Page 55 of The Matchmaker
“Sorry, sorry. I’m positive. Did you get a matchmaker yet?”
“Not yet,” I say, ignoring her groan. “Don’t worry. I won’t just use the list. I’ll figure something out.”
Adam frowns. “What list?”
“Katie tried to cut corners,” Nush says.
“I did not!”
“She found this big list of questions online to find our ideal partners. Gemma wants brown eyes,” she adds, looking up into his blue ones. “Tough luck.”
“I’ll try to survive,” he says, and Gemma scowls at him. “Why don’t you ask Maeve to matchmake?” he asks me. “Didn’t she meet your grandad at the festival?”
“No,” I say, still brushing the dirt from my clothes. “She met Grandad when he was cleaning the windows of her house and she opened the curtains naked, and he fell off the ladder.”
Gemma starts coughing into her flask.
“It was romantic!” I insist. “She nursed him back to health. He had a concussion.”
“You should still ask her,” Adam says, as Nush slaps Gemma between the shoulders. “I’m pretty sure she’s introduced a few people over the years. Could be a nice selling point. And you’ve got your parents too.”
My eyes snap to his. “My parents are not a selling point.”
“I know,” he says gently. “But it’s a connection. People might like that.”
“I guess,” I say, as my attention catches on a couple of the guys carrying the last crates out of the barn.
“We can repurpose those,” I call, as Adam and Nush go over to help. “Don’t just dump them.”
“Repurpose into what?” Gemma asks.
“I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.” I glance around the barn, wondering what to start on next. “Okay, I need to—”
“No,” Gemma interrupts. “You don’t need to do anything right now. Take a break.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You’ve been here for hours, and you’ve got work tonight. You can’t do full shifts at the pubandkeep doing all of this. You’re going to burn out.”
“Yes, like a phoenix.”
“Like a cigarette butt,” she says. “Just take a walk or something. Five minutes. I promise we won’t burn the place down in your absence.”
“Why would you even joke about—”
“Goodbye.”
She pushes me toward the entrance, and I know she’ll just be on my case if I don’t go, so I announce my break and take off blindly through the trees. I’m not worried about getting lost. I spent whole summers in this forest when I was younger and know it as well as anyone. Glenmill have made a decent dent in the area on the other side of the barn, but this direction remains largely untouched.
For now, anyway.
I walk for a few minutes before stopping, not so much taking a break and becoming one with nature as counting down the minutes until I can get back to work.
I never really thought of myself as impatient, but it’s all I’ve felt in the last few weeks. There’s just too much to do and too little time to do it, and I’m almost growing used to the constant churn of anxiety that I wake with each morning.
Maybe I should take up yoga.
I close my eyes, inhaling until my lungs hurt, and open them again, only to freeze as I spy a flash of color between the trees. A second later, Callum emerges, unaware of me as he heads in the direction of the lake.
