Page 76 of Ring Me

Epilogue 1

Perfect Match

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“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he asked, coming behind me, setting his chin on my shoulder.

“Deleting the app.”

“RingMe? You mean you hadn't yet?”

Scrolling through my phone, I stopped when I saw the app's icon: a red heart with two rings inside of it. I pushed my thumb on it until a small x appeared. “Every time I started to, I got this awful pit in my belly. I had a lot of fun chats with you on here. But I don't need it anymore when I have the real person trapped with me for the rest of my life.”

“Who's trapping who?” He nuzzled my throat, tracing my clavicle until I whimpered. “We both know who likes to be tied up, don't we?”

Giggling, I turned my phone towards him. “When you made this, did you think it would help you find love, after what you went through?”

He hesitated. “Yes. It was a faint hope, but it was there.”

“Can I be honest?”

“Always.”

“I didn't think I'd fall in love again,” I said. “I didn't even want to.”

He pulled away, peering at me with his mouth in a humorless line. “Seriously?”

“Call my cynical, but I just felt hopeless after Ben. If he didn't love me, who the hell would? The idea of experiencing that pain again was too much.” I gave him an embarrassed smile. “I was all about the no strings hook up, if you recall.”

“Maya... when you signed up for RingMe, did you say that? About not wanting to fall in love?”

My eyebrows crinkled. “I think so? Why—hey!” He'd grabbed my phone from me. “Conner, what are you doing?”

Ignoring me, he opened the RingMe app. Scanning my profile, he pursed his lips and laughed in a way that came off a little crazy. “I can't believe I didn't notice,” he said. “That's it. That's the reason.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Why we never matched through the algorithm. It drove me nuts trying to understand why.Thisis the reason! I selected that I was open to falling in love... and you said you weren't.”

My eyes widened as I studied the phone's screen. Was he right? If I'd just clicked one little button... changed a tiny preference... would we have been matched from the start? Would Conner have avoided cracking his own code, forcing our profiles to match, and ultimately avoiding shredding the trust between us when I learned about it?

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I can find out,” he said, his voice's pitch rising with excitement. “I can reinstall the app on my phone and create a new profile. It'd be like we'd never talked, and if that's the thing keeping us from matching properly, it'll connect us right away because of how close we are.” He motioned between us to indicate the distance.

That was all it would take—a few button strokes, and we could know for sure if the algorithm would declare us a perfect match.

Compatible.

Soul mates.

I rubbed my thumb over my phone. The truth was in reach, if I wanted it.

“Maya?” he asked.

Pressing the app, I held down on the x.

“You deleted it,” he said, mystified. “Why? We could have finally known the answer.”

“I already know the answer.” Turning on the couch, I sat on my knees, kissing him so hard our noses rubbed together. His eyes were shut when I stopped, his thick lashes lying on his tan cheeks. “Conner.” He looked at me through half-lids. “I love you. I love how crazy it is that we met, how fast it all happened. I love all the wrong ways we fit together. You're the only person in the whole world I want to be with. My perfect match.”

Tension crawled up his temples to his forehead, like he was holding back a surge of emotions. “Sweet Cherry. My amazing wife.” Our mouths rose together like the tide, surging in a crash that left my cells trembling.

“We fell in love fast,” I whispered earnestly. “We did it all backwards, completely reckless without caring where we'd end up. It was easily the most insane way for any relationship to start.” I linked our hands until the pressure forced our wedding rings to dig into our skin. “And I wouldn't change a thing.”

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