“Still on a quest for your husband-to-be?”

  She stops and turns to look at me. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “How’s that going? I never asked. You left the bar last week on a hunt for marriage.” I glance at her bare ring finger. “Looks like you’re still hunting.”

  “Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t.” She gives me a half-smile. “I’ve secured assistance.”

  “Really? In what form?”

  She starts walking again and I fall into step beside her.

  “If you must know, I’ve recruited experts to help me.”

  “Like a dating service?”

  “Nope,” she said. “You’re not listening. I don’t date anymore. In fact, I’m antidating.”

  “Okay,” I say, giving our tickets to the usher, who returns them along with two playbills. I don’t need to look at the cover. I helped Sammy design them. “A matchmaking service?”

  “Mm-hm,” she hums. “Let’s go with that.”

  “They’re going to find you a husband, huh?”

  “With luck,” she says, looking up at me. “Where are we sitting?”

  I’ve stopped just inside the theater. I hate everything about her dumb plan, and I especially hate the way she’s making something utterly insane sound so normal.

  I look down at the tickets in my hand. “G5 and G7.”

  “Over there. Come on.”

  I’m feeling pretty miserable as I follow her to our seats. What if the “experts” find her a psychopathic ax murderer? Or worse, what if they find her the man of her dreams? My eyes slip to her rounded ass encased in denim. It’s lush and womanly, and I itch to grab it, to pull her up against me and grind my hard cock into her—

  “Here we are,” she says. “Do you want five or seven?”

  I’m so grumpy, I couldn’t care less. “Whatever.”

  She shrugs, heading into the row. “Fine. I’ll take seven. You know? You’re pretty moody lately.”

  I plop down beside her. “Is that right?”

  “Yes, that is right,” she says, thumbing through her program. “You’re almost crotchety.”

  “Cantankerous?”

  “Sullen.”

  “Querulous?”

  “Irritable.”

  “Crabby?”

  “Downright grouchy,” she says, looking up at me and grinning the sweetest smile. My heart clenches.

  I’m smiling back at her. I know it. Damn it.

  Just friends, I remind myself, turning away, even though it aches to stop looking at her.

  “My ex-girlfriend, Sammy, wrote this play,” I say.

  “Your ex, huh?”

  “We went to NYU together. Dated for a couple of months after college.”

  “Except you told me on Friday that she’s your roommate. Rooming with an ex has to be…complicated.”

  “It’s not. We’re really good friends. She and her boyfriend, Max, have one bedroom. I share mine with my buddy, Mike. Jenna’s on the couch.”

  “Jenna?”

  “Actress. Mike plays the trumpet, Max is into lighting design, and Sammy and I are playwrights. We all share a shoebox in Hell’s Kitchen.”

  “It sounds chic and desperate,” she says, “all you artists living together in squalor.”

  “No charge for the squalor.”

  “Like something out of La Bohème.”

  “Or Rent,” I say.

  She nods at me with that sweet grin. “As I said.”

  …which means she knows that Rent is a reboot of La Bohème, which I find so fucking sexy I have to cover my crotch with my playbill, so she doesn’t see my pants tenting.

  Fuck, but this sucks.

  She’s fresh-faced and gorgeous, knows her plays, musicals, and—apparently—operas, can bandy words with ease, is a loyal friend to Dina, a great tipper to me, and lately, she makes my heart flip-flop like I’m a teenager again.

  As the lights go down and she shifts in her seat beside me, I’m barely aware of the Capulets and Montagues slinging insults on stage. All I can think about is the fact that Courtney Jane Salinger is going to find a husband sooner rather than later, and there’s simply no way that lucky guy can be me.

  CHAPTER 5

  Courtney

  All things considered, it was a good show.

  I liked it.

  I liked the way Juliet’s sensibilities were written into Romeo’s character and Romeo’s plotline was given to his ladylove. You’d think it wouldn’t work, but by and large, it did. And the ending was depressing as hell, just as it should be.

