Mister Match (The Match Series Book 1) Read Free Page B

mother. He asks me every single week, without fail, whether I have a boyfriend yet.”
    “Is he offering?” Clare cackled at her own joke, then looked thoughtful. “Come to think of it, you could use a sugar daddy. Your car is a bucket of bolts, and your apartment needs a ton of work.”
    “A sugar daddy?” Lisa rolled her eyes. “Come on. Mr. Richmond’s a really nice guy, and he’s married. He actually refers to her as ‘my beloved wife.’”
    It was embarrassing that she actually went a little dreamy at the thought. Lisa shook her head. She might be fierce these days about her independence, but some small part of her still couldn’t help but long for a man to call her his beloved.
    To change the subject, she held up her bottle of massage lotion. “Speaking of Mr. Richmond, who ordered this stuff?”
    Clare squinted tawny eyes up at the bottle. “Willow, maybe? I remember she was saying the other stuff was too slippery. And it was, like, made by meat-eating child laborers, or something.” She smirked. “I think the new stuff is made by vegan child laborers, which is way better.”
    “Yeah, well, it’s also way too thick.” Lisa dropped her voice to add, “It almost gave Mr. Richmond hairballs.”
    As always, the scent of spiced citrus preceded Willow into the room.
    “What did?” she asked as she joined them.
    “This stuff.” Lisa held up the bottle again. “I hear this is your doing.”
    An ethereal smile wreathed Willow’s pale face. “Mmm, isn’t it great? I found out the other lotion was produced by a company that has shares in a slaughter yard out in California.” Her smile disappeared as she shuddered delicately, then looked more closely at Lisa. “Sweetie, you don’t look so hot.”
    “The headaches are getting better. More just twinges lately.” Lots and lots of twinges, but Willow didn’t need to know that.
    “Have you been doing the deep-breathing exercises I told you about?”
    “Yes,” Lisa said, feeling again as if she were facing her mother, this time trying to convince her she wasn’t sick. “As a matter of fact, I just did a mini-breathing session out in the hall.”
    Willow inspected her a second longer with her wide, smoky gray eyes. “Good. Keep it up. Remember what I told you: When you breathe in, imagine clear, white light entering every pore and cell of your body. When you breathe out again, imagine slimy greenish-brown stuff exiting through your pores.”
    She frowned as Lisa and Clare glanced at each other and started to laugh. “What?”
    Lisa nearly snorted. “It’s just that every time you say that, I automatically think of—”
    “Diarrhea,” Clare finished for her, bluntly, as usual. “Slimy, greenish-brown diarrhea.”
    Lisa shrugged squeamishly. “I might’ve put it a little differently, but yeah. That.”
    Willow’s smile was gentle and long-suffering. “I suppose that’s not a very relaxing thought.”
    “Not really,” Lisa agreed.
    “Oh, come on, Will, it’s nasty.” Clare leaned forward. “Say it. Di-yuh-ree-uh .”
    Willow laughed, shaking her head. “No! I won’t, you can’t make me!”
    Smiling, Lisa rolled her eyes at the two of them. Their day-and-night personalities and constant ribbing cracked her up all day long, which made it pretty fun to come to work. Sure, she might get sick of Willow and Harry Richmond and everyone else acting like her mother, but at least she knew they were doing it out of caring for her.
    Things could be worse, she reflected. Things could be a lot worse.
    In that moment, she got The Shiver—the feeling she’d had countless times in the past year, a sudden and unexpected sense of gratitude and anticipation that stole over her at random moments. She’d been through a lot of heartache after her breakup with Rodney, and she was still recovering. But in certain moments, she also recognized at a very deep level that he had done her a huge favor by leaving her. She’d dodged a bullet. And she was