The Dating Experiment Final Read online

  A look passed between Peyton and Mellie.

  I chose to ignore it. I didn’t care what they thought—Peyton was on my ass to get over Dom, and there was no way I was wrong. Anyone who fought the way we did were polar opposites to the point that there would never be a common ground.

  I knew that. I accepted that.

  I was okay with that.

  After all, I’d had enough time to accept that Dom and I would never be a thing. It didn’t matter if I’d spent years denying how I felt about him. Some things needed to be denied.

  “Seriously,” I said after a moment of silence. “I’m determined to do this. I’m committed, you guys. I’m going to use this stupid challenge to get over him once and for all. It won’t be hard to find a guy better than he is.”

  “He’s not that bad,” Peyton said reluctantly. “He’s enough of a tool to fill an entire box, but he’s not bad.”

  “That doesn’t help, Peyt,” Mellie said, tipping her empty glass toward her. “We’re supposed to tell her how bad he is.”

  “He’s my brother. I tell him how much of a dick he is to his face. She already knows that.” Peyt grinned.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  “I can’t think of him like that,” I said. “I need to think of him the way I do right now.”

  “The sexy, hot-as-fuck brother of your best friend?” Mellie asked.

  “No,” I said. “The huge ass pain-in-my-butt, ignorant and dickish brother of my best friend.”

  “How in the hell are you in love with him?”

  “I don’t know.” That was the damn truth. I didn’t know. I never had done. I just was. “But I don’t want to be anymore. It’s time that Chloe Collins broke free of the crap spell Dominic Austin wove on her. Sabrina the Teenage Witch wouldn’t tolerate it.”

  “She’d tolerate it,” Mellie said.

  “Salem would be the opposition,” Peyton added.

  “Whatever.” I flicked my hand in dismissal. “The point still stands. There’s a freaky spell on me, and I want it gone.”

  “You should try self-control.”

  “You should try not being a bitch,” I muttered.

  Peyton grinned. “I have to curb those tendencies around Briony. It’s a true exercise in my own self-control. You’re now the outlet.”

  Mellie raised her eyebrows. “Make Dom the outlet.”

  “He’s the primary one.”

  “Well, I’d hate to hear the shit he gets.”

  “I’d like to hear it,” I input. “God knows he probably deserves it.”

  Mellie paused, a chip halfway to her mouth. “True. Hey, can I send you Jake’s way?”

  Peyton’s head jerked around so fast I thought it might snap off her neck and spin away. “What did he do?”

  Like a dog with a bone…

  “He made me fire Harley today.” She twisted her lips to the side that was neither a grimace or a smile.

  “She was shit,” Peyton said bluntly. “I agree with him. She had too many chances.”

  “Wow. One speech about how much of a strong woman you are, and you suddenly like the guy.” I snorted. “Does Elliott know you’re this easy?”

  “I slept with him on the first date. Of course, he knows I’m easy.”

  “You were supposed to sleep with him on the first date.”

  Mellie sighed. “Are you sure you two weren’t born siblings?”

  “She’d be dead if we were,” I said with a grin. “Besides, that would make my situation completely awkward, wouldn’t it?”

  Mellie paused, then nodded. Peyton also nodded.

  “What are you going to do, Chlo? Seriously. It’s not a joke. You just agreed to set him up with someone else,” Mellie said softly.

  I stood up and turned my back to them, folding my arms over my chest. “I’m going to set him up with someone. And she’s going to be as insufferable as he is. She’ll be perfect for him. She’ll be super organized and patient and able to handle all his bullshit. I’ll set him up with someone so incredibly meant for him that not even I’ll be able to look at them and feel like he’s with the wrong person.” I turned, taking a deep breath. “And then I’ll be able to get over him. Right? That’s how it works. He’ll be happy with whoever I match him with, and I can move on.”

  “Chlo…” Peyton pushed off the sofa and walked to me. She gripped both my shoulders. “That’s not how it works. You’ve denied being in love with him for years, but we knew. I don’t get it. I don’t pretend to understand how you can possibly be in love with him, but—”

  “I get it,” Mellie said softly from the sofa.

  We both looked at her.

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Best friends are honest with each other. We haven’t made our friendships last this long by bullshitting our way through it.”

  “I bullshitted,” I offered.

  “All right, so not all of us made this friendship last this long by bullshitting.” Her lips twitched. “But, I get it. Dom is many things, but he’s also the guy who stood up for all three of us when we got bullied in school. He shut down rumors and made sure to put the fear of God in every guy who wanted to date us.”

  “Didn’t work with Elliott, clearly,” Peyton muttered.

  “Not his fault, idiot,” Mellie shot back. “And you know it. Stop playing the victim.”

  I laughed and hugged Peyton. “She can’t help it. I still don’t know how she never ended up in Hollywood.”

  She shoved me off with a playful grin. “Mellie was saying?”

  Mellie rolled her eyes. “I was saying I get it. I might even have had a crush on him when I was a teenager, but I had a period longer than it. That said, he’s always had a softer spot for Chloe, so…”

  “A softer spot for me?” I snorted. “We fight more than him and Peyton!”