  Speaking of depressing, Josh tossing me into the friendzone the second I arrived at the theater rated high on a scale from one to Depressing. Not that I should be surprised. I know what I look like: I’m a solid and confident 7, but Josh is an 11.

  Not that it matters. Because I really don’t want to date Josh. That’s not my plan. I don’t want to date anyone anymore.

  I guess I never expected him to ask me out, and when he did, I gave myself permission to see him in a new way. I gave myself permission to be attracted to him. And I guess I just didn’t expect to feel this much chemistry with him. One-sided chemistry, because he couldn’t have made it more clear that he’s not interested in dating me. I don’t know. Maybe I’m a little embarrassed. Or maybe I liked feeling attractive to someone as insanely hot as Josh. Or maybe, for a millisecond, I envisioned dating him, and, just for that millisecond, I liked the way it looked.

  But whatever.

  It’s for the best, I tell myself. You’ve got a whole new life around the corner, and it doesn’t include Josh.

  I smile at the doorman as I step outside the theater.

  After the show, Josh said he needed to go backstage to congratulate his “friend,” Sammy, and I said I’d wait for him outside. Now that I’m standing here alone, though, I’m feeling silly and borderline pathetic. He probably wants to hang out with his friends, right? Celebrate the fact that one of them just staged a production at Lincoln Center?

  Taking a deep breath, I push away from the cement column behind me and start walking toward the iconic Josie Robertson Plaza with its gorgeous fountain. A musician from Juilliard has pushed a grand piano into the plaza, and he’s playing a plaintive melody that perfectly echoes my mood.

  Pausing, I dig through my purse for a coin to throw into the fountain, but when I close my eyes to make a wish, my mind goes blank. A light breeze, more summer than spring, blows my hair against my cheek, and I feel my eyes well with tears behind my lids. There is no city more completely alive than New York City, and yet I’m standing here alone. How I wish I had someone to share it with.

  I open my eyes and let the coin roll into the fountain.

  As the music swells to a dramatic crescendo, I hear a husky voice close to my ear.

  “What did you wish for?”

  “I…” I turn around to find a smiling Josh standing close to me. Even with my heels on, he’s several inches taller than I am, and I have to tilt my head back a little to look into his eyes. “If I tell, it won’t come true.”

  “Hey.” His eyes scan my face and his eyebrows furrow. “You’re sad.”

  I lift my chin. “I’m fine.”

  “What happened?”

  I’m not about to tell him—this man who has zero romantic interest in me whatsoever—that I long for a someone so desperately that sometimes it makes me want to cry.

  “Romeo and Juliet isn’t exactly cheerful,” I say, because it’s easier and self-preserving.

  “Nor is Rachmaninoff,” he says, scowling at the pianist.

  “Is that what this is?”

  He nods. “It’s called Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.”

  “It’s pretty.”

  “But melancholy.”

  He sits down on the wall of the fountain, and I sit down beside him, watching as a small crowd of people claps for the pianist, who launches into another classical piece I don’t recognize.

  “You didn’t have to leave your friends,” I say. “I was going to slip away.”

  “Why? You said you’d wait for me.”

  “You should go back,” I say, but he doesn’t. He stays where he is, sitting beside me as another warm breeze makes my hair tickle my cheek. But this time, my eyes don’t well with tears.

  “What did you think?” he asks. “Of the play?”

  “Good.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “But not great.”

  “Solidly good,” I insist.

  He nudges me with his elbow. “But not great.”

  “But not great,” I agree.

  “I have been watching her workshop this idea for five years. Maybe longer. And I know that as a concept, it’s good. ‘Flip Romeo and Juliet on its ear with a gender swap!’ It’s easy to market, easy to sell, and yet…” He huffs out a frustrated breath. “Yet, it’s not going anywhere, and it’s not going to. It’s just not…quite…good…enough.”

