Virtually Yours: A Virtual Match Anthology

by Kait Nolan

  Chapter Six

  “The Madrigal Theater is officially back on track.” Norah lifted her wine glass and clinked it with Cecily’s.

  “Here’s to that. How was the party?” Cecily leaned back against the kitchen island, crossing her feet in those boots that made Reed want to drool.

  “It was great. And really more of a gossipfest. Tyler and Brody were supposed to be the guests of honor—the structural damage to the theater couldn’t have been fixed without them—but Tyler called to say they’d be late, then they didn’t show at all.”

  “Really?” Cecily punctuated the question with a suggestive eyebrow waggle.

  “Brody’s truck wasn’t collected from the job site until this afternoon,” Cam reported.

  “Dude, you’re such a girl,” Reed told him.

  “Hey, they’re two of my best friends. I have a stake in them getting back together. If it doesn’t work, I have to kick his ass for breaking her heart again.” He picked up a plate and tongs. “Going to pull the meat off the grill.”

  As his cousin strode outside, Reed gave into impulse and snagged Cecily around the waist, pulling her into him. “What’s your interest in this? You barely know Tyler, and have you even met Brody?”

  She curled her fingers comfortably through his belt loops and grinned up at him. “Are you kidding? Living in a small town is like being in the middle of a soap opera. I’ve been following the will they/won’t they second chance romance of those two for weeks. So much better than Days of Our Lives.”

  “My stupendously intelligent, talented, classy girlfriend is a soap opera addict?”

  Cecily narrowed her eyes.

  Okay maybe the girlfriend thing was pushing it?

  “None of those things are mutually exclusive.”

  “Of course not. It’s just unexpected and…very humanizing.”

  “It’s all Christoff’s fault. Living with him means I’ve developed a much higher drama quotient than I used to have.”

  “I don’t know,” Norah drawled. “He’s toned down a lot since Daniel.”

  “He’s still Christoff. He’s just…more cheerful.”

  “Dinner is served!” Cam announced.

  “Y’all sit. We’ve got this,” said Norah.

  The pair of them bustled around the tiny kitchen in some kind of choreographed dance of domestic bliss, pulling the scalloped potatoes from the oven, dishing up the green beans, and getting plates on the table. They were good together, on every level. Happiness practically seeped out of their pores when they looked at each other. After everything they’d both been through, it was good to see. And they gave Reed hope. If they could make it work, maybe he and Cecily stood a real shot.

  Reed’s phone buzzed as he sat. Slipping it out to put it on silent, he noted the new message from Selina. What’s up with you tonight?

  Family dinner, he responded.

  God, he really needed to cancel this Virtual Match service. There was absolutely no need to keep it up now that things were actually working out with Cecily. But a part of him felt kind of bad about dumping Selina. Even though she wasn’t a real her and it was just a paid service. It felt like he was saying whoever was on the other end had done a bad job. Which was patently stupid and the kind of shit that would have his friends calling him a bleeding heart sap.

  Tomorrow, he promised himself, putting the phone away again.

  Cecily sank into a chair beside him, “Who was that?”

  “No one important. What do we have here?” he asked.

  She placed a basket full of steaming biscuits on the corner of the table. “Contributed by Beth, of the soon-to-open Dixieland Biscuit Company.”

  Norah started the passing of the food. “The launch plan you laid out is fabulous.”

  “It was a lot of fun. I mean, how often did we get to make people happy with what we did at Helios?” she asked, referring to the firm she and Norah had worked for in Chicago. “Biscuits make people happy.”

  Reed bit into one and moaned as the fluffy, buttery goodness melted on his tongue. “Yes. Yes they do,” he said.

  Clearly the work made her happy. She fairly glowed as she told Norah about the rest of what she’d lined up. Reed had never seen her get that spark when she talked about the job opportunity with Verdant. Not that she talked about it at all, if she could help it. They’d spent the last two weeks powering full-steam ahead, spending every spare minute together in case those minutes were numbered. He even managed to forget, for a few hours at a time, that they might be.

