Smart Match

SMART MATCH AURELIA MCKAY Copyright © 2023 by Aurelia McKay All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Epilogue About the Author Also by Aurelia McKay CHAPTER 1 WEEK 1 Jessica Lin had long believed that technology was out to ruin her. If a device could malfunction in such a way to screw her over, it did. This morning was no different. A knock on her bedroom door startled her awake and she rolled over, covering her head with a pillow. “You can skip your sweet tea, Henry. We’re not going to be late,” she groused at the handsome man who’d done the knocking. Her southern accent came out hard in the mornings. “I got my tea and came back already,” Henry said, his gravelly morning voice giving her butterflies. This time of day, she got to hear his sweet Virginian accent. For their work in sales, they’d been trained to suppress it, switching instead to the company-approved generic midwestern speak. “I don’t know how many times you hit the snooze button, but if you’re not ready in three minutes, I’m driving in without you.” Peeling her eyes open, she glanced at her nightstand, only to find her old-style, brown-paneled alarm clock missing from its spot on the table. Gathering her blankets, she scooted to the edge of the bed and picked it up off the floor. 6:32. “Shit,” she whispered, slamming it on the table. Hopping from the bed, she picked through the pile of clothes on the floor, pulling her navy dress from the stack. Her chunky tabby cat, Niblet, hopped onto the bed, curling onto the warm spot she’d left on the pillow. “There are clean ones in your closet,” Henry said, holding out a green dress on a coat hanger that had the exact same cotton-spandex fabric and basic square neckline that mostly concealed her cleavage. She stripped and redressed without thinking—she and Henry had been friends with benefits a few years back, so it was nothing he hadn’t seen before. This happened often enough that her purse had a toothbrush and a power bar already packed. A quick finger comb through her wavy brown-black hair, and she was ready to go. Henry looked sharp as a tack in his tailored black slacks and white button-down. His neatly-trimmed, chin-length red hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, and he’d taken out his gold stud earrings. The gender-blind company dress code didn’t require it, but he claimed it was more comfortable wearing the headsets without earrings. Also, management adored him and he had an image to maintain. “Something’s wrong with that alarm clock,” Jessica groused as they trotted down two flights of stairs to the underground garage where Henry paid for a spot. Their apartment complex had both a surface lot and a garage, and after getting a bonus for being top salesman last year, Henry had treated himself to the upgrade. Jessica, as the bottom sales associate, didn’t qualify for a penny of the bonus pool. “Maybe because that clock is older than your parents,” Henry teased, using a key fob to unlock the car doors. “You know, your cell phone, old as it is, does have an alarm feature. Dare to open the built-in apps.” “Yes, it is my dream to usher in the end of privacy and the beginning of the robot apocalypse,” Jessica said sarcastically. Jessica had lost interest in her phone sophomore year of college when her Instagram was hacked. “Your avoidance of the modern alarm will not stop the apocalypse. We can’t be stopped now,” he said, shifting his voice to a mechanical robot impression that made her laugh. “Just promise me you won’t get one of those self-driving cars,” she smirked, leaning against the window as they pulled into traffic. Carpooling had cut her stress level in half and made the time in rush hour traffic more bearable. “Can you imagine if neither of us had to drive to work?” Henry mused. “I imagine dying in a fiery crash.” Henry rolled his eyes and shook his head, and she realized that she should have been dreaming with him—expanding the fantasy of their future of self-driving cars serving their robot overlords, not shutting down every attempt at conversation with her pessimistic hatred of technology. She much preferred when their conversations steered to fantasy futures where everyone had a pet unicorn and used cookies as currency. “I blame your parents,” he sighed. Jessica grimaced. Her parents had met in a chat room in the early nineties, back in the text-based days, when no one suspected the stranger on the other side might be a predator or serial killer. Somehow, their instant long-distance connection and enduring marriage had solidified their belief in the unrelenting evils of technology, chat rooms, and online dating. When Jessica was sixteen, they’d fought about whether she could have her own cell phone. The college Instagram hack had confirmed their fears and added to hers, especially when a thirty-year-old man hunted her down, thinking they’d been dating online for two years. She loved taking pictures, but she didn’t share them now. Her stomach growled, and she dug into her bag, searching for the power bar, cursing when she couldn’t find it. She must have eaten it the last time she’d overslept. It’d be two hours before she’d have a break, and a chance to go to the vending machines. Pressing on, she found some mascara and lip gloss, and worked to hide that