Mr. Match - The Boxed Set
Delancey Stewart
Contents
SCORING A SOULMATE
1. Love = Math
2. Maverick, Elvis, and Polar Bears — Oh My!
3. Paging Dr. Buttchin
4. Here’s Your Tooth Back
5. Math and Love Don’t Mix
6. Selling It
7. Scoring in Santa Monica
8. Secrets and Soccer
SCORING THE KEEPER’S SISTER
Prologue
9. Hello and How Do You Do
10. Hate is a Strong Aphrodisiac
11. A Urine Sample and Your First Born
12. The Importance of Rodents
13. Mr. Match is High
14. Playing for Cheese
15. Top-Level Assets
16. Tesla Confession
17. Mama Mia
18. Coronado Capers
19. Taming the Shrew
20. Not a Kiss
21. Mama Cheats at Cards
22. Midnight Makeout
23. Ditching the Cock Block
24. I’ve Been Thinking About Me…
INTERLUDE
25. Can’t Play a Player
26. The Green Goblin
27. Lungs, Legs, and Balls
28. Step Into the Light
29. Hot Rolls
30. Benching a Bus
31. The Hammer Plan
32. Textual relations
33. Rabbits in a Wool Sock
34. Twisted Balls
35. Worn Slap Out
36. Roses for Trace
37. Ice Cream Can’t Fix Everything
38. The Way to a Girl’s Heart (might be cheese)
Finale
Epilogue
SCORING A FAKE FIANCEE
Prologue
39. Co-Dependency is a Lifestyle Choice
40. French for “Faking out Maman”
41. Never Skip Leg Day
42. Mr. Match Doesn't Smoke
43. Swiping for Sharks
44. Praying for Voicemail
45. Phones are Scary
46. The Guff
47. Johnny Cash Meets the Grim Reaper
48. Dating Etiquette: Don't Climb Your Date Like a Monkey
49. Being Calm. Like an Adult.
50. Man of Steel
51. Spidey Sister
52. Here, Have a Rock
53. Six o'clock News
54. The Wombat Effect
Interlude
55. Guilty Fingers
56. Control Your Tannins, Man
57. No Celery Was Harmed
58. They Say Fries Aren't French. Whatever.
59. Oh Bonne Mere
60. Entertaining. Like a Clown?
61. Sleepover Aftermath
62. Crisco and Onion Rings
63. The Box is Distracting
64. Prepare to be Impressed
65. Airport Arguing
66. The Secret Agent
67. Mouse Nest and Elderberries
68. Rabid Hedgehogs and Other Terrifying Rodents
69. The Third Degree - French Style
70. Join Me on This Clump of Dirt...
71. Men with Tiny Balls
72. My Heart is a Moron
Interlude 2
73. Love is a Weapon. Pew! Pew! Pew!
74. Flowery Fucking Feelings
75. Turns Out Soccer Sucks
76. Hammer's Sweet, Sweet Balls
77. The Intricacies of Salad Dressing
78. Poky and Painful Soup
79. Pilgrim's Pride
Epilogue
Finale
SCORING A PRINCE
Prologue
80. The Durnish Doom
81. Yoga and Dark Tie the Knot
82. Insufficient Ballage
83. Enter Snappy and Shark
84. Wham! Is. The. Bomb.
85. Dangers of Durnish Cake
86. Being Young and Stupid.
87. Girls. With Torsos and Heads.
88. Destined for Cats
89. Skywriting and Smoke Signals
90. Kissing in the Coffee Shop
INTERLUDE
91. A Girl Only Needs One
92. Spring Fashion Trend: Panties and Disappointment
93. The Fortune Teller Zombie Downstairs
94. Handle Your Willy
95. Hold My Cooler
96. Sand in my Bits
97. Suck my Emoji
98. Doubt is a Blonde Named Rachelle
99. Less Scottish Than One Might Think
100. Sorry For Your Loss
101. Would You Like Cake with That?
102. Stepfathers and Sheep
103. Fetch the Farm Animals
104. Crown? Check.
105. Durnish Chaos
106. The Feat of Enduring Patience
107. Eight Legs of Death
108. In Crap Lake Without a Boat
109. This Uber Sux
110. Emojis and Whiskey
111. Snappy Shows Up
112. Killing it on the Pipes. (Or Killing the Pipes).
113. Brunching with Durns
Finale
Epilogue Part One
Epilogue Part Two
SCORING WITH THE BOSS
Prologue
114. Getting the Little Green Beast in a Sleeper Hold
115. Entrée: Shoes and Slobber
116. Emo Unicorns with Guy Liner
117. Tropical Fruit and Rodents. Your Thoughts?
118. Ponce de Leon – Hot or Not?
119. Conversational Standoff
120. Walking a Lion
