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As I mentally reviewed the events from my apartment couch, my phone buzzed with a call from a number that had tried to call me several times over the last few days. Might as well figure out what they wanted so they’d leave me alone. “Hello?”
“Hi, this is Luke Westover from Connect. Is this Adam Donaldson?”
“Yes,” I confirmed, heart rate starting to elevate. Maybe that fall had been worse than Jenna thought, and I was one of her emergency contacts with Connect, and Luke was calling to tell me to get to the hospital.
I paused mid-doom spiral. Connect would have no reason to know if Jenna was injured, and I certainly wouldn’t be on any emergency contact list. I slumped back against the couch.
“Glad I could finally reach you!” Luke’s tone held no reprimand for how difficult I’d been to get in touch with. “I wanted to discuss your experience with beta testing the app. Are you at home?”
“Yes. Sorry I never got around to filling out the survey you sent.” They’d emailed a few times, but I’d never summoned the energy to follow through.
“No worries! Actually, would it be okay if I stopped by to interview you in person? I’m not far from the address you gave when you signed up.”
I looked around the room. Pizza boxes and discarded takeout containers bore silent witness to my descent into self-pity. I was a mess, my apartment was a mess, and my life was spiraling out of control. “Well—”
“It won’t take long, I promise.”
Maybe I could clean up. “What time did you want to come by?”
“Is now okay?” There was a nervous tinge to his second laugh. “I’m actually in front of your building.”
I should just get it over with. “That’s fine, I guess.”
“Great. See you in a minute!”
I tried to cram some of the food containers into my trash can, but it was already compacted. Before I could get a new trash bag out, I heard a knock on the door.
“Nice to see you again, Adam.” My visitor offered a hand.
I didn’t recognize the blond man with an affable smile, but I let him in anyway. “Have a seat.” I waved a hand toward the couch. “Would you like a glass of water?”
Luke eyed the messy room and then looked back at me with an obviously forced smile. “I’m good, thanks. You, uh, into plants?” He pointed to the desiccated snake plant, now slumped over a its pot like an octopus corpse. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of Jenna’s gift, even if I had had the energy.
“I don’t really have a green thumb, as you can probably tell.” My plant caregiving skills were clearly on par with my boyfriend abilities.
He gave a courtesy laugh, then withdrew a laptop from a backpack branded with the Connect logo. “Let’s get this out of the way so you can get back to...” He glanced around the apartment again, flailing for a way to finish the sentence. “...Uh, your life. So, what are your thoughts on the initial matching quiz?”
“It was...” It was my turn to hesitate. The questions were inane and unscientific, but the quiz had led me to Jenna. “Adequate.”
He dutifully typed my answer into his computer. “Wonderful. What about the matching process? Did you find the activities meaningful?”
I’d found them trite, but they hadn’t impeded Jenna and me from getting close. “They were also adequate.”
Luke nodded thoughtfully. “And the meetup?”
I recalled the moment I’d realized Jenna was my match and my relief we might have something to talk about since she was a fellow health professional. How pretty she’d been sitting there in a blue dress, hair down around her shoulders. “That part was good.”
He smiled widely, as if my mild praise was a glowing review. “That’s great to hear. Did you feel like your match was a good fit?”
I sighed, thinking of how she’d fit perfectly in my arms when we had watched the fireworks that last night of the cruise. “Yeah.”
“I see you released your contact information to each other. Did you end up seeing your match again?”
I paused a moment, wondering how much to reveal. Knowing Jenna and I had vacationed would probably be valuable data for Davis, and Davis wasn’t in contact with Jenna’s coworkers. “We went on a cruise together.”
“How wonderful! You must have really hit it off.” His smile grew brighter. “Would you and your match be open to filming a little promo about your experience?”
“We aren’t in contact anymore, actually. Well, not as friends,” I corrected myself. “We’re coworkers, of a sort. She’s a nurse at the hospital I work at.” The next part was something that Connect needed to hear about. “She was upset when she found out I was her match because she doesn’t date coworkers.”
