The Matchmaker's Playbook (Wingmen Inc., #1)(10)

I scrolled through the names after Shell. “What’s the story on her?”

“Avery Adams.” Lex let out a dark chuckle. “Oh, she’s a fun one.”

“Fun as in, I’ll actually have fun, or I may want to end my life after spending a week with her?”

“The second, I think.” Lex nodded, furiously tapping on his phone, then pulled up a full profile with her age, height, major, favorite foods, hobbies, dreams, dress size, and coffee drinks she liked. Let’s just say our intake form was extensive. It typically took each client a few hours to fill out. “She’s in love with her study partner.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“He’s a chem major, a year younger than her.”

My eyebrows shot up in interest. It was usually the opposite—the guy was older. Younger was a fun change.

“And he’s more interested in ring strain in cyclopropane and cyclobutane, which is exactly what he’s helping her with right now. She keeps pretending not to understand.”

“Well, I’d have to pretend to understand. What the hell is a ring strain?”

“Business majors,” Lex huffed.

“Science nerds,” I countered.

“So she’s failed three times, he’s starting to think she’s stupid, which she isn’t, and it’s clearly affecting her chances at settling down with him.”

“Settling down.” I let the two words roll around in my head a bit. “So this isn’t a quick trip to Bangtown. She wants—”

“Babies.” Lex shivered while I made a face of disgust.

“Great.” For her. “Does anything in his background give us an idea of how open he’d be to commitment?”

“Parents have been married for twenty-five years. Basically, from what I’ve seen, he’s just shy and awkward. And the girl’s kinda cute if you take off her glasses. My guess: he’s intimidated. I put both of their info into my program, and it’s a perfect match.” He scrolled to the bottom of the page. “If they can successfully get past the first date, my data says they have a ninety-eight percent chance of staying together and”—he grunted the next word—“committed.”

“She does know how to kiss?” I took a slow sip of coffee, and it burned down my throat. Not much worse in life than teaching a girl how to kiss. Awkward, time-consuming, and—I shuddered—most of the time they did this weird tongue thing that made my mouth feel like it was being held hostage by an alien.

“Passed that test with flying colors, though she seems to be confused on what her tongue’s supposed to do once the kiss deepens. I gave her an A for effort, C-plus for execution.”

I supposed I could work with that. “Body?”

“All women’s bodies are beautiful.”

And people called us jackasses.

At least we knew that all women had something to offer, regardless of how oddly shaped the package might be. There was always something. Always.

“And?” I prodded further.

“She’s a bit on the short side. So is Romeo.”

“Sexual experience?”

“She’s had two partners and marked both down as bad.”

“That may be a problem if he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“We can always make sure to give him a few pointers or conveniently have a conversation while he’s grabbing his daily coffee about how to please a woman. If he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’ll stay and listen. If he does, he’ll walk off smirking.”

We both nodded.

I squinted as the sun started pushing through the clouds. “She’ll be easy then.”

“Yeah.” Lex scrolled through the next client. “This one actually just popped up on the site this morning, but since your schedule is kinda full, I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to let her apply.”

“Do it.” I didn’t even look at the screen. “I have some time.”

“But—”

“I need to go.” I stood, stretching my arms and my coffee above my head. “Shell has an early class with Douchepants, and I’m supposed to walk her to it while carrying her books, then kiss her on the forehead.”

“Tale as old as time, my friend.” Lex let out a halfhearted laugh. “It’s not the tongue kissing that gets the guy to notice.”

“Nope.” I fist-bumped him and started walking off. “It’s the gentle kiss.”

“It’s always the gentle kiss,” Lex yelled after me.

I had a sneaking suspicion that once we graduated and this shit went viral, Facebook was going to try and buy us out for a billion dollars.





CHAPTER SIX

The UW campus was buzzing with excitement. Students shuffled past one another as the wet morning mist hung in the air. Just another reason I loved Seattle—the weather was crisp, full of promises.

Shell gripped one of my hands as we stopped in front of one of the business buildings. I used my free hand to wave at Gabi as we passed by. Her eyes locked on mine. It was times like these that I was convinced I could read women’s thoughts just by staring at them—and I was the only lucky bastard who could do it.

See? Superhero.