  “All right, so he used to,” Mellie acquiesced. “Now, you’re like chalk and cheese. Whatever. I’m just saying that I understand how you could fall in love with him.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “But I don’t know if this is how you get over him,” she continued, finally standing and coming over to me. “You’re forcing yourself to. You’re focusing on the fact you’re setting him up with someone and not the fact he’s setting you up on a date, too.”

  “She’s right,” Peyton admitted gently. “Stop focusing on him, Chlo. Focus on who he’s gonna set you up with.”

  I swallowed, briefly looking down. I knew they were right. I was thinking of it all wrong, but after twenty years of being in love with Dom, I knew one thing.

  Fools in love were fucking idiots.

  “Okay, fine. I will,” I said, wrapping my arms around my waist. “I’ll focus on the guy he’ll set me up with and the guy I should fall in love with.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Peyton said. “And, hey, if you can’t use him to get over my brother with, you can just get under him anyway.”

  We all burst out laughing.

  I guess, if there was a logic I had to take, it’d be that one.

  Chapter Four – Dom

  Fall in love, they said. It’ll be great, they said.

  Start a dating website with your sister’s best friend.

  Nobody said that. I stupidly thought it was a good idea.

  Plot twist: I fucked up.

  How the fuck did I match her with someone perfect for her?

  My fist fell down on my desk at the same time I clicked off yet another profile.

  I felt as though I’d seen everyone that Stupid Cupid had to offer. Like I’d gone through every match and then some. None of them seemed to be good enough for her.

  Shit. I was the authority on not being good enough for her.

  Either that or I subconsciously didn’t want to do this. Hell, it wasn’t even subconscious. It didn’t matter that I’d told my sister I was going to ask Chloe to set me up with someone—I never dreamed she’d actually fucking suggest it.

  I dropped my head forward and buried my fingers in
my hair. Fuck. The woman riled me like no other, but that was only because I couldn’t have her.

  I wanted her, but I couldn’t have her. She tolerated me on the best days.

  Was that because she’d once crushed on me and I hadn’t known?

  When had she crushed on me? Was she thirteen or twenty-three? How could Peyton not have told me when she knew I’d been harboring feelings for that little blonde pain in my ass?

  Sisters. Women. They’d kill me one day, of that I was sure. Especially when they coordinated their attacks.

  I blew out a long breath and leaned right back in my chair. Fighting with Chloe was a weird kind of pleasure—almost an addiction I couldn’t break. There was something ridiculously hot about the way her cheeks flushed and her eyes lit up with emotion.

  There was a fire in her. A wildfire. The kind of wildfire that would take forever and a day to put out.

  And I wanted to stoke it.

  But, I couldn’t. I had no business stoking her, which is why I clicked on the profile of a pretty decent guy I’d be happy to match with anybody except Chloe.

  He was really that—a decent guy. He had a good, steady job as a data analyzer for a national company. He was into sports, but only football and baseball—something I knew she had a soft spot for because of the tight pants—and chilled out by watching real-life crime mysteries on the ID channels. He listed Joe Kenda as a favorite, and I knew Chloe had, at one point, her entire DVR filled with Kenda episodes that she binged on.

  Aside from that, he worked nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday. He was close to his family who lived in Baton Rouge, but not so close he saw them every day. He was thirty, so in her desired age-range, and owned both his house and his car outright thanks to his high-flying career.

  Yeah. No doubt about it. He was the kind of stable, dependable person she needed. Someone who was as equally organized as she was. Someone who was as put together as Chloe was on a regular basis.

  Because that was Chloe.

  Where Mellie was a clumsy, hot mess and Peyton was a bluntly-spoken clean-freak, Chloe was the strong, dependable, steady figure in their friendship of three.

  She needed someone to be to her what she was to them.

  She needed that. She needed someone just as strong as she was. She needed this Warren guy.

  She didn’t need someone like me. I couldn’t remember a thing to save my life. Losing things was my modus operandi at this point. I was almost thirty and lost my key almost on a weekly basis. I couldn’t remember an internet password to save my goddamn life, and as for the milk in my apartment?

  I threw it out this morning. I take my coffee black, so let’s say I’d forgotten it was either in my fridge.

  I was the fucking male Mellie, except forgetful in place of clumsy.

  There was a reason my thirtieth birthday was this year and I was completely single. My feelings for Chloe tossed aside—I hated to admit it, but I almost needed a lesson from my fucking sister on how to keep my shit together.

  Setting Chloe up with another guy was the first step to that. Getting over that blonde wildcat I worked with and had obsessed over for years was the only way I’d even begin to get my shit together.

  I needed to see her with someone else. I needed to see her happy with someone.

  I didn’t want to, but I needed to.

  I cracked my neck by rocking it side to side and copied his email from his application. Bile rose in my throat as I hit the ‘new message’ button on the email server and pasted his email into the “To” box.

  To: Warren Jones [email protected]

  From: Dominic Austin [email protected]

  Subject: Date

  Hi, Warren,

  Dom from Stupid Cupid here. Are you still interested in being matched by our service? I noticed your profile hasn’t been active lately, but I think I have you a potential match.

