The Perfect Match. Kristan Higgins

      “Yeah! Right. No, we’re great friends. Definitely. I think of you as my best friend, really. But, um...” Brogan took a deep breath. “I never really saw us as together per se.” He swallowed and, to his credit, looked at her.

      Calm, calm. “No, you’re right. I just thought, we’re getting to a certain age, and you said you were cutting back on traveling.” She paused. “And neither one of us has ever found someone...permanent. Maybe that says something.”

      Please say you agree. Please realize what a great idea this is.

      He didn’t answer, but his eyes were kind. Horribly so, and that was answer enough. Her heart stuttered, then shriveled like burned paper. To avoid looking at him, she traced the stitching in the comforter. Now that the initial rejection was done, she could keep it together. She was a rational, calm person. Except she might be having a heart attack. She kind of hoped she was.

      Brogan was quiet for a minute. “You know how I think about you, On?” He turned to see her face. “I think of you like an old baseball glove.”

      She blinked. Was he kidding? A sports analogy? Granted, he was full of them, but now?

      He nodded. “Like an old friend, something you turn to when you need it.”

      “A baseball glove.” Could she smother him with the pillow, maybe, or did that only work in the movies? How about panty hose strangulation? Too bad she hadn’t worn any.

      He took her hand and squeezed it, and she let it lie there like a dead fish. “It’s like Jeter once said. Or maybe it was Pujols. Yeah, because this was back when he played in Saint Louis. Wait, was it Joe Maurer? No, because he’s a catcher, so that’d be a mitt. Anyway, whoever it was, he was talking about how when he’s in a slump, or when he doesn’t feel right about an upcoming game, he puts on his old glove. He’s had it for years, right? And when he puts it on, it’s like an old friend, and he knows he’ll have a better day because of it.” He turned to her, tipping her chin up, and she blinked, her eyes feeling like two hot, hard stones. “But you don’t need that glove every day.”

      Surely this was the worst breakup speech in history.

      He winced. “Okay, that was the worst comparison ever,” he said, and she had to laugh then, because it was that or burst into tears. “What I’m trying to say, On, is—”

      “You know what?” she said, and her voice was normal, thank you, God. “Forget it. I don’t know where the idea came from. Maybe it was because your parents saw me naked.”

      He grinned.

      “But you’re right,” she said more firmly. “Why ruin a good thing?”

      “Exactly,” he said. “Because we are a good thing. Don’t you think?”

      “Absolutely. No, no, getting married was just...just a thought. Never mind.”

      He kissed her then, and it nearly tore her heart in half. An old baseball glove? Holy fungus. Yet her head was cupped between his hands, and she was letting him kiss her, like nothing had changed at all.

      “Feel up for round two?” he whispered.

      Are you kidding? You just compared me to an old baseball glove. I’m leaving.

      “Sure,” she said. Because nothing had changed. She was the same old glove she’d always been.

      If she left, he might realize she’d been dead serious, and if he knew that, then she wouldn’t have any pride left. And since her heart had just been poleaxed, pride was suddenly very important.

      * * *

      SHE APPEARED AT Dana’s door an hour later, and the second she knocked, tears made a rare appearance, sliding down her face in hot streaks.

      Dana opened the door, took one look and blinked. An odd expression—half surprise, half something else—came over her face. “Well, I guess I can see how that turned out,” she said after a beat. “I’m sorry, babe.”

      She got a clean pair of pajamas, and Honor changed, then washed her face in the sloppy, comforting bathroom.

      “At least you know where you stand,” Dana said, leaning against the doorway. “I think drinks are called for, don’t you?”

      She made very strong martinis and handed Honor a box of Kleenex. Shark Week, a shared passion of theirs, played in the background. Somehow, it was the perfect backdrop to spill everything.

      “I feel like such an ass,” Honor said when she’d finished recounting the wretched evening. “And the thing is, I didn’t know how much I loved him till it was out there, you know? Does that make sense?”

      “Sure, sure it does.” Dana drained her drink. “Listen, I hate to be insensitive here, but tell me the part about the parents one more time, okay?” she said with a wicked grin, and Honor snorted and complied, making Dana swear she’d never tell anyone, because as a hairdresser, Dana saw everyone, and knew everyone’s business, and was pretty liberal with sharing it.

      “Comparing your vajay-jay to an old baseball glove...that’s going a little far, isn’t it?”

      “It wasn’t my... Never mind. Let’s talk about something else. Oh, look at that guy’s stitches. I’m never swimming again.” She sat back, leaning against her raincoat. Stupid raincoat. Where was the shock and awe now, huh? Wadding it up, she tossed it on the floor.

      “Hey, it’s not the coat’s fault. And that’s Burberry,” Dana said, retrieving it. “But no, I see your point. You hate it now, so I’m going to make the ultimate sacrifice and take it from you. I promise never to wear it in your presence.” She opened a closet, shoved the coat in and slammed the door.

      Dana could be prickly, but she certainly had her moments. “So what now?” she asked as the guy on TV described what it was like to see his severed arm in a great white shark’s teeth.

      Honor swallowed the sharp lump in her throat. “I don’t know. But I guess I can’t sleep with him anymore. I have a little pride, glove or no glove.”

      “Good. It’s high time,” Dana said. “Now sit there and watch this next attack, and I’ll make us another round.”

       CHAPTER ONE

      FOR A GUY who taught mechanical engineering at a fourth-rate college in the middle of nowhere, Tom Barlow was packing them in.

      At the university where he’d last taught, there’d been an actual engineering school, and his students were genuinely interested in the subject matter. Here, though, at tiny Wickham College, four of the original six attendees had stumbled into class, having left registration until too late, only taking mechanical engineering because it still had open slots. Two had seemed genuinely interested, until one, the girl, transferred to Carnegie Mellon.

      But then, by the end of the second week, he suddenly had thirty-six students jammed into the little classroom. Each one of these new students was female, ranging in age from eighteen to possibly fifty-five. Suddenly, an astonishing array of girls and women had decided that mechanical engineering (whatever that was) had become their new passion in life.

      The clothes were a bit of a problem. Tight, trashy, low-cut, low-riding, inappropriate. Tom tended to teach to the wall in the back of the room, not wanting to make eye contact with the hungry gazes of seventy-eight percent of his class.

      He tried not to leave time for questions, as the Barbarian Horde, as he thought of them, tended to be inappropriate. Are you single? How old are you? Where’d you come from? Do you like foreign films/sushi/girls?

      Then again, he needed this job. “Any questions?” he asked. Dozens of hands shot up. “Yes, Mr. Kearns,” he said gratefully to the one student in the class who was there out of interest in the subject.

      According