake," Max said, his voice flat. "I think we are."
There was nothing left to say. My soul shredded into pieces I’d never repair and I was fighting tears with everything I had. I picked up my purse and pushed past him, out the door.
"Goodbye Max. I'm sorry for ... " he followed me up the hall. No one else was in yet. I paused at the front door, looking at him one last time, standing there looking impeccable and so painfully sad, with his strong arms crossed against his chest as if to protect himself. "I'm just sorry."
I walked out into the relentless cheer of San Diego's sun and felt something inside me crack.
Chapter 29
Traversing a Goat Path on a Pogo Stick
Max
There is one thing I am not used to being, and that is an optimist. I'm rarely anyone's bright shiny beacon of positivity, and having Tatum walk away from me is just one more reason why.
I begged her to stay, and she still left.
And I only begged her because I'd let my stupid heart lead the way. I'd let myself feel things, and made decisions based on those feelings. That was basically like blindfolding yourself and then deciding to take a little walk on one of those terrifying swinging bridges you see pictures of in Brazil. Or that little goat path along the side of some mountain in Mongolia. Blindfolded. And on a pogo stick. With a rabid vampire kangaroo on your six.
That's how ludicrous it was to decide to govern your life based on feelings.
I knew this. I'd learned it the hard way and still I'd let myself do it.
And God, it hurt. I’d sat in the office practically whining into the phone to Cat for the better part of an hour. I'd honestly rather be stabbed than feel this way.
"Don't say stuff like that, Max. Surely you can salvage it? You're Max Winchell! Soccer star and certified genius. Figure it out." Cat was the optimist in our family.
"There's nothing to figure. She left. She's gone. Going back to Palo Alto." I sighed dramatically and kicked myself for doing it. "Whatever this was, this lunacy ... it's over."
"Max," Cat said, her voice softer. "I think you need to go after her."
"Why? So she can punch me and add some physical pain to the misery I already feel?" The thought had crossed my mind, but chasing someone who keeps pushing you away can only end in more pain.
"No, because I think you might be in love with her."
I leaned back in my desk chair, staring out the dark window at the street beyond. No one could see in, but I could watch people moving on the sidewalk outside. People out there looked annoyingly happy. Like their souls weren't shredded and ripped out. I hated them all. "I'm not in love. I'm just a slow learner. This is Samantha all over again."
"It's not. I saw you then, and I saw you with Tate. Tate made you happy. Samantha made you neurotic and miserable."
"I'm miserable now."
"Noted. Listen, did you ever get her to fill in the profile?"
"Kind of. She used a different name."
"Why?" Cat asked, sounding confused.
"She was just going through it to see what the questions were like, so she could understand the consumer facing side of the business."
"But she answered the questions?"
"All but the last page."
"Run it. Run it against yours and see if you're meant to be a match." Cat sounded weirdly excited. "I can't believe you haven't done it already."
I'd thought about it. Many times. But while things were good, I'd been afraid to find out we weren't a match. And now? What difference would it make? "Why bother?"
"So you'll know."
"Fine." I started loading the profiles. Maybe she was right. I’d know definitively, and then I’d be able to move forward. "I'm going to go, okay?"
"No! I want to know!"
"Speaker phone," I said, putting the phone on the desk so I could use both my hands. I loaded the profiles, ran the software and waited. A few minutes later I knew the answer. "Done," I said.
"And?"
I took a deep breath and pushed away the searing disappointment I felt. I didn’t want to be on the phone with my sister. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I actually wondered how I would even be able to stand and get myself out of the office. I felt like a vacuum of humanity, an absence, a black hole. "We're not a match, Cat. Not even a little bit. About eleven percent. It would never have worked anyway."
"Oh," she said, sounding disappointed. "Okay. Well, call me later, okay?"
"Yup." I hung up, and if it was possible, I felt even more unhappy than I had when Tate had walked away from me. Despite all the years I'd spent proving this algorithm worked, demonstrating its validity time and again, I found myself doubting it now.
How could it be possible that Tate was not my match? I could feel the rightness of our connection in my heart.
I'd denied it right up until now, but if I was truly honest with myself, I believed we were a match.
Even if it defied logic. Even if it wasn't mathematical.
I knew Tate was the woman for me.
But it was too late.
* * *
The season officially began that next week, and I started practices less motivated and excited than I'd ever been. This was the game I loved, the thing I excelled at. And the joy was gone.