  His voice is rough and filled with discouragement. I want to comfort him, but I’m not sure what to say.

  He sighs. “You could write a play that was in the top half percent of all the plays written in the whole world—in the whole span of artistic mankind—but if it’s not in the top point two percent, it won’t go anywhere.”

  “Point two percent can change the world,” I say.

  “Unfortunately,” he mutters.

  “Tell that to the paraplegic who has a point two percent chance of walking again.”

  Silence settles between us while the pianist continues playing.

  Finally, I ask, “Do you know what I do? For a living?”

  “You work at a brokerage firm, right?”

  “At a hedge fund. I work in quantitative analytics.”

  “You’re literally speaking Greek to me. I have no idea what any of that means. Hedge funds make me think of shrubbery.”

  I grin at that. “I predict outcomes that investors use in their decision-making.”

  “Are you usually right?”

  I nod. “I have a brain for numbers. Statistics. Probability. Always have.”

  “So, cut to the chase. What does that have to do with Sammy’s play?”

  I cross my arms over my chest and shake my head. “It’s a no-go.”

  “Fuck,” he mutters. “I mean, I knew that. I know that. I just…”

  “You want your ex-girlfriend to succeed.”

  He turns and looks at me. I can feel the heat of his eyes, though I don’t meet them. Finally, he exhales the breath he’s been holding, and it sounds frustrated.

  “She’s just my friend. I don’t even know why I told you we dated. It was a hundred years ago. It’s irrelevant.”

  “Tell me about your play,” I say to change the subject. Whoever she is to Josh, it doesn’t feel good to hear about her.

  “I have two that I’ve been workshopping at the New Dramatists for a couple of years: Miss Gibson Will See You Now and Catching Caufield.”

  “Caufield. Is that a Catcher in the Rye reference?”

  “It is,” he says. “So, I have to ask—”

  “No relation,” I say.

  “You’ve been asked that all your life, haven’t you?”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, grinning at a mother and daughter dressed in their Sunday best and taking a selfie by the fountain.

  “You’re sure he’s not a long-lost uncle or something?”

  “My father has a sister, but she was adopted.”

  “That settles it then. How about you? Any siblings?”

  “None. There’s just me.”

  “I’m one of three,” he offers, “and my parents are each one of six.”

  “Whoa! Big family,” I say, looking up at him.

  “Small family,” he answers, looking down at me.

  The lights of the fountain are reflected in his eyes, even more now that dusk is falling around us. They look like a universe marked with a million sparkling stars, and I’m lost in them as I keep my eyes locked with his. The pianist launches into a whole new piece of music, and it pierces my soul as he plays.

  “What is this?”

  “Debussy. Clair de Lune.” Josh swallows, his eyes still fixed on mine. “Why didn’t I meet you at a different time?”

  He leans his head closer to mine, and when our foreheads touch, I close my eyes.

  “When?”

  “When I had a hit. When I was successful. When I could…do this.” His hand reaches up to cup my jaw, and I open my eyes to find his, intense and beseeching. “Do you understand? It’s all I’ve worked for. It’s my dream. It’s what I want more than anything else. I have to stay focused. You get that, don’t you?”

  Clair de Lune continues, chords following one after the other, roiling and intense. They somehow echo the wild aching of my heart as my own dreams fill my head:

  I want a house in suburbia with a white picket fence.

  I want babies to buckle into a minivan.

  But most of all, I want a husband.

  I want to be married.

  I want to share all this goodness with someone I love, with someone who loves me back.

  I can barely fill my lungs, but I reach up and cover his hand, gently removing it. “I do, Josh-the-playwright. I understand.”

  I reach for my purse, then hop off the wall, facing him.

  “Thanks for inviting me tonight,” I say.

  His gaze is intense, but inscrutable. “Courtney—”

  “Good night,” I say, turning around and hurrying down the steps to Columbus Avenue, where a line of cabs awaits.

