“Why not just go to the clubs? Find someone you’re attracted to, and that’s the end of it.”
“Because I won’t know anything about them or if I can trust them. And the last thing I want is to be attracted to a woman who’s playing the part of my girlfriend.”
“Yeah, that’d suck.” Mason laughed. “Being attracted to someone you have to spend months with.” He shivered.
I grabbed the bottle cap from the table and flicked it at his face. “I’m paying them, idiot. A fuckton of money so they keep their mouths shut. I don’t need to be tortured by someone I want to fuck, and I’m not hiring a goddamn prostitute.”
“Might be easier,” Davis said.
“What would be easier?” Cole asked and set down a bucket in the center of the table.
It was filled with ice and more beer than I usually drank in a month, and I only used the metal tin when I had parties. How in the hell he found it in my butler’s pantry in a matter of minutes was anyone’s guess.
Mason lost his hold of his laughter. “Hiring a prostitute.”
Davis chuckled, laughed louder, and soon enough, both men were doubled over laughing their asses off.
At me. I hated being laughed at.
Cole gave me a wide-eyed look and I shook my head. No, I was not hiring a hooker.
“Should have known not to invite the kids to the adult party.”
“Live and learn,” he said and took a seat next to me.
“Noted,” I agreed and drained the rest of my beer. I’d ordered pizza after I got a hold of them, but we’d already demolished the five pies while I was telling them all the bullshit that went down.
“So, if you don’t trust meeting someone at a club, how can we help? I mean, Eden’s made some friends in Marysville. I think Nora and Sarah are both available. They have pretty normal lives. I could talk to them.”
Nora was a vet, and Sarah owned a local dog rescue. Talk about perfect professions for me to be associated with. I’d met them both when I spent time with Cole in the small town he and his new wife lived in. They’d hauled off right after the Super Bowl and been married in the Caribbean with only their families in attendance.
Not a step I ever saw myself taking, ever wanted to, but more power to Eden and him because they were happy and together after years of being apart.
As far as Nora and Sarah? They weren’t right. Not for what I wanted. Not for the time I needed. If I was actually desperate enough to pull something like this off, it needed to be believable.
Besides, when this was over, I would see them again.
“No. Not them, but that’s the problem. I don’t know what Rick expects from me and how in the hell do I find it without potentially hurting someone?”
“I’ve got it,” Davis said, head down in his phone.
Mason leaned over and his black brows rose right before his tan lips curled. “Oh, yes.” He punched Davis in the shoulder. “Perfect. Yo, check this out.”
He grabbed the phone from Davis and handed it to me.
“What the hell is it?” I really hoped it wasn’t porn. We weren’t that close.
Cole leaned toward me, and I tilted the screen so we could both see it at the same time.
Meredith’s Matchmaking. The Most Successful Matchmaker in the Southeast.
“Is this a joke?” Had to be. What woman could claim she was successful at setting people up?
I read the website in between taking turns to scowl at Davis. “You’re joking. I’m not looking for long-term love, you idiot.”
I went to hand the phone back to him, but Mason practically jumped over the table and snagged it first.
“No. Yo, it’s serious. Check this out.” He came around the table and shoved the phone in my face. “She’ll be able to help. Check out her Instagram.”
Two thousand happily married couples and counting…
That was her Instagram bio. As I scrolled, there was picture after picture with the caption of their wedding date and how long they dated before getting married.
All right, so maybe this woman had a good business going for her.
She still wasn’t selling what I needed.
“Could be worth a shot,” Cole muttered and shrugged. “Better than a random at some club, you know? Never know.”
“I don’t want long-term.”
“Maybe whatever you’re offering to pay would help someone change their mind in the short-term. Besides, wouldn’t it help them in the long-term? Connected to you after you break up?”
“We wouldn’t break up because we wouldn’t actually be together.”
Cole sighed. Davis chuckled.
“Fine,” Davis said. “I’m just sayin’, the women who go to this Meredith are looking for something. There has to be something you can give them more than money, maybe the status of dating an athlete would help. And when your business deal comes to its mutual, contractual end…everyone walks away satisfied.”
Mutual, contractual end.
At least he was getting it. That was vastly different from a breakup.
“What do you have to lose?” Cole asked and reached for a fresh beer.
“My dignity?”
“That was gone the moment you agreed to Rick’s asinine deal.”
He had a point there.
It was a week before I could get in for an appointment with Meredith Skyye. In which time, I did a vast amount of research on the woman. The last thing I needed was to be scammed by some con artist. Turned out, Meredith Skyye was legit.
At least, as a person. She was married to Tuevo Skyye, a Finnish hockey player for Tennessee’s professional hockey team, the Avengers, and after making a few phone calls to players on the team I knew, they assured me her business was legit. Not only had Meredith successfully matched two other players on the team, she’d started it as a side gig in college, hooking up her sorority sisters with fraternity guys for formal events and when those couples started dating and gave all the thanks to Meredith, her future was sealed.
Still, I didn’t quite know what to expect when I found her office building, a suite on the third floor of a four-story building near downtown. Based on her pink-flowered, black-glittered website, I expected her suite to be decked out in shades of pink and sprinkle confetti from the ceiling.
Instead, it was all black leather and chrome with clear glass desks. Modern, with abstract art on the walls, there was only one woman in the open reception area.
She peered at me from behind her plastic, red-framed glasses. With her graying hair pulled up in a bun and the age lines around her eyes, the woman looked more like a mother or grandmother than mine had ever looked.
“Hello. May I help you?”
I stepped toward her, and damn if my palms weren’t getting clammier by the second. Professional football player used to breaking tackles by men and shoving others out of the way to help my team score, and I was reduced to a nervous pre-teen all over again.
Fucking Rick.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat and cringed. Dry as the Sahara. “I’m Dawson, Dawson Butler? Here to see—”
“Mr. Butler.”
I spun on my heels at the sound of the new voice and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. You must be Mrs. Skyye?”