The same had proven true about just about everything since Tate had left. I didn't enjoy sitting on my back patio with a book. I didn't enjoy shooting the shit with Fuerte and Trace. I didn't enjoy our last pre-season night out at McDaughtry's. I didn't even enjoy a long shower with my own cock.
Tate's absence from my life had colored everything in shades of grey and olive green. Dark, dank and depressing.
"You cannot go on like this," Cat told me, walking through the house tossing takeout containers and protein shake bottles into the trash. Cat had come out to the last practice this week before the first game in Sacramento this weekend. "You're turning into a slob. And a hermit. A hermitty slob."
"I don't care."
"You do care, that's the entire problem. You care and you won't do anything about it."
The number of times I'd picked up my phone to text Tate in the past week was ridiculous. But I'd never gone through with it. I wanted to do something about it, but Tate had been clear. And as much as I wanted to try again, I wanted her to be happy. And if being apart was better for her, I couldn't ask for anything else. I hoped she really was happy.
I didn't think I ever would be again.
> "You played like shit today," Cat said, finally sinking beside me on the couch.
"Thanks. Great pep talk. Very motivational." I leaned back farther into the cushions, wishing Cat would go away, but also dreading being alone again.
"You have to do something, Max. You have to go after what you want!"
And here we went again. "No. The only thing I have to do is get my head on right for the game Sunday. And I'm going to go up and get to bed early and try to do that."
"It's seven thirty."
"I'm tired."
"You're depressed. Possibly heartbroken."
"Good night, Cat. You can see yourself out." I knew I was a lousy brother, and a generally lousy human being in this state. But at the moment it felt like all I could do to keep myself conscious and going through the motions. Any more than that was more than I could handle.
I slid into bed, trying not to think about Tate there with me, trying not to remember the deep roll of her laugh or the way her hair had draped over me when she'd straddled me on the mattress.
But it was pointless. All I thought about was Tate.
Chapter 30
Giant Dog Sweaters
Tatum
I was lonelier than I'd ever been in my life. Mom and Charlie both gaped at me when I'd told them I was going home. They'd opened their mouths in matching expressions of disbelief just before Mom informed me that she wasn't coming back with me, and that Charlie would be staying with her. It hadn’t been a huge shock, they’d been bonding. But I had to admit, I had thought Charlie would be with me in my misery.
So I'd loaded my few things into my car and driven home. Away from the happiness I'd felt in San Diego. Away from Max.
"It wasn't a good fit in the end," I told Foster when I reported for work the following Monday. And I wanted to do the right thing for the client." It wasn't a lie, after all.
Foster regarded me coolly, one side of his mouth hooking up for the briefest of moments before he blew out a breath and spread his hands before him, his eyebrows raised. "Okay, Tate. If that's the best thing for everyone."
"It is," I said. "I'm sure of it." My heart twisted at the statement like it was trying to tell me I was wrong. But I knew I was right. I was staying on track. Moving forward. This is what I did.
"Okay." He didn't sound like he believed me at all, and I wondered if there was more to the deal than he'd told me about in the first place. But Foster wouldn't do that to me. He wouldn't hide important details about a client or work I was involved in. Not at this point in my career. I let it go.
I'd sent in the interim CEO, a man named Alexander Craft with a solid reputation for helping companies hold stable in times of turmoil. I had the sense Max wouldn't like him, but it didn't really matter. He was temporary. Just until we found the right final solution.
Since I hadn't been expected, there was nothing for me to dive into immediately at work, and I didn't benefit from having extra time on my hands. My collection of tiny crocheted items grew somewhat ludicrous, and I decided to try making something bigger. I didn't want to make a sweater for myself and doubted Mom would wear one if I made one for her—not her style. So I found a pattern for dog sweaters. And then I multiplied it by about a million and made a sweater for Charlie. Of course if he was going to stay in San Diego he'd never need it.
I missed the enormous mutt. I missed his understanding adoration and unquestioning faith in me.
And I missed Max. I missed him the way a watch would miss some intrinsic piece that helped it run properly. I was still functioning, but I had the feeling I'd never be quite right again.
Chapter 31
Alex Craft: Toolshed Choad
Max
I was finishing up another horrible day at the office with Alexander, the choad Tate had sent in to replace her. The guy was probably competent, but he kept referring to the science and math of my company as "the little matchmaking algorithm," which was seriously pissing me off. He was one of those typical business guys—degree in finance, a few extra pounds mysteriously clinging to the parts of ones body that didn't typically get fat, and no sense of humor at all.
He settled himself into Tate's office the next business day after she'd left, and started asking questions, not all of them relevant to the expansion plans for Mr. Match.
