“You could just stay, you know. You’re very valuable to the Pole, and you’re always welcome to make this your full-time home.”
“Thank you, but we’d miss our other home and the shop there as well. It’s just…”
I didn’t have to finish. Santa knew what it was just. We needed a mate, but so far, none had appeared. What if she never did? That didn’t bear thinking of. We still had a better life than most we knew, and maybe it was greedy to want everything. Ifit was just about me, I might be less driven, but the look in my friends’ eyes when they saw mated couples and families offered a constant reminder that this wasn’t just about me.
Still, we had a lot to do, and when the boss used the last of the Christmas Magic to send us home, it was nice to see our house and shop were still there and only a little dusty. Of course, there was no fresh food in the house, only some pantry staples, so the first thing we did was head for the market. At the Pole, we usually ate at the employee dining room because training kept us too busy to cook, and then the week after Christmas Eve was one long party with food everywhere.
We were glad, once we landed, to settle in for the more mundane part of the year, and we purchased ingredients for simple, good food we could prepare while gearing up the shop for both our regular customers and a top-secret project for a special one.
And then, as soon as we were settled with bowls of beef stew and freshly baked biscuits, Blitz dropped the bomb. “We’re signing up for a dating app.”
I dropped a biscuit in my stew. “Come again?”
“The Mail-Order Matings app. One of the elves found their mate that way and suggested it might be a good fit for us.” He held up his phone. “See? I downloaded it.”
We spent an hour or so filling it out and answering all the questions because what did we have to lose?
If nothing came of it, we weren’t in any worse situation that we already were.
Chapter Three
Aideen
“Gross,” I said, rolling over the next morning. That was the first word that came to mind. My muscles were sore, even though I’d done nothing to earn it. My mouth was dry. My head pounded so hard, I barely heard the word come out.
This was why I didn’t drink.
I rolled over and checked the time. Oh, right, it was New Year’s Day. Good thing I didn’t have to go to work.
If only I had someone here, who cared about me, to bring me water and painkillers. Stumbling out of bed, I walked to the bathroom, using the wall for support. How many glasses of champagne did I have?
After a long, hot shower where I begged my head to stop hurting, I got dressed in my comfiest sweatshirt and pants, found the painkillers, and downed a whole bottle of water.
My stomach revolted against the water. I needed to eat.
During my shower and while rummaging the fridge, I kept hearing the most annoying beep from my phone. It wasn’t a tone from any app that I knew of, and none of my alarms were on.
I put up with it for exactly three more minutes before I left the eggs sizzling in the pan and went to retrieve my phone and end the torture of that sound.
“What are you doing?” I asked it, pulling the menu down so I could see what in the hell was going on.
Mail-Order Matings? What in the heck was…oh.
The events of the night, though patched and blurry, came flooding back to me. Maria telling me about the app. That was how she found her dragon. Ugh, Tate. Those memories came back as well.
I was sure I’d told my Uber driver all about it.
All of it, in fact.
Barely skimming over the notifications, I hovered my finger over the app to delete it, when I remembered I was still cooking. Shoot! The eggs and bacon turned out perfect, thankfully. I thought about the app while I ate. Yes, I wanted a partner, a husband, a mate but finding one on an app seemed…artificial? Almost detached from reality. Find someone online who you think you might like and then they are a different person when you meet them? This was the reason I’d shunned the idea of getting on the app when Maria told me about it before.
I pulled down the notifications again out of pure curiosity before I deleted the app.
I had a match? Already? I’d only filled out some of the questions, leaving the more intimate ones blank. Maria had taken the picture of me at the party. Red cheeks. Goofy, drunk smile.
But I had to admit, tight as it was, that dress was a hit.
I clicked on the match, needing to know who this app thought was a good fit for me, and as the profile came up, I nearly toppled right off the chair.
