Page 1 of Mr. Match

Chapter One - OLIVER

From my top-floor office in the old bank building in downtown Fort Collins I can see my whole world. For real. My whole world is on display down below.

My father’s shop, Shrike Bikes, sits kitty-corner to my building, about half a block up on the opposite side of College Avenue. The Fort Collins Theater, which my cousin Sparrow is running right now, since her mom and dad are in the Bahamas, is across Jefferson Street. So close I can see the plants hanging in her office window on the third floor. And Sick Boyz, Inc., my mother’s family’s tattoo shop, is down College Avenue the opposite way.

Right now I can see ten family members as I look out my office window. My mom, my sister Jasmine, my Uncle Vic, my Uncle Vinn, and my Uncle Vonn are all standing out in front of Sick Boyz, looking up at the sign like it’s the Virgin Mary crying or something.

My mom is saying she wants it painted before this weekend. I know this like I know my own heart. She’s been talking about painting that sign for weeks.

My uncles are saying, Who the fuck cares about the sign? Not them. This whole sign-painting thing has been a regular fight since I was a kid.

Usually when my Uncle Vic is involved in some kind of argument, I put my money on him. But if he’s in an argument with my mother…

Down the road she turns away from her brothers and my sister, smiling.

She wins. The sign will be painted.

On the other side of my building, my father is standing in the parking lot of Shrike Bikes yelling. His face is red and his arms are waving around like he’s a madman.

Ford Aston, who is an uncle in his own way, is ignoring him. In fact, he’s looking at me, looking at him.

I wave.

He waves back.

My father turns, arms still flailing around like he’s about to lose his shit, sees me watching, then—even though he’s not really close enough for me to see—rolls his eyes. I can tell by the way his head moves. Which means he’s rolling his eyes at Ford.

Who knows what they’re arguing about. Probably something to do with the Zombie Run this weekend. That’s why my mom wants the sign painted.

The Zombie Run happens every year on Halloween weekend. Between three and five thousand bikers will ride through downtown on Friday as they make their way up to Poudre Park for ZombieFest, and every year about a hundred of them stop for a tattoo over the weekend.

Shrike Bikes will have a little swap meet to take advantage. My dad will sell merchandise, a few dozen leather jackets, and if he’s lucky he’ll get three or four custom bike orders. That’s no small thing since his bikes still go for more than a hundred grand each these days.

My sister Belle has a clipboard in her hand as she walks around the bikes on display in the parking lot. She’s the serious one. A real numbers girl. She and Ford get along well.

And across Jefferson, Sparrow is outside on the side of the building facing me, tacking up the ZombieFest Halloween Week Haunted House schedule—sponsored by ZombieDust beer—in the glass-encased bulletin board which overlays the new ZombieDust mural covering the old brick facade

I guess that’s only nine family members down there. But then there’s Ariel, standing behind me, yelling, as she tends to do, and generally throwing a fit about the perverts who are trying to take over Hook-Me-Up, our co-owned dating site.

“I said,” I say, sighing, “I’d take care of it.”

“Yeah, but you said that two weeks ago. We have about two hundred more on the list for review.”

“Yeah,” I mimic, “because two weeks ago I was killing people in the secret tunnel underneath Nolan Delaney’s five-star resort in Borrego Springs.” I turn around to face her. Take her in. She looks a lot like my mom, except her hair is more strawberry than blonde. But she acts like my dad. Loud, tough, funny but dead-ass serious at the same time. “And I spent two days in jail while all that shit was sorted out.”

“I know that, baby brother. I was there.”

I roll my eyes.

“But everything is cleared up now. So we need to clean this shit up.” She throws a folder down on my desk. It’s large and heavy, so it makes a thump sound. “I have so many other things to do, Oliver. I don’t have—”

“I said I’d take care of it.” I give her the sneer. Narrow eyes, one corner of my top lip slightly lifted, like I’m baring my teeth.

“Stop it,” she snaps. “You look like Billy Idol when you do that. I can’t take you seriously.”

“‘In the midnight hour,’” I sing, walking over to her, my boots thudding on the vintage hardwood floors.

“Don’t,” she says, trying not to smile.