"What's with the expression on that one?" he asked at one point, thumbing over his doughy shoulder at Megan, who had just left his office.
The eyebrow. "Maybe she just doesn't like you," I suggested, crossing my arms and leaning my shoulder against the doorframe.
He scoffed. "Like it matters."
Alex was not a good fit here. Especially because he demanded the staff call him Mr. Craft and wanted me to call him Alexander. That was two syllables more than the troll was worth to me. "Alex," I said, keeping my voice steady. "Matchmaking is a people business. You get that, right?"
He raised an eyebrow at me, making his pasty, bankery face look like a comic book character’s, his little wisps of comb over barely managing to serve as hair over the arched brow. "Your point?"
"I think it behooves anyone running such a business to be something of a people person."
"Is that what you are? I thought you were a soccer player." He grinned, as if there was some element of humor in this response, and I actually took a second to figure out if I'd missed a joke somehow.
But no, Alex was just a toolshed. "I'm a soccer player," I agreed. "One with a championship under my belt. I'm also the founder and creator of this company. I personally hired the people who work here, and since they precede you by several years, I'd appreciate it if you'd give them the respect and consideration they deserve." I realized as I spoke that none of my staff could have been a leak. There was no way they would have worked for me this long and suddenly decided to share the fun factoid they knew. "They're loyal and smart, and there's a good chance you could actually learn from them."
Alex didn't dignify this statement with an answer. He turned back to Tate's desk and began smashing his fat fingers into the keys. I felt bad for the keyboard.
"Yeah, so." I hated an unsatisfying end to an argument. I turned and went back to my office feeling angst-ridden and restless. This was wrong in so many ways.
I sat back down at my desk just as a text came through from Cat.
Cat: Tallulah is going to call you.
Me: Why are you preceding this with an announcement? I think you're missing the basic function of the technology. She can just. Call.
Cat: You're such a dick when your heart is broken.
The next second, my phone did ring, and Tallulah's name popped onto the screen.
"Hello?" I tried not to sound suicidal as I answered. Tallulah was a nice girl—if a little gung-ho—she didn't need to hear me wallowing in the depths of my despair.
"Max!" There was that gung-ho attitude now. My eardrum might have been bleeding.
"Hey T. Can I call you that? Your name tangles my tongue a bit."
"You can call me whatever. I wanted to ask you about something."
"Sure," I said. I expected she might have a question about the charity tournament. Maybe about soccer. I absolutely did not expect what came next.
"Are you Mr. Match?"
My mouth dropped open and my brain stuttered like a piece of software trying to load and hanging up in the same spot over and over. "Uh ..."
"Yeah, I know, it's a secret and everything, but I've been asking a few of the Sharks after that news piece at the tournament and everything, and it just seems pretty obvious and everything. Awesome, by the way. I mean, wow. Like you need the extra cash that must bring in, right? But anyway, so I'm guessing you are."
The Sharks. My mind spun. Fuerte was a shit liar. If she'd asked him directly, there was no way he'd be able to cover. I wasn't worried about Hamish, no one understood half of what he said anyway. But there was also a chance the information had worked its way into the Johnson twinhood, and that would be disastrous. If Fuerte told Erica, she probably
told Trace, and Trace kept secrets about as well as Alex out there kept his opinions to himself.
"If the answer was yes, what would your interest in the topic be?" I put a hand over my face, preparing myself for her to tell me she'd already shared this idea with other people.
"You want it to stay a secret, right?" she asked.
"That's the idea, yeah." I said.
"I have a proposal for you," she told me.
"I'm listening." I took my hand off my face and leaned my elbows on my desk, listening as Talullah Jeffries revealed her brilliant plan.
Chapter 32
Lana was a Jerk
Tatum
The first weekend back home was the worst. I'd finished Charlie's enormous sweater, and wasn't eager to embark on more pointless projects. And to be honest, almost everything suddenly seemed pointless, including the stack of research I'd brought home from the office.
I spent Saturday morning paging through the files, but found I had to reread almost everything as my mind wandered away from me, fixating on a point some six hundred miles south. In San Diego.
Certain that if I could just clear my head I would find some path forward, I pulled on running shoes and went outside. For the first twenty minutes, I ran, telling myself that the familiar neighborhood of my childhood was a comfort. I passed my elementary school, jogged by my parents' old house, and even waved at a friend I'd known well as a kid who was now mostly an acquaintance. But I didn't feel at home here anymore. I slowed to a walk as my mind turned over the realizations blooming within me.
Scoring the Boss: Mr. Match Book 4 Page 19