  “Does she need help with anything?” Norah asked.

  “No. She’s down to finalizing delivery of the backer prizes and getting the first printing of Biscuit Company t-shirts. Then it should be good to go for the grand opening.”

  “You ever gonna tell Beth?”

  Cecily forked up some potatoes. “Nope.”

  “Tell her what?” Reed asked.

  Norah flicked a glance in his direction and arched a questioning brow at Cecily, and everything clicked.

  “You were the mystery backer,” he said. Everybody in town had been speculating for weeks, but they’d generally assumed it’d been Gerald Peyton, the CEO of the non-profit Norah was working with on a number of restoration projects around town.

  “I was.” Cecily said it with the same faintly embarrassed tone she might’ve admitted, “I was the secret admirer.”

  Reed tried to wrap his brain around that. She’d told him over dinner that she didn’t touch the family fortunes except for charity. He didn’t know what he’d imagined that meant, but dropping five grand as casually as fifty bucks wasn’t it. “Who else knows?”

  “About me? Norah, obviously. Her mom’s done work with my mom, so she knew who I was when I came to intern at Helios. Cam, because of practically spousal privilege. Christoff, because we’ve been friends since high school. And you. That’s it. Y’all are the sum total of everyone in Wishful who know what I really come from.”

  “Welcome to the inner circle,” Norah told him.

  “How often do you do this kind of thing?”

  “It’s not like it’s a regular, scheduled thing. Just depends on what presents itself and when. And whether I can do it anonymously. Everyone in my family has pet causes and organizations. But I’ve always been drawn more to the personal. I like seeing the impact, knowing that the money went where it was supposed to go and gets a reasonably immediate return on my investment. It’s a rush.”

  “Why anonymous?” Cam asked.

  Reed gave him a pitying look. “No self-respecting superhero wants actual credit.”

  Cecily’s lips quirked. “And what do self-respecting superheroes want, then?”

  “They’re all in it for different reasons, usually relating to some inner wound. Oliver Queen is driven to right the wrongs of his father and save his city from corruption. Spiderman has to overcome the regret of not saving Uncle Ben, and be the kind of man Uncle Ben would have been proud of. Batman has to clean up Gotham so no other kids have to grow up without their parents.”

  Intrigue mixed with amusement. “And me?”

  “In your case, with great privilege comes great responsibility. To paraphrase Uncle Ben. You’re too driven to prove yourself, to earn things on your own merit, to be comfortable with the fact that you were born to affluence. But you have it, so you feel compelled to use it to help those who need it—particularly those who may be overlooked by others or who wouldn’t be helped by more conventional means. Recognition of your good deeds would minimize them because then people would be focused on you instead of the person or cause you supported, so you prefer to stay in the metaphoric shadows.”

  Her look of flirty amusement slid away, leaving an uncharacteristic vulnerability in its wake as she stared at him. “Is that really how you see me?”

  “Am I wrong?” he asked quietly.

  “No, that’s…stunningly accurate.” And she looked absolutely flummoxed by it.

  “Who knew your addiction to
comic books would make you an armchair psychologist,” Cam said in an obvious effort to lighten the mood.

  “Any good student of literature is an armchair psychologist,” he retorted. “Literature is all about exploration of human nature. Just because my choice of literature happens to involve a lot of spandex, capes, and ass kicking doesn’t make that any less true.”

  Cecily’s phone began to ring. “Sorry,” she muttered. She slipped it out of her pocket and started to send it to voicemail, then hesitated as she read the display. “Excuse me, I need to take this.” Pushing back from the table, she strode over to the far side of the loft.

  “She’s not used to people reading her that well,” Norah murmured.

  “She doesn’t give anyone a chance to read her.”

