Forever Love, Inc. - 8/12
8/LUKE
Luke studied the image and profile of the client displayed on his computer screen: Bennett Harrington, 45 years old. Blue-eyed and handsome, his brown hair attractively sprinkled with gray. Associate professor of philosophy at Oakdale University.
A philosophy professor? Come on, Mr. Snyder, can’t you find anyone in this town who actually works for a living?
Luke clicked the program’s navigation button and advanced the screen to the next result: Richard Dangler, 38. Black hair, hazel eyes. County employee, environmental engineer. Left a promising career in private industry for government office, and was currently spearheading local efforts to reclaim land contaminated by industrial waste dumps.
Dick Dangler? That’s not a name, it’s a punchline for a gay porn joke. You can’t honestly expect me to take this guy seriously?
Next: Tony Christopoulos, 42. Dark hair, eyes and skin. Plaintiff’s attorney. Partner in a mid-size law firm specializing in personal injury, workers’ compensation, and medical malpractice claims.
If you’re trying to get rid of me, Mr. Snyder, there are much faster ways than setting me up to commit murder.
Luke braced his elbows on his desk and lowered his head into his hands, trying to rub away the throb of pain that was building behind his eyes. He had always taken a great deal of personal pride in his company’s success rate, the steadily increasing number of couples whose introductions through Forever Love, Inc., had led to lasting, committed, healthy relationships. And while some of those successes had simply found each other through the company’s online matching service, many of the company’s biggest successes had been matched through Luke’s personal recommendations.
What had begun as simply Luke’s attempt to play a more direct role in helping his customers with their searches had morphed into a crucial element of his company’s success, as Luke had quickly discovered in himself a genuine talent for matchmaking. Whether it was an innate ability, or simply the result of years of watching the romantic follies of his Oakdale friends and family, Luke couldn’t say-but he had an almost uncanny knack for sensing the spark of compatibility between two people, seeing possibilities that sometimes even his customers were unable to recognize.
Given the often spectacular results he’d achieved, it was perhaps no surprise that selecting personal recommendations for clients had become Luke’s favorite part of his job. Indeed, sometimes Luke seemed to take a keener interest in his client’s searches than even his clients themselves. He spent nearly every available working hour at his computer, scrolling through customer profiles and personal notes, comparing goals and interests, needs and motivators-listening for the voice in his head whispering of just right and meant to be.
Which was why his inability to find a candidate for Reid Oliver’s next date was both unprecedented and unbelievably frustrating. Luke had spent the past few days since their pretend date reviewing and re-reviewing hundreds of names, and not one had impressed him as a legitimate possibility for his unbelievably demanding client. It was as if the voice in Luke’s head had gone suddenly silent-or, worse, had been infected with Reid Oliver’s needle-witted sarcasm and his cynical outlook on love. Luke knew he was late in presenting Reid with a new prospect, knew that the neurosurgeon was operating under an ever-looming deadline, but the pressure of trying to find the right choice this time was playing absolute hell with Luke’s concentration.
Luke looked back at his computer screen and tried to focus in on his next search result: Perry Wilson, 48. Gray hair, blue eyes. Archaeologist.
A date with a middle-aged archaeologist? The ‘fossilized bone’ jokes just write themselves…
“Dammit!” Luke cursed, closing his profile database with an impatient click of the mouse and leaning back in his chair with a sigh.
Katie poked her head in through Luke’s office door, and her brow furrowed at the pathetic picture Luke must have made. “Hey, what’s the matter?” she asked. “Is your computer acting up again?”
Luke looked over at Katie and shrugged-both a response and an attempt to ease the building tension in his shoulders. “No, it’s fine,” he answered woefully. “I just can’t seem to find a match for one of our platinum clients, and I’m starting to get frustrated.”
Katie’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Wow, I’ve never heard you say that before!” she marveled. “Which one’s giving you so much trouble?”
