The Wrong Match ebook

The Wrong Match

Aylin Red

2026

The Wrong Match

The Wrong Match

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

About the author

Title Page

Cover

Table of Contents

The Wrong Match

The Messy Hearts Romance Series

Nie do Pary

Aylin Red

Chapter 1

The air at Locke & Key Matchmaking smelled of fresh flowers and expensive coffee. Other people's hopes were odorless, but they filled the waiting room from morning on.

Kira liked walking through the glass doors before Monday had a chance to demand anything of her. The AC grazed the back of her neck, cold and half a degree too sharp. The lobby ran on low voices, footsteps lost in the thick carpet, the phone at reception ringing as discreetly as a phone knows how. The arrangements on the console got swapped out every three days. Studies said fresh flowers improved the comfort of a first visit. Kira just liked them, but studies sounded more professional.

"Morning, Kira," Robin said from behind the desk.

"Morning."

Kira passed the marble counter and fixed one of the bouquets. White roses, eucalyptus. Elegant, but not trying too hard. People paid her for love; a perfume ad wasn't part of the package.

Behind the frosted glass, one of the consultants was already mid-conversation with a client. A man in his forties sat there wearing the face of someone who'd come for love but was privately holding out for a warranty and an owner's manual.

The office waited with the chill of glass and the smell of a jasmine candle. Outside, L.A. was being its usual shameless, glittering self. Kira set down her bag, slid the coat off her shoulders. The fabric slipped away with the cool of its lining, and she sat before it had finished settling against the chair back.

She opened her laptop.

Monday's calendar was packed from morning to night.

Kira took a sip of coffee. Bitter, still too hot.

Survivable.

Her first client came in at 9:32.

Madison Vale, twenty-nine, a perfect blond bob and the kind of looks built for expensive restaurant lighting. Today she looked like she'd paid four hundred dollars for the hair just to cry in her car right after.

Kira gestured to the chair.

"Coffee, tea, water?"

"Coffee, please. God." Madison's voice came out thin.

Robin brought a mug and discreetly vanished. Madison cupped the coffee in both hands like she was warming her fingers on it. She didn't speak for a long moment.

"He said I was amazing."

Kira leaned back in her chair.

"Of course he did."

"How do you know?"

"Because nobody says 'I don't want to be with you' without throwing the woman a compliment first." Kira reached for the tablet. "Standard package?"

Madison blinked.

"Sorry?"

"'I'm not ready.' 'You're perfect.' 'It's not you, it's me.'"

"Yes," she admitted quietly. "That's exactly what he said."

Kira made a note and set the tablet down.

Madison drank slowly. The mug trembled a little in her hands, clicking against a nail.

"I thought it was going well. We'd been seeing each other almost two months. He texted every day, introduced me to his friends. I knew his dog's name."

"Knowing the dog's name isn't a declaration of exclusivity."

Madison winced like someone who'd seen that answer coming and still didn't want to take it.

"I know."

She didn't.

If she'd known, she wouldn't be sitting in this chair now, two months into a relationship whose existence only she could confirm.

Kira set down the pen.

"So what did I tell you?"

"Don't give too much too fast," Madison said into the mug.

"Legs closed until the guy commits to a label." Kira nodded. "Iron rule."

Madison looked like the iron rule was an instrument of torture. She didn't have the strength to protest, though.

"It sounds awful when you put it like that."

"Most useful truths sound awful. That's why people prefer Instagram quotes."

Madison let out a laugh, wet with tears and a little pathetic. Something, at least.

Kira slid the tablet aside.

"You didn't do anything wrong. You just trusted the vibe between you more than what he was actually doing. That's fixable."

"It is?"

"Yes. Just not with him."

Madison dimmed.

Kira didn't try to comfort her. Comfort lasted until evening; a concrete plan had a shot at lasting longer.

"He already showed you who he is. If he comes back in two weeks with 'I've been doing a lot of thinking,' don't go reserving him a seat at your emotional table."

"And if he really has been thinking?"

"Great. He can think a little more, ideally alone. Maybe with the dog whose name he so generously shared with you."

Madison smiled wider.

