Matchpoint Read Free Page B

focus. They’re sitting at a nice Italian restaurant with low lighting and soft music, and the potential love of their life right in front of them, but they’re looking all over the place. They’re looking at this waitress and that hostess, the other man’s wife at the next table, even the grandma who walks by on her way to the bathroom. They’re looking everyplace except where they should be looking. So, before a man takes that match you worked so hard on for their first date, make him understand his priorities. If necessary, slap him against the head to settle his eyeballs in his sockets so they don’t roll around where they’re not supposed to. Tell him to focus on what’s important. Focus on the here and now. Focus on the what is, not the maybe, almost, and could be
.
    Lesson 29,
    Matchmaking Advice from Your Grandma Zelda
    HE PULLED me so hard, my teeth rattled. I gathered air in my lungs to scream, but he stopped me, putting his hand over my mouth. He had me pinned against thewall of the building, and his body leaned into me. That’s when I realized who he was.
    “What the hell, Spencer, you scared the pants off me,” I said, pushing away his hand. Spencer Bolton was the Cannes police chief and an unapologetic man-whore. He also made my body temperature rise to a nice rolling boil, but I didn’t want him to know that. He was almost as new to the town as I, and we had run into each other last month when I stepped on his toes in the legal department.
    He was tall and muscular, with dark blue eyes that could see right through a woman’s Walmart skirt to her pink underpants. His thick, wavy dark hair was silky. I knew because I touched it once and I didn’t want to let go. He was a metrosexual in the best sense of the word, and he usually had a supermodel attached to his body at some level—an arm, a leg, something.
    He was infuriating.
    “Pinkie, don’t tease me, talking about your pants.” He ran his fingers through my hair. “What the hell is this? I barely recognized you.”
    “It’s the Ecuadoran Erect. It cost me a month’s salary. You don’t like it?”
    “Since when do you get a salary?” He slid his hand down my smooth hair. “It’s nice, but—”
    “What do you mean, since when do I get a salary?” He was right. I didn’t get a salary. Grandma said she would cover my expenses, but I wanted to pull my own weight and live off the matches I brought in. So far, those matches had bought me generic deodorant and Ecuadoran Erect. Warren Buffett, I wasn’t.
    Spencer had me pinned against the wall, and he was looking over his shoulder every couple of seconds. “What’s going on, Spencer?” I asked. “Do you mind unlocking your hips from mine?”
    “Oh, yeah, sure,” he said, and took a step back. Itwas unusual behavior, to say the least. Spencer would have normally taken a lot longer to unlock his hips. “Listen, can you do me a favor, Pinkie?”
    “You want
me
to do you a favor?”
    “I need a place to stay. Just for a little while.”
    “I don’t have time for your pickup lines, Spencer. I have cavities. Real ones. Ones that need a drill.”
    Spencer looked around and ducked next to me, flattening his body against the building. “Sorry about your teeth, Pinkie. But I need to stay at your place. I’ll take the couch. A couple nights, tops.” He gave another look around. “Just until things blow over.”
    “Blow over?” I asked, but the door to Bliss Dental opened, and a woman came out. When I looked back over at Spencer, he was gone.
    Like Batman.
    I NEEDED coffee. I also needed a margarita, but I was going to start with coffee. I drove back to the historic district. Tea Time had the best coffee in town, despite its name and despite its crotchety old owner, Ruth Fletcher, an eighty-five-year-old woman who despised coffee drinkers.
    I circled the block three times before I found a parking space. I had never seen so many cars on Main Street. I figured there must be some kind