Page 81 of The Matchmaker

“Can’t letanyoneelse be in charge of the remote, can you?”

“It’s the one measure of control in my life,” Azar says.

“Have at it.”

He turns on the television and flips the channels.

“Not sure I remember watching live TV,” I say.

“It’s a surreal experience.”

“Hold up.” I shoot out my hand and grab his arm. “That’s our show.Wild. Go back a channel.”

“I thought you didn’t like to watch episodes out of order?”

“Comfort brownies require comfort viewing.” I get on the bed and scoot over to give him space to sit facing the television.

“Fair enough.” He settles on the edge.

“I hate it, but I rarely have time to watch a show all the way through anymore,” I admit.

“The last time I watched an entire season ofWildstraight through was in college. I wonder if they still have the same survival-pack options they can bring along to help them.”

“You know they all pretend they didn’t choose the beef jerky, but tell me how Jax survived six weeks on bark soup alone?”

“Some of them are real lightweights.”

I look at my bowl of ice cream and brownies. “We wouldn’t last a day out there.”

“Not true,” he protests. “We’ve camped before.”

“Are you referring to the tent we staked out in your backyard? When we were ten?”

“It was still camping.”

“We ran straight back into the house when that owl began hooting.”

“That owl was spooky!”

The hum of the air conditioner stills. I shift. This moment, both of us sitting on the bed, the television on in the background, talking about the most random things—all of this is bringing me back to a day I try so hard to forget.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asks.

I shrug as casually as possible. “I was thinking of college. We took it for granted, didn’t we? Hanging out like this.”

“We really did.”

“This was our ritual. Grab a bite and head back to the dorms to watch this show every Thursday at nine o’clock.”

“We stayed true to that, all the way to the very last night.”

I tense. Did he really bring it up?

“Still remember that, huh?” I say lightly.

“Of course I do, Nur.”

I want to make a joke. Shift the conversation, anything to distract him from that moment, but he speaks again.

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