She didn't believe yet that everything would work out, but it seemed to be landing on her that a man with a nice profile and a weak spine didn't deserve dramatic scenes under his wheels.

Kira laid out the plan for her.

Zero contact for thirty days, no accidental drops into his stories, a check-in meeting in a week, profile update after the detox.

Madison left twenty-eight minutes later. Still pale, but holding her back straighter.

The door closed softly.

Kira finished the coffee, which had gone cold a solid fifteen minutes earlier, and glanced at her notes. Monday had survived its first assault.

The door opened without a knock.

Only one person in this company got to do that.

Sam Miller walked in with two mugs.

One was for Kira, which meant there was a topic. Red hair fell to Sam's shoulders, amusement glinting in the gray eyes, but Kira had known her too long to miss the worry underneath.

She passed the mug across the desk.

"Oof. She's going to be digesting that one for a week?"

Kira took the coffee. Warmth came through the ceramic into her fingers.

"Three days, if she follows instructions."

"So, a week."

Sam dropped into the chair on the other side of the desk. She said nothing, tapping a nail against the mug.

Once.

Twice.

"So how was the weekend?"

Kira fixed her eyes on the calendar.

"Fine."

"I ask because you look like someone who pulled an all-nighter with a shifter romance."

Her neck went hot, treacherously, with no appeal. She took a sip to give her face something to do.

"I've got a lot of work."

"Of course." Sam sipped. "How does your system classify alpha males?"

"That's different."

"Especially when they growl for three chapters because the word 'sorry' is beyond them," Sam said, and calmly drank her coffee.

Kira shot her a look.

Sam raised the mug in a gesture of innocence, but the smile stayed.

They could afford the silence. Kira went back to the calendar, Sam finished her coffee. After a moment the nail tapped the ceramic again.

Kira looked up.

So there was something to it after all.

"I've got a potential client," Sam said.

"Privately?"

"A friend of Eric's."

Kira raised a brow.

Sam rarely mixed personal connections with Locke & Key business. Common sense told her how much trouble usually came of it.

"Eric has friends who need professional matchmaking?"

"Eric has one friend who's been single too long and is starting to wear people down."

"Wear people down?"

"Mostly my husband, which by extension means me." Sam shrugged. "You get it."

"What's the problem?"

Sam set the mug down.

"He's famous."

Kira didn't answer right away.

Famous clients tended to be cautious and absurd, and their money always came with demands of its own. The real trouble only started when they mistook a magazine cover for an exemption from basic decency.

"How famous?"

Sam hesitated. A little, but enough.

"Nick Coles."

Kira's fingers went still over the keyboard.

Once, then a second time, her eyelids dropped before she could stop them.

That name meant something even to people who didn't listen to his music. Nick Coles's choruses leaked out of radios, commercials, and café speakers, usually right when someone was trying to forget a terrible breakup. For years he'd been the most recognizable problem ever to sit at a piano.

"That Nick Coles?"

"I don't know another one."

Kira was quiet for a moment.

"Why would he need my agency?"

"Because he's allergic to opportunists," Sam said.

"That's not an allergy. That's a side effect of fame."

Sam looked at her over the mug.

"Exactly." Sam's voice softened, though the look stayed sharp. "I want someone to finally tell him something he can't turn into a song."

Something shifted in Kira, a curiosity too quick to smother. She noted it and immediately filed it under very inconvenient.

She leaned back in her chair.

"What's the actual problem?"

"He dates women who love Nick Coles, not him. When he figures it out, he disappears or does something stupid." Sam let the pause hang. "Sometimes he writes another song that has Eric wandering around the house like a widower in a music video."

"Does he have his manager's blessing?"

"I don't know."

"Does he want this?"

Sam pressed her lips together and looked off to the side.

Kira sighed.

"That was kind of an important question."

"He doesn't know yet that he wants it."

They looked at each other.

Outside, L.A. glittered as if its residents' heartaches were worth exactly nothing. The calendar on Kira's desk was waiting.

Nick Coles: famous, not for that long, somewhere two or three years out from a breakup with an influencer, and apparently allergic to opportunists. Plus a friend who'd had it up to here with his love life.

Common sense said to turn the case down without a second thought.

Kira unlocked the tablet.