“Reid Oliver,” Luke answered, pouring all his pent-up aggravation into the syllables of the man’s name.
“The obnoxious neurosurgeon?” the blonde replied, with a snort of mixed amusement and contempt. “There’s your problem, Luke. The guy’s a complete jerk; who in their right mind would want to date him?”
“Oh, but Katie, that’s not true!” Luke protested vehemently. He held his hands up to head off any protests his coworker might have made. “Okay, yes, he’s rude, and… he’s cold, and…” Luke’s smile flashed briefly, “he’s rude. But once you get past all that, there’s just so much more to him.”
Luke turned back to his desk, flipping open the folder containing the profile of his most troublesome platinum client. “He’s brilliant, for one thing,” he continued, “and he’s responsible and caring, and he’s completely devoted to his patients.” He lifted the top sheet from the file and his lips curved in an absent smile as he stared at the tiny passport-style photograph clipped to the paper. “And he’s quirky like you wouldn’t believe, and he’s got no sense of restraint at all when it comes to junk food… but he can be really funny and sweet and awkward when he’s trying not to be a jerk. And when he says something actually nice to you, well…” Luke’s voice softened, “you know he really means it, because he doesn’t have that social mask the rest of us have, making us say things just to be polite.”
Luke lay the paper down and shook his head mournfully. “It’s just… it seems like he’s been alone for so long, and filling the empty spaces in his life with his work, and now that he’s trying to change that, he doesn’t know how to break those patterns and separate the doctor from the person. He just… he needs someone who’s going to see through that abrasive exterior and find the amazing man inside-but I’ve been looking for days now and I just can’t find anyone!”
Luke slammed his fists down on his desk with a burst of temper that did little to appease the sense of disappointment and self-reproach that was nagging at him. “I just can’t figure out who’s right for him,” he concluded unhappily.
Katie studied him for a long moment in the silence that followed. “Um…. Luke?” she asked finally, her teeth gnawing uncertainly at her bottom lip. “Did you ever think… maybe the reason you can’t find someone for Dr. Oliver… is that you’re-”
Luke straightened abruptly. “I’ve got it!” he said, with a renewed sense of zeal. “If I can’t pick the best candidate out of these search results, why don’t I let him decide?”
Holding a hand up to forestall Katie’s attempt to finish her point, Luke reached for the phone on his desk. Luke had called Memorial often enough in his lifetime to know the main telephone number by heart, and he quickly worked his way through the hospital’s automated directory to find the extension he wanted to reach.
“Dr. Oliver?” he said brightly, when the man’s characteristically gruff hello answered the phone. “How do you feel about speed dating?”
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Luke sat at the front table of the Lakeview’s largest meeting room, staring out at the group of men seated in pairs along three rows of rectangular tables before him. It had taken an absolute tour de force of scrambling to arrange things on such short notice, but following four days of negotiating and harassing and sometimes even outright begging, a room had been booked, refreshments had been catered, and a group of thirty-eight men had accepted an invitation to Forever Love’s first-ever speed dating event-including the slim man in a tailored blue suit sitting at the end of the first row of tables, a slight frown knotting his brow as he listened to the brown-haired man talking animatedly at him from the other side of the table.
The small timer on the table beside Luke went off with a buzz, so Luke picked up the large cowbell he’d brought and gave it a loud ring, signaling the end of another round of ‘dating.’ A breath of sheer relief escaped from the doctor’s chest as the energetic brunet departed, and he glanced over in Luke’s direction. Luke gave him an encouraging nod, and the doctor flashed a faint smile back at him before looking away to acknowledge his latest date.
As Luke reset the timer to begin the next round, he caught a slight rustle of motion just behind him, and he looked up to find Katie seating herself at his side. “Hey,” he greeted her in some surprise. “What are you doing here? You didn’t have to come.”
