Holly
Matchmake Me app—
Cherrybomb:Far be it from me to cast doubt on this app, but 97% compatibility seems implausibly high. Did you cheat? You totally cheated, didn’t you?
Cherrybomb:Actually…if you’re the kind of guy who can trick an AI, you’re the kind of guy I want to know.
Two days later…
Cherrybomb:Ah. You’re withholding and a bit of a dick. Now Iknowyou’re my type.
“Fuckity fuck.”
“You can’t swear in an elementary school,” Mikey tells me under his breath. “There are children here.” It’s November, but there’s a fine sheen of sweat on his face. I’ll bet he’d be saying “fuckity fuck” too if the rules weren’t getting in the way.
I look around the empty computer lab dramatically. “Where? Are they hiding under the furniture? I know they’re small, but are theythatsmall? Is it a school for ants?”
He gives a beleaguered sigh and doesn’t even honor my butcheredZoolanderjoke with a smile. Admittedly, he’s not the kind of a guy who’d find absurd humor funny. “They could arrive any minute. Sometimes people show up early.”
“Kind of likeyoumademecome early,” I say. “Besides, back to the swearing thing, these kids could probably swear me under the table.”
Mikey gives me a weird look and fidgets with the bridge of his glasses. He’s a literal thinker, so he’s probably trying to parse where I’ve met all these swearing elementary school kids.
“All I’m saying is they already have a good vocabulary of expletives if they’re anything like the people I went to school with.”
“I’m glad I didn’t grow up here,” Mikey says, straightening the mouse at one of the computer stations.
“Fair.”
It is. I kind of wish I hadn’t grown up here either. Then again, I’m pretty sure most of the young people of Highland Hills feel that way. Small towns have a way of sucking you in and keeping you, no matter how loudly you declare you’re going to be the one who gets away.
Easier said than done. The thing is, my twin sister and I had the dubious honor of being the heirs to a matchmaking business that goes back generations. While I was more interested in coding languages and how they could be used to make something out of nothing, my sister’s heart and soul were tied up with Mayberry Matchmakers. I could have left, sure, but I would have had to leave her.
Bryn’s my twin—my heart and soul are hers. So I stayed, and because she knows me enough to know I needed something more, she helped me come up with a kickass dating app that would mimic the matchmaking experience.
We wanted to sell the idea and help develop it. Our grandmother technically owns the Mayberry Matchmakers brand, however, and she’s an old shrew who refused us out of spite. For a while, it seemed like Bryn and I would be stuck rewriting people’s crap dating profiles and setting up cheesy speed dating events for the rest of our lives, but let it never be said I’m not a solver. I moved to New York City briefly for a change of scenery, and there I met Rory Byrne, the famous tech billionaire.
Call it luck or whatever ridiculous tax incentives the Highland Hills government had offered him, but he’d already made the decision to relocate his business to my hometown…which made it that much easier for me to convince him to back my dream with Bryn. He succeeded in sweet-talking our grandmother, who is a fame whore to the nth degree, and I guess he did a pretty good job of sweet-talking Bryn too, given they fell in love, and my sister is now expecting a baby. Two babies, if you count our matchmaking app, Matchmake Me, which is now in beta testing. If I sound proud, it’s because I totally take credit for Bryn and Rory’s relationship. If I had a Wall of Wonder like my grandmother, their picture would be front and center. And if you’re wondering what a Wall of Wonder is, consider yourself privileged not to know.
But Rory is also the reason I’m here in this elementary school computer lab, which smells disturbingly like feet. I mean, why? Just…why? It’s not a gym.
Ugh. Anyway. I’d do anything for my sister, and Rory has made her very happy, so,ipso facto, I would do anything for him. Which is why I’m here. He begged me to teach beginner programming to a group of kids for one of Byrne Systems’ outreach programs. I still get to be salty about it, though.
Especially since heknowskids aren’t my thing.
Now, don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not anti-children or anything. I mean, like most people, Iwasa child once, and I have a younger brother and two little sisters. I’m genuinely excited to be an aunt, although about 90% of that excitement is because I know how much Bryn wants to be a mother. It’s just…I could come up with about fifty other ways I’d prefer to spend my afternoon.
Maybe a hundred.
I must have said so out loud because Mikey gives me a weird look and asks, “Why’d you volunteer for this if you don’t like kids?”
“I didn’t volunteer,” I hiss. “I told you. Rory guilted me into doing it.”
He frowns. “That doesn’t sound like Rory.”
I roll my eyes. “There was a heavy amount of flattery involved.”
This earns me a nod. “That makes more sense. Heisreally nice.”