"Fine. Bring him in."

Sam stood with a smile that put Kira on guard immediately.

"Don't get excited. I haven't said anything yet," Kira warned her.

The door closed.

Kira watched the empty chair for a few more seconds. Then she typed into the search bar: Nick Coles.

It was research.

Unlike shifter romances, it fell within working hours.

Chapter 2

Nick Coles had picked a restaurant where discretion cost more than dessert.

Side street, no neon, no wall designed for photos. Inside: warm light, low jazz, the smell of butter and rosemary. The place looked effortlessly like somewhere nobody asked for last names.

Which was exactly why Nick came here.

The host nodded and led him to a corner table. Nick sat, set his phone face down. The leather of the seat was cool under his forearm, not yet warmed through. He'd managed one sip of water before the door opened again.

Sam came in first.

Long red hair, a light black blazer thrown over a satin top, exhaustion hidden under her makeup better than half her clients' secrets. Eric followed, tall, blond, in a navy shirt and wearing the expression of a man who was seven minutes late and had long since forgiven himself for it.

Nick raised a hand.

Eric grinned right away.

"Man. You're alive."

"I'm surprised too."

They hugged, short and hard — Eric clapped him on the shoulder blade too hard, like always. Sam leaned in to kiss Nick on the cheek, stepped back, and looked him over.

"You look good."

"Creative suffering agrees with me."

"Don't start," she said calmly, and sat.

Nick shut his mouth.

Eric dropped into the chair across from him.

"Hayley did a school project today. Solar system. We've got glitter on the ceiling and Uranus stuck to a dog."

Nick stopped the glass halfway to his mouth.

"You have a dog?"

"The neighbors do."

Sam closed her eyes for a second.

Nick shook his head.

"I missed you guys."

"I know," Eric said. "It shows in how you answer texts."

Nick put a hand to his chest.

"Artists are like that."

"No," Sam said.

Short. No malice. Nick obediently shut up.

The waiter brought wine, menus, and bread with garlic butter. Eric reached for the basket before the waiter had finished stepping away.

For a while the conversation was ordinary — Hayley, school, Sam's new client who wanted to look natural but expensive, which was to say exactly like someone who had never once in her life been natural by accident. Nick listened, laughed, asked follow-ups. Easy. Loose. Here he didn't have to watch his face, so he didn't.

"How's the album?" Eric asked once they'd ordered.

Nick tipped back in his chair.

"It exists."

Eric looked at him.

"So you've got nothing."

Sam propped an elbow on the table and waited without comment.

Nick ran a finger up and down the stem of his glass.

"I've got a few things."

"Good ones?"

Half a second.

Eric caught it.

Nick sighed.

"One's decent."

"So, a downer," Eric said.

"Not every song of mine is a downer."

Sam looked up.

Nick glanced at her.

"Fine. Maybe it's a little bit of a downer."

"The last demo had me thinking about mortality for ten minutes," Eric said. "I was taking out the trash at the time."

"So it works."

Eric snorted.

Sam didn't.

She watched Nick for a moment, no amusement left in it now, and the silence came in closer than he was comfortable with. He set the glass down to give his hand something to do.

"Seriously, though?" she asked.

The waiter set a plate in front of him.

Shrimp, garlic, lemon, hot oil still hissing at the rim. Good smell. Nick speared one on his fork.

"The label wants the album in the fall. My manager wants a single before that. The producer wants me to stop writing stuff that sounds like I'm sitting alone at a piano in an empty house."

Sam settled back.

"And are you?"

Nick looked at her.

Her face was calm. No push, no joke. She'd known him too long to need either of those tools.

"Sometimes."

Eric cleared his throat. Nick pointed the fork at him.

"No."

"I didn't say anything yet."

"Your face says plenty."

Eric raised his hands and let it go. Sam set down her glass.

"That's exactly why I wanted to meet."

Nick looked at her more carefully.

"I thought we came for dinner."

"We did." She glanced at Eric. "And for the conversation you've been dodging for months."

Eric busied himself with the bread with sudden, exaggerated focus. Nick leaned back.

"I'm not dodging anything."

Sam sighed. Short.

"Nick."

One word.