Katie shrugged. “Things were pretty dead at the office, so I figured my boss wouldn’t mind if I closed up early to help out over here. Besides,” she added, grinning unrepentantly, “I was dying to find out how things were going for your Dr. Oliver.”
Luke’s gaze wandered back over to the doctor, whose furled brow seemed to have gotten even furlier as he examined the man with a close-shaven head and an untidy beard now sitting in front of him. “Well,” Luke answered slowly. “Okay, I guess. At least, he hasn’t sent anyone storming from the room in a fit of temper… yet.”
Katie gave a soft chuckle. “You’re giving them what, five minutes a person? Even he can manage to keep from insulting someone for that long, don’t you think?”
Luke snorted. “I don’t think even thirty seconds could guarantee that.”
Katie grinned amusedly, then peered out over the small crowd. “So, which one is Dr. Reid Oliver? I don’t think I recognize him from the picture in his…” She broke off abruptly as she followed the direction of Luke’s gaze and focused in on the most likely candidate. “Wait, is that him?” she goggled in amazement. “Oh, wow. I mean, I knew he was a good-looking guy, but I never realized just how yummy he’d be in person!”
“Katie!” Luke protested, laughing at her characteristically over-the-top reaction.
The blonde’s grin held not an ounce of shame. “What?” she asked. “I’m just saying, a guy like that-he’s not someone you kick out of bed for being a bit of an ass, you know?"
Clearly intent on demonstrating his ability to be an ass, the doctor had leaned back in his chair and was tapping his fingers on the desk, presenting a picture of absolute boredom with his present companion. Feeling the weight of eyes on him, or perhaps simply looking around in search of distraction, Reid caught Luke’s gaze again, and Luke shook his head at him in an amused rebuke.
“Yeah,” Luke answered, absently tugging his ear. “Uh, I mean-yes, he’s pretty attractive. I guess.”
Luke broke away from his study of Reid to survey the group of men scattered around the room. While Luke had explained to Reid his plan to allow the doctor to meet as many potential dates in one evening as possible, the other attendees knew only that they had been invited to participate in an exclusive speed dating event. Each of the attendees was a valued client of Forever Love, and though Luke’s primary goal was to find someone among this group to impress his finicky platinum client, he would be thrilled to learn that some of the other attendees had found a potential match at this meeting.
At the end of another five minutes, the timer went off again, and Luke signaled the end of the round. As half the room’s occupants got up from their seats and shuffled over to the next spot in the rotation, a stocky redhead in an improbable rose lamé shirt sat down in front of Reid. A look of sheer bewilderment momentarily flickered across the neurosurgeon’s face, and Luke rubbed a hand over his mouth in an unsuccessful attempt to hide his smile. The doctor caught Luke’s eye and gave an expressive roll of his own eyes, as if to say where the hell did you find this one? Luke shrugged, and the doctor narrowed his eyes at him for a moment, until suddenly pulled away from their silent conversation by something his date was saying.
Luke cast a sideways glance at Katie, whose eyebrows had climbed almost to the top of her head. “What?” Luke asked, settling back in his chair with a small grin.
When the timer next went off, Luke rang the bell and then engaged the toggle on the small microphone stand on the table before him. “Listen up, everyone,” he said pleasantly into the mic. “We’ve reached the halfway point of this event, so we’re going to take a ten minute break now before starting up again. Please check your tickets to see what seat you’ll be starting with in the second half. Thank you.”
As soon as Luke finished, the man in the rose shirt bolted away from his seat at Reid’s table-as if stung by a particularly nasty bee-and Katie gave a sympathetic wince in Luke’s direction. “Uh-oh,” she said. “Guess you were right about that, huh?”
Luke frowned contemplatively after the man’s departing back. He hadn’t spoken to Reid much before the start of the event, too busy running around checking that food and drinks and people were all in their proper places, and-well, also oddly reluctant to have an extended conversation with the neurosurgeon, for reasons Luke hadn’t quite cared to examine. But now, Luke was seeing the results of his failure to provide some last-minute coaching to his client, and he was beginning to worry about where things were headed.
