Page 21 of Never Let Go

She chuckled and gave my shoulders a squeeze. “It’s fine, hon. It’s not all sexual. It covers everything from your family background to where you see yourself ten years from now, but sex is an important part of every adult relationship, and compatibility doesn’t just depend on whether you like the same food.”

I groaned. “Maybe my mom was right and this is a mistake.”

“It’s not a mistake.” She motioned back to my laptop screen where the questionnaire had now loaded. “If it’ll make it easier for you, I won’t look while you answer those questions, okay? I’ll still be right here and you can ask me anything, but I won’t read those answers. Just relax and let’s start with the easy stuff.”

Chewing on my lower lip, I nodded and began to fill in my details. As she’d told me, the questionnaire started with the basic stuff. My personal particulars, employment, likes and dislikes in general and in a man, and then it moved onto more detailed information.

“Why do they need to know what my dream house looks like? No one actually ends up living in their damn dream house.”

She shrugged. “That may be true, but it does say a lot about you. Like, for example, Chase and I both said that our dream house would be a chalet in a mountainous region. That means that our personalities are more similar to each other’s than to someone who chooses the Beverly Hills Mansion option. See, there’s a dropdown and a block where you can elaborate.”

I took a deep breath and clicked on the drop menu, immediately seeing what she’d meant. The options available were varied and many, ranging from a shack on the beach to a palace overlooking a bay, from a chalet in the mountains to a cabin in the woods, and from a suburban home in a densely populated area to a mansion in Beverly Hills, surrounded by A-listers.

As I studied every option and tried to envision which one I might choose if I could have anything, I chewed on my lower lip. “How am I supposed to choose? I love the chalet in the mountains, but I’d also like to live on the beach in the summer, and once I have kids, a suburban home would be great.”

“Then that’s what you type in that block. It’s what it’s there for. Choose the one you’d like to move into now, tonight, if you got a call to say you’ve won the lottery, and then elaborate in the block.”

I glanced outside, watching the sleeting rain lash against the windows. “Well, when you put it like that…” As I trailed off, I clicked the shack on the beach option and then quickly typed the rest into the space provided to do it. Ash frowned at me. “You’re choosing the shack over the palace? That’s interesting.”

I shrugged. “I don’t want the pressure that goes along with living in a palace, and I also don’t want the staff. That would mean having people around all the time, and I’m sure most wouldn’t mind that, but I would.”

She chuckled. “I get it. Okay, next up is the family section. How many kids do you want?”

I blinked a few times in rapid succession. “Uh, I don’t know? At least one, but I guess that depends on the father, money, where we live—”

“This isn’t about the father, Shel. Or about the money or about the school district you live in. In an ideal world where the father is great and as hands-on as you are and money isn’t an issue, how many children would you like to have?”

“Two,” I said, before pursing my lips. “Unless I stop working, in which case I’d have time to pay attention to more.”

Ashley sighed. “You’re not answering the question, honey. How many would you like? The question isn’t about how many kids you think you’d be able to pay attention to. This is all about what you want, and again, it doesn’t mean you’re going to get it. It just tells them a lot about you. If you say none or if you say a dozen, it says something about your personality.”

“Not a dozen,” I blurted as I typed in that I wanted four kids. “I would have more, but I think four sounds like a good number.”

She nodded. “Four it is.”

Ashley kept guiding me through the questions, reining me in when I started overthinking the answers and then dutifully moving to the other sofa when the time came for me to answer the sexual stuff. Even though she wasn’t reading my answers over my shoulder, I still blushed simply because she knew which questions I was answering right now.

This set was as comprehensive as the rest of the questionnaire had been, and with my very limited experience, I really didn’t know how to answer most of them. What are my preferences? What are my turn-offs? Do I have any kinks? What are they?

Ashley must’ve seen the confusion on my face as I studied them, not knowing what I was supposed to click on. “Look on the right side of the screen. You can answer yes or no to whether you like it or not, but underneath that, there’s a section where you can say whether it’s something you’d be interested in trying or not. You can use those instead of typing out your answers in the boxes provided.”

More heat exploded across my cheeks, but I nodded my thanks and took her suggestions, letting the questions themselves guide me to what I might be open to trying instead of just blurting it all out in a box. The truth was that I didn’t even have enough experience to be able to blurt anything out. If it hadn’t been for the pointed questions about whether I would like to try things like bondage, I never would have known what to say.

When that part was done, I answered a few more questions about the future and then I clicked on submit, seriously relieved that it was over.

Ashley grinned at me. “Okay, so now that they’ve got your questionnaire, they’re going to do their best to match you as soon as they can. It might take a few days, but they’ll send an email once they’ve found a match. You can then choose whether to accept the first date or not.”

My heart flip-flopped in my chest and my skin felt unnaturally sweaty after all that. “Yeah, uh, okay. Thanks for all your help.”

“No problem. I’d like to talk you off the ledge I know you’re on right now, but Chase will be waiting and it’s already getting late. I should get going, but Shelby?”

I kept staring at the banner on the screen that said Thank you, your answers have been successfully submitted. “Yeah?”

“You didn’t make a mistake,” she said firmly as she got up and gathered her things. “Don’t freak out, okay? What you just did is a good thing, whether your mother understands it or not.”

I dragged in a deep breath before I got up to walk her to the door. “We’ll see, but thanks again for coming over and for your help. I really appreciate it.”

“You got it.” She hugged me tight and left, and as soon as I locked the door behind her, I raced back to my laptop to see if there was any way to undo the submission of the questionnaire.