And that was enough to take the smile down a notch. The waiter brought the steaks. Eric straightened reflexively.

"Okay," he said, looking at his plate. "I'd like to request the song 'I'm About to Demolish This Incredible Steak.'"

Sam elbowed him.

"Eric."

"What? Fair warning, I'm about to lose the ability to concentrate."

Nick looked at the steak. Thick, perfectly seared, herb butter melting on top.

"I'm not competing with meat."

"Smart," Eric said.

The restaurant hummed around them, warm and discreet. Glass, voices, jazz somewhere underneath.

Sam fixed Eric's collar without breaking the conversation. Eric slid the salt toward her before she asked. Nick saw both gestures — that small, unconscious rhythm of two people who know what the other needs before the other has caught up to it. Something tightened in his chest, briefly, and let go.

He took the last of the shrimp off his plate.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" Sam asked.

Nick looked up.

"Hm?"

"Tomorrow. Morning."

"Lighter day, I think. Depends what time."

Eric froze over his steak.

Nick noticed it a second too late.

Sam nodded.

"Nine. Outside the agency."

Silence.

Nick set down his fork.

"That agency?"

"Yes."

"The matchmaking one?"

"Yes."

"No."

Sam didn't try to talk him into it. She had some wine and waited.

"Kira's genuinely good," she said after a moment.

Eric set down his cutlery.

Nick turned his eyes on him. Eric was quiet for a moment. Then he shrugged — slowly, like he was weighing what he wanted to say.

"Couldn't hurt to try."

Nick looked at him longer than he should have.

Eric didn't have the face of a man who'd roped him into something. He had the face of someone who'd just known him too long and had stopped pretending everything was fine only because Nick looked good in photos.

"Seriously?" he asked quietly.

"Seriously."

Nick ran his tongue over his teeth and looked away.

Sam said, quieter:

"Nobody's forcing you. I just want you to talk to her."

"About what?"

"About what you actually want."

Nick didn't say anything for a moment.

"Sounds like an expensive fifty minutes."

"Maybe," Sam agreed.

He looked at her.

Red hair spilling over one shoulder, an earring catching the warm light. She hadn't come here to win. She sat across from him with that calm of hers that cost her more than she let on.

He reached for his glass.

"I'll think about it."

His phone buzzed on the table. He looked.

Address. Time. Name of the agency.

"I said I'd think about it, not—"

"I know. Think on the way."

Nick stared at the screen for a moment.

Then at Eric.

Eric cut a piece of steak and put it in his mouth with the face of a man who suddenly had no connection to this situation whatsoever.

Nick set the phone face down.

"I'm not promising I'll go inside."

"Nine, Nick," Sam said.

Eric covered a smile with his napkin.

Nick had some wine.

Chapter 3

At 8:55 Kira already had her calendar open, three messages flagged urgent, and one decision: today was not going to irritate her.

The decision was fresh, optimistic, and probably doomed to die before lunch.

She sat in her office in a light blazer, hair pinned up loosely — a dark base at the roots fading into a dusty lavender ombre, the one element of her look that didn't pretend to be strictly professional. The tablet lay squared against the right edge of the desk. Outside, Los Angeles stretched out in the morning sun with the shameless ease of a city that never once had to scrape ice off a windshield.

Nick Coles was due at nine.

In theory.

The door opened without a knock.

Sam slid into the office with a cup in her hand.

"Brought you a coffee."

The cup had the logo of the café two streets over — the one that made a brown sugar oat-milk latte so well that Kira had once nearly forgiven them for misspelling her name.

Nearly.

She held out her hand. The smile came before she could stop it.

"You're exceptionally useful today."

"I'm useful every day."

Kira took off the lid and sipped. Warm, caramel, the coffee balanced just right under the oat milk. For a second she closed her eyes.

When she opened them, Sam was still standing by the desk, smiling a little too innocently.

Kira lowered the cup.

"You're not bribing me, Sam."

"Wasn't trying to. Just improving the mood."

"That's bribery."

"More like motivation."

Kira glanced at her watch. 8:58.

"He should be in the building by now."

Sam sipped her own coffee and looked at the door. No comments. No eye-rolls. That was worse.