Unbeknownst to Reid, or even Katie, Luke had deliberately set the evening’s seating arrangements to ensure that Reid met Luke’s six or seven best candidates early in the event-for fear that the doctor’s characteristic impatience might make him less receptive to anyone he met as the evening went on. Unfortunately, as far as Luke could tell, the surgeon had not been especially impressed by any of those early candidates, and the longer things went on, the less and less likely it became that Reid would find anyone of interest among the men Luke had invited. With only the bottom half of his roster to go, Luke felt a knot of concern twist in his gut at the thought that he might have failed in his attempt to help the doctor yet again.
“I think maybe I should go talk to Reid,” Luke said to Katie, making as if to rise from his seat.
“Wait, hold on!” Katie said, grabbing at Luke’s arm. “Don’t look now, but it looks like somebody else wants to talk to him.”
Notwithstanding Katie’s instruction, Luke looked back in Reid’s direction, and he couldn’t help but cringe at the sight of the man currently speaking to the doctor. “Uh-oh, that’s no good; he’s not even one of my…”
Luke stopped suddenly, his mouth hanging open as he caught sight of a slight smile lifting the corner of Reid’s lips. The doctor said something in response to the man’s greeting, and the other man laughed-laughed!-before perching himself on the corner of Reid’s table and beginning what appeared to be a thoroughly engaging conversation with the doctor.
“Oh,” Luke said blankly, sitting back in his seat with a thud. A sense of unease scratched at Luke’s skin as he watched the lopsided smile Luke had seen so rarely settle in on the doctor’s face.
“See?” Katie crowed. “Looks like this crazy plan of yours might work after all!”
“Maybe,” Luke replied, feeling oddly begrudging at the slight hope of success. “But let’s just wait and see how long it takes Reid to send this one running.”
Luke eyed the couple narrowly, expecting at any moment to see the ever-present scowl return to the doctor’s face, to see the other man’s shoulders stiffen with offense and outrage. But a full ten minutes passed, and the pair was still chatting amicably when Luke picked up the microphone again to direct the attendees back to their designated seats. As the group reassembled, Reid’s companion obligingly slid off the table and went on his way, but not before extracting a business card from his blazer pocket and handing it over to the doctor. Luke set the timer for the next round of dating, then folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his seat with a scowl.
Katie was studying him with a thoughtful eye. “What?” Luke asked again, his voice coming out a bit harsher than he’d intended.
But Katie only shook her head and gave him a sympathetic pat on his shoulder. “How about I get us both something from the refreshment table?”
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The meeting room was nearly empty, with Katie and most of the other attendees having headed off to enjoy the rest of their evening, and Luke was somewhat desultorily sifting through the stack of note cards on his table as he waited for the rests of the guests to filter out. To relieve the pressure for attendees to accept or reject potential dates on the spot, Luke had asked his guests to identify themselves only by number-and then to identify the dates they were interested in by listing their dates’ numbers on a note card to be returned at the end of the night. Luke would compare the completed note cards in the morning, and he would follow up with contact information only for guests who had identified a mutual interest in each other.
He heard a throat clearing and looked up to see Reid looming over him from the opposite side of the table.
“Dr. Oliver,” he said, rising from his chair and addressing him with the slightest hint of frost in his voice. “I guess I don’t have to ask how your evening went.”
“Since you were sitting right here in front of me all night, I guess not,” Reid returned dryly.
Luke greeted the doctor’s mild attempt at humor with an ill-tempered scowl. “I meant, it seems like you and Kevin Campbell hit it off pretty well,” he said pointedly.
Reid seemed genuinely puzzled at the remark. “Who, the guy in the pink shirt?” he asked with a snort. “And I thought you had wardrobe challenges.”
