Page 18 of Minted

“You’d be such a great mom, though,” I say. “Maybe it’ll be like a lightning strike. Maybe you’ll meet him and fall madly in love.”

“That would be nice,” she says. “So far, that has never once happened for me.”

“Me either.” I stuff the last piece of bagel in my mouth.

She opens my phone again and starts filtering through women. She’s not asking me to do anything with them, so I’m not sure. . . “What are you doing?”

“I’m ruling out the idiots and the flakes before you’ve had a chance to see their photo and decide to give them a chance because they’re pretty.”

I can’t help laughing. “Isn’t that important?”

“Sure,” she says. “But let’s find people who might be a fit and then decide whether they’re attractive.”

She’s smart with this, that’s for sure. We head for the store she rattles off, but she spends most of the drive over scrolling in silence. We’re nearly there when she says, “Okay, let’s meet our finalists, shall we?”

“Sure.”

She makes a drumrolling sound, and after I park, she turns the phone around. “First up, we have Denise Chitton, a graduate in finance who works at an investment bank in the City. She’s sporty—plays handball three times a week—she’s witty—references Shakespeare in a clever way in her profile—and she’s pretty.” She holds the phone closer and swipes through a dozen photos.

She’s not wrong. Denise is tall, lean, and makes a mean duck face. I can’t put my finger on why, but I’m not excited. Still, Barbara looks eager, so I shrug. “Okay.”

“She passes. Nice.” She makes a note, and then starts typing on my phone.

“Whoa, what are you doing? Are you messaging her right now?” I try to snatch my phone back.

“Oh, no way.” She clutches my phone to her chest. “You’re not allowed to touch anything on this app while I’m your manager.”

“Wait a second,” I say. “I didn’t agree to that.”

She holds out the phone, but I can smell the trap.

“What?”

“No problem. You can take over again for yourself.”

“Oh, come on,” I say.

She pins me with a glare. “Bentley Harrison, if you want me to find you a woman who meets all your criteria, if you want me to weed through the over-made-up and social-climbing masses, then you have to do as I say.”

As a control freak, this does not come easily to me, but I see her point. “Fine.”

“You will not open the app yourself.”

“I won’t.”

She smiles, and I hate how happy it makes me. She may as well scratch me behind the ears and say Good Boy. “Now, here’s contestant number two.” She swivels my phone around again. “Marcia Oppenheimer.”

“That’s a name,” I say.

“Oh, who cares about that? If all goes well, it’ll be Marcia Harrison soon.”

“Unless she wants to hyphenate, and then all our kids will be named something like Kirk Oppenheimer-Harrison, and they’ll hate me forever.”

Barbara rolls her eyes and snorts, which is how I know I’m being the perfect amount of ridiculous. “In addition to being just lovely, she’s also a stand-up comedian some weekends, and she’s very well traveled. She also mentions that she wants a big family.”

When she spins it back to show me photos, I can’t help notice that Barbara’s a little too excited. The petite little brunette is cute, but Barbara’s beaming.

“Why are you trying to sell me on this one? She didn’t threaten you with a bomb, did she?”

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