At 9:07 Robin announced over the intercom that Mr. Coles had just arrived.

Kira closed her eyes for one second.

Seven minutes.

Not a catastrophe. Information.

Sam straightened in her chair.

"Be nice."

"I'm professional."

The door opened a moment later.

Nick Coles walked in like he didn't need to check whether he was welcome.

Black jeans, white T-shirt, a light unbuttoned shirt in a washed-out olive. Nothing loud. He was taller than the photos suggested, and broader through the shoulders — the white T-shirt sat on him the way it sits on someone who doesn't have to grind at the gym, just turns up there. Dark hair in controlled disorder, short stubble along the jaw.

Photos flattened him into a pretty face on a cover; in person he took up space differently, heavier, like the room had to shift a little to make room for him. His eyes were brown and attentive, with a calm that could have been charm or a smokescreen.

Kira wasn't about to decide which.

She just registered that the warmth that moved low under her ribs was entirely out of place, and put it where she kept everything else useless at work.

Sam looked him up and down.

"You're late."

Nick stopped by the chair and spread his hands.

"I was supposed to think about it, not show up on time."

Sam sighed.

Kira set down the cup.

"Mr. Coles."

His gaze moved from Sam to her — and held a fraction longer than courtesy required. On the hair, then the face.

Briefly.

Brief enough that he could pretend it hadn't happened, and long enough that Kira knew it had.

"Ms. Locke."

"Please, sit."

Nick sat.

At ease, but not fully sprawled — one arm resting on the armrest, the sleeve pulling tight on his bicep as he shifted his weight onto it. The other hand on his knee. Ready to stay. Equally ready to leave.

"So you're the matchmaking doctor," he said.

Kira raised her brows and looked at Sam, who shot her a smirk that meant: you wanted this.

"Sam mentioned you'd like to use our services."

The corner of his mouth twitched.

"Bold of you to assume I want to be here."

"You don't have to be."

She tipped her head toward the door. Added nothing. Nick looked at her for a second.

Sam stood.

"Good. I'll leave you to it."

"Just like that?" Nick said.

"Just like that." She picked up her bag, paused at the door. "Try. Talk to her."

The smile stayed on his face but went a little thinner.

"Fine," he said.

Sam nodded. Then she looked at Kira, shorter, softer.

"Good luck."

The door closed quietly.

The office went suddenly very quiet and noticeably smaller. Kira could hear her own breathing, and that was one sound too many.

She reached for the tablet.

"To start, I'll ask you to fill out a short questionnaire and a personality test. Standard qualification step."

She passed the device across the desk.

He looked at her, then at the tablet, took it. Their fingers didn't touch — he made sure of it, or she did, hard to say. His hands were long, with short nails and a faint callus at the pad of the thumb. A mark from a string or a key. Kira returned her eyes to her notes before his hands could tell her anything more.

Nick started answering.

Too fast.

"Mr. Coles."

"Nick," he said, without looking up.

"Nick. I care about honest answers, not your completion time."

Only then did he look up from the tablet.

"The two aren't mutually exclusive."

"In theory, no."

"In practice?"

"In practice, on the question about long-term goals you selected 'we'll see.'"

"That's honest."

Kira held out her hand.

Nick gave the tablet back without resistance, but with a smile that said he knew exactly how much patience he'd just cost her.

She glanced at the screen.

Several answers blank. Two marked contradictorily. And one she lingered on longer — for the question about his primary love language he'd selected: steak and silence.

She looked up.

"You really believe a little quiz like that changes anything?" he asked.

"It won't. It organizes the data."

"Romantic."

Kira didn't look up from the screen.

"For some clients, organizing the data is the first step toward honesty." She scrolled to the next answer. "For the rest, toward realizing they don't actually want it."

For a moment he watched her without a word. Then he smiled slightly.

"And what else? Matching by star sign?"

Kira set the tablet down.

She didn't answer.

"Then we'll skip this step," she said after a moment.

Nick went still. Then his smile sharpened.

"So you believe in it."

Kira returned her eyes to the notepad.

"That wasn't a 'no.'" He settled back more comfortably.

Kira looked at him.

"Nick."

This time his name came out sharper than she'd planned.