  Hope to hear from you soon,

  Dom

  I hit “send” before I could change my damn mind about it. The worst part about this was now having to create Chloe a profile. That was the one thing we hadn’t spoken about, and since we’d only discussed this yesterday, I didn’t want to message her yet for it.

  How the fuck would a woman fill in a dating profile? How did they fill in ours? I wasn’t ashamed to admit I typically dealt with the guys. I matched them to the girls without thinking about they filled out their applications.

  I opened one of the forms. How did I fill this out for her? Did I? Or did I sell her in the way only I knew how?

  And I didn’t mean the prickly, antagonistic, infuriating woman I came across on a daily basis.

  I meant the woman I knew that she hated being shared with anyone.

  There was only one person who could help me with this. I picked up my phone and hit the name in my contacts.

  Me: I need your help.

  There was no response, so I opened an application form and started to fill it in.

  Name: Chloe Collins

  Age: 25-30

  Star sign: Pisces

  Profession:

  Shit.

  Profession: Matchmaker

  Location: New Orleans

  Favorite sports: Baseball

  Elliott’s text came through before I could go any further.

  Elliott: finally setting C up?

  Me: Not by choice.

  Elliott: Help coming.

  I let go of a heavy sigh. Thank God. He hadn’t always been my favorite person, but since he’d both broken and fixed my sister’s heart thanks to her stubborn nature, I was ready for the help of anyone.

  “What did you do now?” Peyton shoved open my office door and stared at me.

  “The fuck are you doing here?”

  “Elliott said you needed help. Here is your help.” She gestured extravagantly to herself before she shut the door behind her. “And I know it’s about Chloe and her date so cut to the chase.”

  Girl-talk. Of course, she already knew.

  “I need to fill out her application,” I told her. “But I’m stuck.”

  Peyton rolled her eyes. “And you can’t ask her to do it?”

  I stared at her flatly.

  “Right, no, of course,” she drawled, a tiny hint of her New Orleans drawl twanging at every word. “Why would you ask the woman you’re in love with to fill out her own dating record?”

  “Can you shut the fuck up and help me?” I threw my hands out to the sides. “I found her a match. Help me out here, Peyt.”

  My sister stilled. “You found her a match?”

  “Of course I did. I said I would, so I did.”

  “Wow. You’re actually going through with it. Kudos, bro.” She rounded my desk and perched on the arm of my chair.

  I glanced at her. “Can you put your chest away?”

  She tugged at the neckline of her shirt and pulled it right up. “Put away. Let me see what you’ve written so far.” She snatched the mouse out of my hand and scrolled. “Jesus, Dom,” she said after a minute. “This is basic. This won’t get her laid.”

  I didn’t want to get her laid. I wanted to get her a good date, not a fucking orgasm.

  “Whatever. Can you make her attractive to a random stranger?”

  “You can’t?” Peyton quirked an eyebrow and looked at me. “You’ve been attracted to her for at least ten years. Surely you can do better than this.”

  “Peyton. I want your help, not your bullshit.”

  “Good luck with that,” she muttered. “All right, move your ass. Let me do this for you.”

  “Don’t make her sound too attractive.” My voice was no louder than hers had been as I stood and made way for her to take my seat.

  She snorted, deleting everything I’d written except the first couple of questions. “I’m gonna make her so attractive that she has every eligible bachelor in New Orleans clambering for her attention.”

  I shot her a look so dark I felt my blood turn black.

  “Relax, Dominic. You’re getti
ng over her, remember?” She answered my dark look with one as equally annoyed. “This helps you get over her. That’s what you told me.”

  I perched on the edge of the desk and crossed my arms. “Fucking whatever. I don’t have to like this.”

  “You’re right. You don’t.” She typed. “But you do have to do it.”

  “Whatever. Like I said. Whatever.”

  “You’re like a petulant teenager who’s just been told to do his own laundry.”

  “Peyton…”

  She sighed and turned in the chair. “Dominic, if you’re not going to admit to her how you feel about her, then shut the fuck up and suck it up. You don’t get to whine about something you’re unwilling to act upon. You have the potential to change the situation you’re in, but you won’t. It’s that simple. End of.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I do or don’t say to her. She hates me. Every time we speak, we fight. She. Hates. Me.”

  “Yeah, well, I hated Elliott,” she said, turning back to the computer. “Now I paint his daughter’s nails, bring her to work, braid her hair, cook her dinner, and read her bedtime stories.”

  “Congratulations, Saint Peyton.”

  “Don’t go that far. I accidentally taught her how to say “fuck.””

  “How do you accidentally teach a three-year-old to say fuck?”

  She shrugged and glanced at me. “Apparently, she was saying fork. Toddlers. They can’t pronounce shit for shit. Totally not my fault. Nobody wrote that in the handbook for girlfriends of single dads.”

  “That’s a handbook?”

  “No, but I sure as hell wish it were.” She shook her head turned back to the screen. “I’m winging it more than a flock of migrating birds, but whatever.”

  “Does that mean I’ll be known as Uncle Dom soon?” I smirked.

  “Nobody needs you as their uncle, Dom. Unless you count losing things as a life skill.”