Luke felt an invisible fist of impatience clench in his chest and squeeze the air from his lungs. “No, the guy you were just talking to a minute ago,” he retorted. “The same guy you’ve been talking to all night!”
“Oh! Him.” Reid gave a nod of comprehension. “Yeah, he’s…” He trailed off with a shrug.
“He’s what?” Luke prompted irritably. “Attractive? Charming? Intelligent?”
Reid snorted. “As much as anyone in this armpit of a town.”
“And interesting?” Luke asked, his voice lowering ominously. “You certainly seemed to find him interesting.”
Reid hmm’ed a somewhat noncommittal agreement. “He’s a research scientist at Webb Pharmaceuticals,” he remarked. “They’ve had some promising results lately in medical management of patients with Huntington’s, and he offered to send me some of the raw data from their latest run of drug trials.”
“Huh,” Luke said, unimpressed by the apparent generosity of the offer. “And here I thought you weren’t interested in dating another doctor.”
“Well, he’s not a medical doctor,” Reid emphasized, brushing off Luke’s remark with a nonchalant shrug. “We didn’t exactly exchange our CVs, but based on the work he’s doing, he probably has a Ph.D. in biochemistry or molecular biology. Pretty impressive for someone so young.”
White sparks were suddenly exploding behind Luke’s eyes. “Oh, so non-medical doctors are okay, sorry,” he spat, glancing away briefly to flash a somewhat false smile of thanks at the few remaining stragglers, as they dropped off their note cards and departed from the room. “I guess a poor, dumb college reject like me can’t be expected to understand the distinction.”
It seemed like Luke’s needling remarks had finally gotten through to Reid. “Are you-? What the hell are you mad about now?” the doctor sputtered, outraged. “I realize this entire town runs on the emotional equivalent of rocket fuel, but this time I know damned well I didn’t do anything to upset you!”
“Oh, you didn’t?” Luke snapped, abandoning the doomed effort to keep a lid on the anger that was boiling inside. “I’ll have you know, Dr. Oliver, I’ve spent four weeks trying to find you a date, four weeks looking for someone to meet your ridiculous list of criteria-and after all that work, the only person you’ve shown an interest in isn’t anything like the person you described! He’s in the medical field, he’s 28-he’s got blond hair! The only reason I even invited him tonight was to fill out my numbers for the evening. How exactly am I supposed to help you if you don’t even know what it is you want?”
“What I want,” Reid said angrily, “is someone to take to this damn gala, that’s all-and right now that means anyone whose blather I can stand for more than five minutes at a time. And as long as I find someone, what do you care whether he meets my criteria or not? You get paid the same either way.”
Luke blanched at the bite of Reid’s voice, feeling like not even the worst of Noah’s snipes about escort services had made his work seem as tawdry as that one dismissive comment from the neurosurgeon. “You’re right,” he managed through a throat gone tight with hurt, “I do get paid the same, no matter what you do. Go ahead and take your scientist on a date-or better yet, just take him to the gala, so you don’t have as much time to screw this one up. You’re not the only busy man in Oakdale, and I’ve already wasted way too much of my time on you.”
This time, it was Reid’s turn to flinch. “I’ll do that, Mr. Snyder,” he said softly. He reached into his shirt pocket and extracted the business card he’d received from the scientist. “No need to follow up with contact information; I’ll take it from here.” He gave a curt nod of farewell and strode swiftly from the room.
Well, that’s that, Luke thought vengefully. Good riddance. The man wasn’t looking for love or even companionship, just someone he could pass off as a boyfriend in hopes of greasing the wheels of his promotion. We don’t need that kind of business at Forever Love, and I certainly don’t need the aggravation he provided.
As Luke picked up a cardboard box from beneath the table to pack away the note cards and other supplies he’d brought to the event, a distant corner of his mind paused to wonder: if he was truly as glad to see the last of the ornery doctor as he told himself he was, then why were his hands shaking so much?
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