Not rude. Just precise. Nick caught it — something in the set of his face, a minimal movement that wasn't yet a smile but was heading that way.

Kira smoothed the edge of the notepad with one finger.

"My agency is known for results. Not astrology."

"Of course." He settled in deeper. "Should I expect a Death Note?"

"Sorry?"

"Kira." He gestured at her lightly with one hand, like he was presenting her to someone invisible.

She looked at him for a second. Let a breath out through her nose.

"If you behave, I'll consider not writing you into the notebook."

His smile only widened.

Kira slid the tablet aside.

"My system is simple. First we define needs, patterns, and boundaries. Then we narrow the profile. When we find suitable candidates, we set up meetings."

"Are the meetings mandatory?"

He ran a hand through his hair — a quick, careless move, the first uncontrolled gesture since he'd walked in. Kira noted it and immediately regretted noting it.

"That's generally how meetings work. You have to show up. On time."

Nick dropped his eyes to his hands. His thumb slid along the edge of the armrest, once, briefly.

"And if a candidate is great on paper and completely unbearable after five minutes?"

"Then I don't schedule a second date."

"Even if the system says otherwise?"

"The system is wrong less often than people are."

Nick looked at her.

"You think it's infallible?"

Kira rested her hands on the desktop. Calmly. Fingers at the edge of the notepad.

"I think it's effective."

He was quiet for a moment. The smile dropped a little — didn't disappear, just took a step back.

"Every system has gaps."

"Yes," she agreed. "Usually the people are the gaps."

She reached for the cup.

The coffee had gone lukewarm but was still sweet. The sip gave her two seconds in which she didn't have to look at him. Nick watched her with an expression she couldn't yet catalog.

"What are you looking for?" she asked.

The question came without ornament.

Nick looked at her, and for a second he seemed to have an answer ready — the same one he probably used in interviews and over dinners with his manager.

"I don't know," he said.

Kira wrote down the two words.

When she looked up, Nick was smiling again. Lighter. Safer. But the answer had stayed in the office, and they both knew it.

"That's a good start," she said.

"Sounds like something you say to clients who pay upfront."

"Sometimes."

That caught him off guard. A little. Enough.

Kira set down the pen.

"Since you don't know what you're looking for, we'll start with what you definitely don't want."

Nick looked at the tablet, then at her.

"That could take a while."

"I've got until 10:15."

"That's it?"

"For a start."

Beyond the door, reception ran on its calm rhythm. A phone, someone's footsteps, Robin's low voice. The office smelled of coffee and something clean, citrusy, from the diffuser on the shelf.

Nick ran a finger along the edge of the chair.

"Someone who talks about a relationship like it's a brand," he said.

Kira wrote it down.

"Good."

The pen stopped for a fraction of a second, then kept going.

Nick watched her closely.

"And how's the first impression, Doctor?"

"No disasters."

This time the smile didn't come back right away.

Kira noted down one more thing, no longer looking at him. Nick tilted his head.

You're insufferable, Mr. Coles.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Of course."

She closed the notepad.

"I'll send the first matches this evening. Tomorrow we can schedule a longer conversation."

Nick leaned back. The silence was short — very respectable for a first meeting.

"All right, Ms. Locke."

He smiled slowly. Not the stage smile that sold choruses and concert tickets. A smaller one. More dangerous, because it was less obvious.

Kira returned to her screen.

"Kira."

She said it before she'd thought through whether she should.

Nick noticed.

Of course he noticed.

"All right, Kira."

Her name in his mouth did nothing in particular.

Absolutely nothing.

Kira straightened the pen on the desk, even though it lay perfectly straight already.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸❤️❤️🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Kira got home a little after seven.

The house greeted her with silence, cool air from the AC, and two Maine Coons who came trotting out of the living room with the dignity of creatures convinced they were the ones paying the mortgage.

First came Mr. Fluffy — white-and-russet, enormous, fluffy, and absolutely certain his looks should exempt him from responsibility for every item knocked off a shelf.

The second, Mr. Grumpy, had dark fur, the stare of an old judge, and the temperament of a prince served water at the wrong temperature.

Both stopped in front of her. Assessed. Graciously deemed her return acceptable.