121. Microblading Mishap
122. Nostradamus and Ricky Ricardo
123. Drowning Feelings with Vodka
124. This Chair will Kill You
125. Aspirational Shoes
126. Shot Down Near a Potted Plant
127. The Errant Asshole Gene
INTERLUDE
128. Wednesday is the new Wednesday
129. It all comes down to Fish Tacos
130. Delirious Elf-Gnomes Take Over
131. Trashing the House
132. Coffee Does Not Equal Fate
133. Taking Tesla’s Name in Vain
134. Sex Talk with Mom. Ew
135. Big Dogs and Sweat-Covered Eleven-Year-Old Unicorns
136. The Tale of Mr. Peps, the Humpy Poodle
137. Dunked and Discovered
138. News, Noodles, and Nudity
139. Resolve and Regret
140. It Always Comes Back to Cheese
141. Crocheting for a Teeny-Tiny Army
142. Traversing a Goat Path on a Pogo Stick
143. Giant Dog Sweaters
144. Alex Craft: Toolshed Choad
145. Lana was a Jerk
146. Catatonic Soccer Players
147. Susan Rose Rides Again
148. Match Met
Epilogue
Finale
Chapter 149
BONUS EPILOGUES!
SCORING THE KEEPER’S SISTER
150. I Love Your Stuff
151. Tiny Player Alert
152. Look at my Face. MY FACE!
153. Welcome to the Shitshow
SCORING A FAKE FIANCEE
154. French Fashion
155. Pre-Game Grind
156. It Always Comes Back to Cheese
157. Milking Pigs is Serious Business
158. LePoivre the Pooper
SCORING A PRINCE
159. A Smear, Sir?
160. He Who Smelt It…
161. Fetch the Sheep
162. Durnish Invasion
SCORING WITH THE BOSS
&nb
sp; 163. Christening the Couch
164. Switching Things Up
165. This is the End…
Also by Delancey Stewart
SCORING A SOULMATE
Mr. Match, The Prequel
Chapter 1
Love = Math
MAX
I was twenty-four when I discovered the equation for love.
Maybe that sounds nuts, but the reality is that I'm a fucking mathematical prodigy. It's not a claim, or an arrogant assertion of hubris. If I was going to make an arrogant statement, I'd tell you how I was recruited to play pro soccer for the South Bay Sharks after my sophomore year at college. I'd tell you about my ridiculous mansion, my three cars, or about the fact that I've already saved enough at the age of twenty-six that no one in my family will ever have to work again.
But I'm not actually an arrogant prick. Just a genius.
And like I said, I discovered the equation for love at twenty-four.
But let me back up a bit.
When I was a kid I watched my mom's heartbreak when we lost my dad. Maybe I didn't get all the nuances of their love, of what exactly she was grieving when he was gone. I knew what I missed. I missed piggyback rides and wrestling, kicking the ball around the yard and the patient way my dad would explain the rules of soccer to me as we watched World Cup games. I missed the way he'd get me up out of bed in the middle of the night so we could sit side by side on the couch and cheer for Manchester United—something my mom really never understood.
And I sort of got what my older sister Cat missed—a man to model how women should be treated, a set of big arms to comfort her when high school girls proved just as diabolical as the movies reputed them to be, and someone to steer her when she brought home guys with more piercings and hair product than her. I was too young to do any of that.
But the hardest part about losing dad was what it did to Mom. And as I grew, I saw that while it was tough losing your best buddy and your dad, it was maybe harder losing your soulmate.
I became fascinated with the way two people might fit together, and Mom suggested that we all started out just slightly incomplete to begin with. Not so much that we couldn't live on our own, but just lacking enough that when we found that thing we'd been missing, life turned into a whole other kind of adventure.