  I don’t look back.

  And Josh lets me go.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, I’m home.

  Shoes off, sweats on, fake fireplace throwing off real heat, and takeout on its way as I open my laptop and check my e-mail.

  As my computer connects to the building’s Wi-Fi, I think about what Josh said:

  Why didn’t I meet you at a different time?

  My heart clutches a little.

  I’d just convinced myself that he wasn’t attracted to me and made peace with it. And now? Now it seems I was wrong. After that moment at the fountain, against all odds, our attraction to each other is undeniable.

  Isn’t it funny how life is sometimes? Funny terrible, not funny ha-ha.

  For the last year or so, I thought Josh was into Dina, and I didn’t allow myself to see him as anything but my Friday evening pal, Josh-the-bartender. And then one night, out of nowhere, clarity is offered, and everything changes: he’s not into Dina, and she’s not into him. The floodgates open. And everything you never knew you were keeping dammed-up bursts forth.

  How long have I been quietly mooning over him? Always? And how long has he been attracted to me?

  I can still remember last May, when I walked into Tidewaters on a Friday night to find a “new guy” behind the bar. Scanning his tall, muscled body and tousled dark hair, I remember thinking he was hot. Like every other girl in the bar, I was attracted to him. But at some point, or over time, I stopped seeing him as eye candy and started looking forward to his friendly smile, to his funny observations, and sometimes, when it was a quiet night, to our long conversations.

  A different time?

  We had a year to see each other but never really did. And now that we have? The timing’s all wrong.

  “I quit. I quit. I quit,” I mutter, remembering everything I hate about dating: one-night stands, booty calls, guys who don’t call back, mixed messages—and now? Bad timing.

  “God, my luck is shit.”

  I click on my e-mail icon and the program opens. When I click on “New Messages,” a subject line immediately catches my eye:

  Subj: YOU’VE BEEN CHOSEN TO BE ARRANGED

  All thoughts of Josh fly out the window, and I lean forward as my heart starts galloping. I click on the e-mail.

  Dear Ms. Salinger:

  Thank you for filling out our application with honesty and care.

  We can tell that you are someone who is earnestly seeking a forever match, and we are excited to find that special someone for you, Courtney Jane Salinger.

  It generally takes four to six weeks for us to match your profile to that of someone in our growing database. Why so long? Because we take every match seriously, and choose each and every ArrangeMeToo.com partnership with discrimination, integrity, and diligence.

  Were we to rush the process of finding your perfect mate, we wouldn’t maintain the 90 percent satisfaction rate we presently hold with our clients.

  While you are waiting for us to contact you with the e-mail address of your future spouse, we encourage you to ready your mind and heart for a married-at-first-sight match. How?

  Nurture an optimistic heart. No endeavor will be successful unless it has 100 percent of your hope, faith and optimism. Open your heart to the person we choose for you, so that you can move forward into your marriage with a positive, can-do attitude.

  Prepare yourself for marriage. When you’re ready (there’s no time like the present!) stop dating. Some of our brides-to-be buy an engagement ring and wear it as a reminder that a new life is imminent. Start thinking of yourself as half of a partnership, and it will make it easier for you once you actually are.

  Place a premium on friendship. Many of our couples find that attraction isn’t instantaneous and must be cultivated. One of the best ways to do this? By becoming friends first. Find out what you have in common and how to align your goals. If a solid and caring friendship develops, love will often follow.

  Be clear about your expectations. Will it bother you if he goes out with male friends every Saturday and leaves you at home? Be up front. Likewise, if you expect him to join you for dinner at your parents’ once a week, tell him how much this means to you. Don’t expect him to figure you out. Meet him halfway.

  Take your time. The most wonderful thing about being married at first sight is that you have the rest of your life together to fall in love. Not initially attracted? No problem. Let love (and attraction!) grow. Learn how to love your partner and teach him how to love you back. To make this happen, patience is key.