Kira shut the door with her hip, set her bag on the console, and crouched.

"Oh, my angels." She held out both hands to them. "Did you miss me?"

Mr. Fluffy immediately pushed his head under her fingers, heavy and warm, purring before she'd even touched him. Mr. Grumpy allowed himself to be touched only after three seconds, so no one would think he cared.

"I know, I know. Mama worked hard for your treats today."

At the word treats they both abruptly lost all detachment from the world. Kira pulled a small packet from her bag and shook it lightly. Claws clicked across the floor. Mr. Fluffy meowed so dramatically you'd think he'd been fed nothing but disappointment all afternoon.

"Don't play the victim. I saw the bowl this morning."

She gave them a few pieces each. Mr. Grumpy ate slowly, thoughtfully, like a food critic at a tasting. Mr. Fluffy swallowed the lot in a span of time that should interest scientists.

"Excellent. We've all survived another day."

Kira took off her heels in the hallway.

Bare feet on the cool parquet — she lost a centimeter of authority but gained the will to live.

She went to the kitchen, took the takeout sushi and a bottle of sparkling water out of the paper bag. The Japanese place three streets over made salmon so good that for a moment you could believe existence had a point.

For a moment.

She turned on the TV more for the sound than the content. The living room filled with other people's voices, slightly too dramatic violins, and the hiss of a commercial cut off halfway.

The perfect evening.

Sushi, cats, couch, zero clients, zero late musicians, zero men who thought we'll see was a long-term relationship goal.

Kira sat on the couch, tucked her legs under her, and opened the box. Wasabi, ginger, soy sauce — everything arranged calmly in its little compartments.

A beautiful concept.

Mr. Grumpy hopped up beside her and lay down in a way meant to look accidental. Kira slid her fingers into his dark fur. Thick, soft, warm. The cat purred quietly, with a grievance, as if the purr had been extracted from him without his lawyer's consent.

"Yes, I know. I love you too."

On the screen, some romantic movie was playing. Warm light, wet pavement, a hero who'd just realized his enormous ego was no substitute for a personality.

Kira picked up a piece of nigiri.

The hero stood at the heroine's door with a bouquet and the face of someone who'd discovered remorse only after consulting a screenwriter.

"Blah, blah, blah, forgive me," she drawled, dropping her voice. "I don't know how it happened. I'll change."

Mr. Grumpy twitched an ear.

"I think he's overdoing it too."

The heroine on screen had tears in her eyes. In movies like this, women always had tears in their eyes precisely when they should have had the locks changed instead.

Kira dipped the sushi in sauce.

"Cheat once, cheat again," she said.

Too quiet for a comment on a movie.

And yet she didn't turn it off.

The movie went on.

He talked, she cried, the rain fell with such care it must have had an agent too. Kira reached for another piece but held it between the chopsticks for a moment.

Thomas liked sushi.

Of course.

Thomas liked everything that looked good in an elegant interior — sushi, dry wine, minimalist watches. Educated, stable, from a good family. He remembered anniversaries, knew his wine, had a five-year plan and a smile that looked good in vacation photos. Polite to waiters. Never raised his voice.

Her own system would have picked him without hesitation.

That was the most humiliating part of all of it.

Kira put the sushi in her mouth. The salmon delicate, the rice slightly warm, the soy sauce salty on her tongue.

In reality, Thomas looked at her success the way he'd look at a stain on his own shirt. At first she didn't see it — or didn't want to. Easier to call it his stress, a hard stretch, tension. Men were very fond of it when their disappointments got elegant names.

Then the lines started.

Working again tonight?

Do you have to take that at dinner?

Sometimes I feel like I'm somewhere after a client meeting in your life.

And then one evening he sat across from her at the kitchen table — the same one where they'd chosen wedding invitations — in a gray sweater, with the face of a man who'd come to deliver something reasonable.

He didn't look like someone about to break a heart. That was rude too.

He said they weren't a match. That she drowned in work too much. That she was too ambitious and — he added this at the end, almost charitably — not feminine enough.

He didn't say: it bothers me that you're doing better.

He didn't have to.

Kira set the chopsticks on the box.

On screen the heroine was just now opening the door wider. Idiot.