  Across the room, Cecily paced in response to the largely one-sided conversation, offering monosyllabic replies in a low voice. Abruptly, she stopped, wrapping an arm around her middle and closing her eyes. And Reed knew, even before he heard her speak. “Yes ma’am. I’ll send you the details of my flight information as soon as I have it booked. Mm-hmm. No, thank you.”

  Shit.

  Reed looked back to Norah. “Did you get the stuff I asked you for?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. I’m gonna need it.”

  ~*~

  Cecily wished she hadn’t answered. It would only have delayed the inevitable, but at least the night wouldn’t have been ruined. She hadn’t been able to lie when she’d come back to the table—wouldn’t have insulted Reed by trying. And it was obvious from the look on his face that he already knew. So they both suffered through the rest of what became the world’s most awkward dinner, with Cam and Norah both looking worried and biting back whatever opinions they had on the subject.

  As they drove back toward town, Reed took her hand without a word.

  He made her want to be reckless. To just rush in, without thought to consequences or cost. And, to a point, for the last couple of weeks, she had rushed in, ignoring the countdown in the back of her brain, because while she was with him, it didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered. She looked at him and saw the possibility of what Norah had with Cam, and she wanted that. She’d be insane not to want it. But a part of her kept hesitating. She didn’t trust her judgment well enough to know if she was projecting, or if what was between them was really real. And now the final countdown had begun and circumstances would force a decision, one way or the other. After everything she’d worked for, how could she make that call, how could she know for sure that reckless leap would be worth it, based on a matter of mere weeks?

  And yet…he saw her. Not the money. Not the pedigree. Not the act. Her. She’d misjudged him so badly. How could she sit beside this amazing, astute man, and not feel physically ill at being poised to walk away?

  “I hate this,” she burst out.

  “I know.”

  “You’re not going to try to talk me out of it?”

  Reed glanced at her. “You know I want you to stay. My trying to guilt you into it would make me a selfish bastard and wouldn’t be a good foundation for any future relationship. Besides, you feel bad enough already.”

  That was true enough. But it wouldn’t have stopped a lot of men.

  “So no, no guilt trip. I’ve got something else in mind.”

  “You do?” Her heart gave a hopeful leap. As he bypassed the turn for her street, she sat up a little straighter. “Where are we going?”

  “Downtown. I thought we’d take a little walk. I think better when I’m moving.”

  He parked at the far end of the green. Cecily slid out of his SUV and hunched into her coat at a sudden gust of wind, thinking that a single summer below the Mason-Dixon line had made her soft if she felt a chill in the low fifties. But, as the breeze ruffled her hair, she felt the first bite of true autumn on the air. Reed circled around and tucked her arm through his.

  “Did you know Norah nearly walked away from Cam?”

  Surprise had her step faltering. “What? Why?”

  “Because she thought picking him would mean giving up her career. She is, as you well know, incredibly driven—you’re a lot alike in that respect. Cam’s more like me. Very rooted to life here. She couldn’t see how they could make it work and, frankly, neither could we.”

  “We?” she asked.

  “You’ve met my family. We were all up in the middle of that.”

  She had no trouble whatsoever imagining it. Her family was much the same.

  “I’m ashamed to say we didn’t exactly react positively when we found out the two of them were involved. Not because we didn’t love Norah, because we always have, but just because we worried it wouldn’t work and we didn’t want to see either of them hurt. Which she absolutely knew. She gave a speech.”

  Cecily laughed. “Of course she did.”

  “It helped. We could see how much she loved him. And we could also see how it was absolutely tearing her up, feeling like she had to choose.” He pulled her to a stop beside the fountain at the heart of town, taking both her hands in his. “You’ve got that same look.”

  “I don’t have as many years of career invested as she did when Helios fired her, but yeah, I absolutely feel that. I’ve worked really hard to do what I’ve done. I don’t want to throw that away.” She squeezed his hands. “But I don’t want to throw this away either.”

