Page 2 of Bulletproof

So, I did, and when I called her when I was done, we went shopping together. The spice store was our third stop in Chinatown, and Charles was his normal, helpful self. I was pretty sure that Dylan was delusional. She always saw more interest in the men around me than I caught myself. I suspected she was stroking my ego.

But I really did need a new job because working at Synergy—being an assistant to a counselor who assisted a matchmaker—was so not my idea of fun.

At Synergy, we did life makeovers, which was their upbeat, cue the band, way of describing their “process.” Ugh. We came in, gutted your house, cleaned you up, and found you a partner. It was like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy meets The Dating Game, except there were no cameras, and it took about a month from start to finish and had what they called check-ins or follow-ups afterward.

I went first with a counselor, as part of the team, and we met the client and documented the horror of his or her life. Together, we created a file and reported back to our matchmaker. There were five teams at Synergy, each headed by a matchmaker. I worked for Michelle Cooper, who reported to Becker Rowe, our matchmaker, and finally to Blake Southerlyn, our managing director.

Reaching the house after eleven, I looked toward the front door and immediately saw Michelle and the rest of the team. Even if I had not been looking for her, there was no way to miss her. She was a knockout with her short, cropped blonde curls and green eyes, which were looking at me like I was the Second Coming. She was crisp and polished in her Stella McCartney suit and gave the impression of cool poise, even as she crooked her finger at me. My grin was wide as I walked toward her, my courier bag bumping against my hip as I moved fast to reach her.

“I could pass out right now with you being on time and all,” she said, laughing at me as I closed in on her.

“For you, I’ll be on time,” I said, returning her smile. “For Keith, I dunno.”

She nodded. “He does not like to work with you.”

“He’s a nozzle,” I told her, looking around at the others. “Am I right?”

“He’s right,” Lily Chow stated loudly while others grunted their agreement.

“See?”

“Jory!” Michelle tried not to laugh. “He and I are peers.”

“Like I care. He doesn’t want to work with me anymore anyway.”

“Yes, I know. Only Gina and I like you.”

I opened my mouth to tell her that I didn’t give a crap—again—but she silenced me with her hand.

“Fine,” I said. “But how come your husband’s lettin’ you work on the weekend? I thought you guys had a rule or something?”

“He has a big court case and something with the filing.” She made a face of disgust. “He can’t even take a break today and have dinner with me, so I’m flying solo anyway.”

“Oh good. Then you can eat with me after,” I said, joining her and the others on the porch.

“I would love to do that,” she said sincerely, smiling at me.

“Good. It’s a date,” I said, reaching out to fix her folded collar, probably messed up by her seat belt, smoothing it back into place before smiling at the other four members of her team.

“Hey.”

I looked back at her.

“What’s wrong?”

I shrugged.

“Jory?”

“Nothing,” I lied.

She took hold of my arm and led me a couple of feet away. “You hate this.”

“I don’t hate it,” I said as I fiddled with the silver chain around my neck.

Sam had given me a Saint Jude medallion a while back, and since he was the patron saint of the Chicago Police Department, I wore it to make sure he—the saint—knew I was paying attention. I wanted him looking after my man.

“Yeah, you do.”