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“I take it the update went well?” I sat at the foot of the conference table. I hated sitting at the head. It felt like I was in charge, which I kind of was, but this was a team effort, and I was under no impression that I had gotten here by myself.
“Are you saying you didn’t look?” A bit of shame made me shudder. I had spent the night lamenting and goofing around with Tilly and hadn’t bothered.
The other thing was that after Jerome, I had kind of deleted the app from my phone.
Probably stupid of me but at the time, I wanted nothing to do with matches and mates any longer.
Which sucked since that was everything I’d worked for.
“I had a late night,” I said, ticking my gaze over to my best friend. “I apologize. I promise to get on it first thing this morning and let you know what I think. I’m sure it’s amazing. No kinks or hiccups?”
Hawke shook his head. He would pick on me about this later, for sure, but would never admonish me in front of the team. “A few hiccups, but we expected some. Don’t know of an update that has ever gone without one tiny hitch.”
I nodded. “That’s good. What else is on the agenda?”
We talked through some new marketing strategies and social media proposals, all of which looked promising, but we would try one at a time. There was some talk about advertising to the older crowd and, of course, that riled up a discussion about age gap couples. We didn’t judge in this office or this company.
We just wanted people happy and in love and mated for life.
Once the meeting was over, the team stayed to celebrate with all the sugary treats, while I took my coffee to my office. Tilly left as well, muttering something about the donuts going right to her hips.
She had nothing to worry about, but I had told her that hundreds of times before.
“I’m going to get that app downloaded again and look at the update. Did you already look at it?”
She followed me into my office but stopped at the doorway, leaning on it while she scrolled through what was probably my schedule on her phone. “I did. It looks great. If you want, you can just look at it on my phone.”
I snorted. She was a good friend, trying to shield me from hurt. “I should probably have it on mine anyway. What if someone caught a look at my phone and I didn’t have my own app on there. That wouldn’t be sus at all.”
“Why do you say ‘sus’? I say suspish. Yours sounds weird.”
I scoffed. “My real crime podcast girl says ‘sus.’ So, I say sus. You’re clearly listening to the wrong one.”
“You’ve got an interview with a reporter in forty-two minutes.”
“Tilly? Online? Like a video?”
She laughed at my shock. “No. On the phone. No need to retouch the lipstick.”
I relaxed in my chair and checked a few emails while the Mail-Order Matings app loaded on my phone. The ping alerted me that the install was complete and it had saved my login information.
Damn, I had the best people working for me. The app had brighter colors and the options were brighter. We now had pictures of happy, mated couples on the front. I grinned, seeing not only the shifters but the newer couples. Some shifters, some monsters, and even Bigfoots. Wow, we had come a long way. I hoped we were exuding an inclusive vibe. We didn’t want anyone to live a life without a mate if they wanted one.
I hopped on the phone with Hawke and praised his and the team’s efforts. He put me on speaker, and I built them up until I was sure their egos were the size of small nations. They deserved it.
“Twenty,” Tilly called from her desk, and the butterflies in my stomach fluttered their wings. I hated these interviews. Everyone said I did well on them, but I spent the entire time in fear that I would say something that would end this good thing we had going.
I was intending to shut down the app and go over my talking points, when I saw the bell at the top right of the screen of the app. It showed a red dot over it. That meant there was something new on my account, which was weird considering I had it deleted.
Matches on the app only lasted ninety days. After that, you could ask for a recalculation, but usually people jumped on those matches. They did join for the purpose of meeting their mate, after all.
When I clicked on the message, my stomach sank. I had a match.
“Tilly?” I yelled and when she came in, her eyes darted to my phone and then me. Now, she was sus, suspish, and suspicious all in one.
“What?” she cooed. Tilly didn’t coo. I’d known her since the eleventh grade. She oozed strength and sarcasm, and I swore scotch and vinegar ran through her veins instead of blood.
“There’s a match on my app. I haven’t even had it downloaded before today. So how…” I looked up to see if my friend had any ideas but instead of looking at me, she was looking at the floor. “What do you know, or should I say, what did you do?”