  “Do you think staying would be throwing it all away because you can’t see yourself living a small-town life long-term or because you don’t see how what you do is applicable here?” She opened her mouth to speak but he continued. “And I don’t ask that because I think you think less of small-town living. I know you don’t.”

  She answered without hesitation. “If there was a job—a real job, with real potential and opportunities here—we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  Some of the tension left him, and Cecily realized how rigidly controlled he’d been since dinner.

  “Okay then.” He dug in his pocket and placed a quarter in her palm. “Make your wish.”

  The metal was still warm from his body heat. Cecily looked at it, then back up at him. “Seriously?”

  “You can’t live in a place like Wishful and not believe in the lore.”

  When Norah had told her that the fountain was fed by nearby Hope Springs and had been granting wishes in one form or another since it was built just after the Civil War, Cecily had assumed it was just an adorable marketing spin on the town’s quirky name. But she’d learned that the locals, at least, believed. Did she?

  “Why’s it my wish instead of yours?”

  “I’m not the one at a crossroads.”

  Cecily cupped the coin in her palm. If she wished for an answer, what would the fountain tell her? She wasn’t sure she really bought into the idea of wishes as anything more than a romantic notion, but Wishful was touted as the town where hope sprang eternal and she could sure as hell use some of that, so she figured it was worth a shot.

  Which path am I meant to choose? She tossed the coin into the water. Not exactly the classic I wish formula, but none of the stories she’d heard since coming to Wishful specified that you had to ask a certain way.

  They both watched until the ripples faded and the glint of treasure shone beneath the water’s surface.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Now we walk a little more.”

  Reed obviously had something in mind so she linked her arm through his again, snuggling close for warmth, and followed his lead.

  As they left the green, headed down Spring Street, he began again. “So I’ve already told you that my family was all up in the middle of Cam and Norah. We aren’t exactly known for our subtlety as a group. We all felt awful that Norah thought she had to defend her relationship with Cam, so since she couldn’t figure out how she could stay, we took it upon ourselves to come up with a plan.”

  “Something other than her becoming the new City Planner?”

  “Yeah, that wasn’t
even on the table, at that point. We were focused on proving that there was, in fact, a need for her services in a town of this size. So we utilized the groundwork and rapport she’d already built by starting the citizen’s coalition and reviving the Chamber of Commerce to secure letters of intent from almost every business in town, expressing interest in marketing services, should she decide to open her own firm. Uncle Pete pulled together all the paperwork necessary to file for a business license. Mitch drew up plans to renovate this place into her dream office.” Reed stopped in front of the old train station. “And we ran over her like a stampede of elephants.”

  “How did she take that?”

  “Oh she was gracious about it—she’s Norah, after all—and once she got over feeling backed into a corner, she really got into the idea. It’d never even crossed her mind to open her own firm. Obviously, this isn’t what she ended up doing. But there’s no reason why you couldn’t take the same plan and adapt it to you.”

  “Open my own firm? At twenty-four? With no professional reputation to speak of?”

  “You have plenty of professional reputation here. You’re damned good at this kind of work, and you love doing it. There’s a documented need for the kind of services y’all can provide. It’s part of why Norah has those two days of open consult a week, even though it’s really more than she has time to deal with on top of being City Planner. And I know for a fact she’s been passing a lot of it off to you. It’s not the kind of corporate accounts you’d work with at Verdant, but it’s a different kind of challenge. One that appeals to you, or you wouldn’t have stayed here this far past the end of your internship.”

  “Something like this would take considerable startup capital.”

  “Which we both know you have, should you choose to use it.” He held up his hand for silence. “I know you don’t want to touch that money for yourself, but consider how many people you could help if you were properly set up. And it’s not like you have to do anything on a grand scale to start. There’s no rule book that says you have to have an office to accept clients right off. People like it if you come to them. Makes them feel important. And you’ve said yourself, you tend to get a better feel for a business when you spend some time there.”