"It's chemistry and luck," Mom said once as we sat at our favorite diner with milkshakes. "But it's not rocket science. Parts of you just fit with parts of the person you love. And if it's right, things just snap into place. It's not perfect, but it's close enough. The hardest part is finding that person who fits. And there's not just one fit, I don't think," she would say. "There are probably a few different people who might be right for each of us. Maybe more. But it's the right combination of elements—”
"Like an equation," I'd suggested. "Where both sides need to be balanced."
"Just like that, Max."
"Oh my God, can we have one family outing that doesn't turn into a math lecture?" Cat, my older sister, wasn't as fond of math as I was. “Love isn’t a math problem,” she went on, drawing a series of hearts on the napkin in front of her as she spoke and then shading them to look three-dimensional. “Love is something magical, something you can’t define. Something you just know when you feel.” She looked up from the drawing, and added, “it’s the way I feel about Zac Efron. That’s love.”
“It’s like that too, Cat,” Mom told her as I rolled my eyes.
“It makes more sense if I think of it like an equation.” My sister might not enjoy it, but math was a comfort to me—it made sense. And the more I talked to Mom about love—something everyone seemed to regard as mystical and fated, the more I became convinced that it was just another equation, one I could solve.
And as an adult, I started really working on it, testing different theories and algorithms, looking for the one that worked. When I was twenty-four and my sister was at the end of another dramatic relationship with a guy who was so wrong for her he might as well have been wearing a sign that said “NOT FOR CAT,” I found the one I was pretty sure would work. But it needed refining. And I needed to help my sister find someone who would appreciate all the great things about her, and love her despite her complete incompetence at math.
I’ll be honest—part of my motivation was that if Cat was settled and happy, I’d feel better. She took Dad’s death hard, and I was too young to step up. She and Mom have always taken care of me, and now that I’m in a position to take care of them—financially if necessary, and mathematically, if they’ll let me—I plan to do it.
With some convincing (mostly me assuring her there’d be no math involved on her part), my sister Cat was a willing participant in the tests, and this is her story. And mine.
This is the story of how I became Mr. Match.
Chapter 2
Maverick, Elvis, and Polar Bears — Oh My!
Cat
"Oh my God, are you even listening to me?" I lifted myself up to peer over the arm of the couch in my brother’s living room to where Max sat at the dining room table, alternately pounding away at a keyboard and scribbling with a pencil on the notebook at his side.
"Yes. There was the whining about the Swedish exchange student in art school, Johann, and how he took you out that one time, tried to get in your pants, and then told you it had been just a fling before he went back to the frozen tundra to wrestle polar bears or whatever."
"Right. Except the polar bear part," I said, sitting up.
"And then you were complaining about Andrew and how he compared you constantly to his ex, who apparently had the intellect of a mildly gifted snail but was blessed with a huge set of knockers. And then you told me about Rob and Richard and that guy, Maverick—the name alone should have warned you off, by the way—and finally, Elvis."
"And?" I was looking for sympathy. Another relationship had gone up in smoke and I was clearly fated to be alone—at twenty-eight I’d expected to be married and pregnant by now. My parents must have named me Cat to save me time when spinsterhood knocked and I had to choose what kind of companionship to settle for as I headed into old age.
"And what, Cat? You have terrible taste in men and a proclivity for picking dudes with ridiculous names." Max closed his computer and narrowed his eyes at me. He looked smug. My brother often looked smug. That’ll happen, I guess, when you’re blessed not just with mathematical genius (like no shit genius, seriously), and a career as a professional soccer player. The genes in our family were not fairly distributed. Though I am a delightful human being, it might be nice to be a genius.
I lay down again. I was going to have one day of misery before I got back to work preparing for my art show.
"Sis, I have a proposal for you."
I rolled over, letting my arms hang over the armrest so I could get a better look at my little brother. I'd come over for dinner and to hang out, and for some brotherly advice. I did have a terrible track record with men, but being with Max usually made me feel a little bit better, if only because it helped me feel just slightly less alone in the world.
Max and I were nothing alike. He was all left brain and I was all right. He had an intuitive understanding of numbers and formulas, seeing patterns in things where other people only saw chaos, and I had a similar gift for art. It was the same thing really, I could find beauty and pattern in seemingly ordinary things, and find ways to represent them so others could appreciate them too. But getting Max’s analytical take on my life sometimes helped me put it in perspective. I tended to get a little dramatic. Just a tad. It was charming, I assure you.