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“Let me give you a very quick rundown of the process. Again, all of this is in that folder as well. To start, we run a background check on all our clients and singles. Once we have a clear check, we move forward with the intake interview. I’ll go through several questions with you. You’ll take a couple of personality tests.” I point to the tablet on the table before me, and his eyes follow.
“After the interview, my team will build a very in-depth profile for you based on what we do today and then you come in for a meet and greet with your personal team. On your team, you’ll have Ruth, your matchmaker, a client coordinator, as well as a recruiter. Each person plays an important part of the process. At the meet and greet with the team, we make sure we have all the info we need to get started as well as provide a plan or any dates we need you for scheduling reasons. We try to have events every couple of months, so if we feel like you would benefit from attending, you’ll get those dates. After you meet with your team, we set up a Wingman Date. At that, you will go on a mock date with a HEA employee and she will grade you on your dating skills. This will be something you will go through with your coordinator after in order to make sure you have the best opportunity for success on the dates we set you up on.”
Broken from my spell, Cole snorts.
“I’m sorry, is something funny?” I ask, annoyed. Serious time is clearly over.
“I’m great on dates. Never had any complaints, love.” He smirks.
I roll my eyes at the term of endearment. “Doesn’t matter. We have to know what we are dealing with before we set up dates.”
“Well, prepare to be stunned.” He’s so full of himself.
“Anyway, at that point, if we start the matching process, we start with our singles database. If there is a client or single that Ruth feels strongly about you meeting, she will have a date set up. Sometimes, we aren’t so sure based on what we know digitally, so we set up a mixer. Here we hand-select a group of clients, maybe singles from our database to attend. Here we will make sure you get one-on-one time with the singles we suspect might make good matches. We go from there. Any questions so far?” I stop and ask. Normally, I’m much more kind and offer the client to ask questions more often, but Cole is getting special treatment. He’s not getting kind Layla.
“So many, but please, continue.” He crosses his arm over his chest, rests his other arm on his wrist, and rubs his jaw.
“Very well. If we believe you make a good match with someone, we set up a date. We expect three Happily Ever After sanctioned dates before you are allowed to set up your own dates. We do request that you only communicate with the date via the HEA app. We do not monitor communication, but if there were to ever be an issue that comes up, that data could be pulled.”
“You’ve thought of it all, Layla. I’m so fucking impressed right now.” His words are genuine, but I don’t need his compliments. However, the pride in his tone warms my chilly attitude. Just a tad.
“Thank you. That’s really about it on the process. It’s very long and complicated on our side, but we want it to be as simple and easy on your end.” I reward him with a small smile.
“How long does this whole process take then?” he asks thoughtfully.
“With our VIP clients, we start with a year. Sometimes it doesn’t take that long. Sometimes it takes longer. We reassess at the one-year mark if we have not yet matched a client.”
“Damn. That’s a long commitment,” he mutters.
My eyebrow rises. “You’re not against commitment, are you?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “If it weren’t, it probably wouldn’t be a good thing, huh?”
“Not at all. Do I need to worry about this?” I ask because this man never screamed commitment.
“Nah. I wouldn’t be here if commitment scared me.” He smirks. “Are you into commitments?” he asks.
“This isn’t about me.” I blow off his question.
“Yeah, you wouldn’t be killing it as the go-to matchmaker in the state if you weren’t into commitments. So I guess the smarter question here is, are you in a commitment now?” His grin is easy, but this isn’t a personal engagement. This is work, and I don’t talk about my personal life with clients.
“That’s not important to the task at hand. Moving on, I’m going to go through a quick set of questions and then I’ll get you started on the personality tests.” I flip through a few pages on my on-boarding kit and he chuckles.
“Oh, I think it’s very important that I know if my matchmaker is in a committed relationship or not.”
Huffing out a breath, I stop and look at him. “And why’s that, Cole?” I don’t have much more patience.
“Well, if you’re in a committed relationship, it would make me feel more confident in your ability to match me to my soul mate. If you’re not, well, that would raise some red flags, wouldn’t it?”
“One, whether I’m in a relationship or not does not reflect how well I do my job. Two, I’m not your matchmaker. Ruth is. I would have never taken you on as a client.” I level him with a stare.
He gasps. “That hurts.” And that stupid grin plays on the tips of his lips.
“You’re being a pain in my ass, Cole,” I murmur on a sigh.
“I know, but you’re not making it easy here, Lays.” He leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “Look. I told you last week I wanted to catch up. And I never heard from you. But now I’ve got you here, all to myself, and I want to know all the things.”
“This isn’t the time or place for us to talk about me.”
