The Match: An EXTENDED edition rom-com from the author of the TikTok sensation THE CHEAT SHEET! (It

Chapter 3

Sam doesn’t speak to me all the way home. Doesn’t even take the bait when I ask if she wants to stop by her favorite ice cream shop and get a double scoop. Shawn Mendes’s falsetto is blaring over the speakers, and I honestly have no idea how else I can redeem myself in her eyes.

I’m practically screaming LOVE ME to my ten-year-old daughter, and she’s plugging her tiny little pierced ears, holding all the power.

How did this happen? How did I get here? Shouldn’t she be the one begging me for mercy after the stunt she just pulled? Instead, I’m seconds away from offering to clean her room and do her homework for a month. I’m a total schmuck, but I don’t care. Sam and I have always had a close relationship. Even before Natalie left, I was the one who Sam gravitated toward. I’ve always been able to see how brightly I shine in her eyes. But right now, they look dim, and she looks more disappointed in me than ever. I will do anything to see her smile right now.

“I’ve gotta stop off at the office real quick to pick up a few plans,” I tell her as I pull up in front of Broaden Homes. It’s my residential architectural firm—as in, I built this little company from the ground up. It’s not the biggest firm in town, but it’s not the smallest either. I’m doing pretty well for myself, and as I walk through the large light-oak doors of the historic downtown building I renovated and turned into our offices, I feel a shot of pride. Also a bit of longing.

Since I began shouldering the brunt of parenthood and learning

a new way of life with Sam’s seizures, I haven’t been able to devote as much time to the business as I would like. The two other architects I have employed here are working double-time to pick up the slack I keep dropping. But being a single parent in the summertime is hard enough. Add in a newly discovered disability and an endless string of sleepless nights, and you get nearly impossible.

“Jake, what are you doing in here today?” asks Hannah, one of my head architects on staff, as she steps out of her office.

It’s a smallish building with only three offices for the architects and one large common space for assistants and meetings. But it’s beautiful, even if I do say so myself. A wall of windows lines the front of the building, the flooring is made of wide natural plank wood, and a massive fifteen-foot-long oak table for meetings sits in the center of the common space.

“I just wanted to stop in and grab those plans of the Halbert build.” And feel like myself again for a minute.

Hannah levels me with a look before putting her hands on her hips. “I thought you were giving that project over to Bryan? Also, hi, Sam! It’s good to see you, sweetie.” She grins at my daughter, who has been brooding behind me but offers a smile to Hannah like it’s an intentional jab to my gut.

“I was. I did.” I run my hand through my hair, wishing I didn’t have to get through a customs checkpoint before making it into my own office. “Last night I thought of a few ideas for the mudroom problem we were having, and I thought I might take a look at the plans again. I think if I move it—”

“That sounds like something Bryan—the man you handed the project over to because you were so exhausted you were falling asleep at your desk in the middle of the afternoon—should be worrying about.”

I’m mad that she’s right. I’m exhausted and stretched thin. It’s why I decided to cut back my hours, delegate more projects to Bryan and Hannah, and devote more of my time to Sam this summer. But it’s hard. I love my job, and I love giving my brain the opportunity to create. Forcing it to turn off like this feels like I’m cutting off my leg. I don’t know how to walk anymore.

“Okay, you’re right. Let me just look at those plans really fast, and then I’ll be on my way.”

Hannah gives me a flat smile that alerts me to what’s coming. She steps up to me, puts her hands on my shoulders, and physically turns me toward the door. “Go home, Jake. This is your day off. Let us do our jobs.”

I’m letting her push me through the door, but I’m not happy

about it. “But you’re not doing your job; you’re doing mine. I don’t like it, Hannah. I feel like I’m working you guys into the ground.”

“Neither of us have kids or spouses, Jake. We like being worked into the ground by our taskmaster boss. It gives us something to gripe about when we go home to our families at Christmas,” she says, pushing even harder now and nodding for Sam to follow us out.

“I’m going, I’m going.” There’s a good chance Hannah will lock the doors and not let me in again if I don’t leave now.

I get back in my truck and look to Sam, waiting for her to smile up at me like she did for Hannah. She doesn’t, and it’s the most annoying thing in the world to have a ten-year-old give me the silent treatment. I let her, though, because I’m not entirely sure I don’t deserve it.

Miss Jones’s sweet southern drawl pulls at my memory. You’re going to need it when you try to walk out of here with your head shoved so far up your ass.

Pulling into the driveway at our house, I click the button to open the garage and notice that my sister June is sitting on the front porch swing zeroed in on her phone, a box of donuts from her bakery on the seat beside her. June owns an iconic donut shop here in Charleston called Darlin’ Donuts. She’s worked so hard to make that place successful, and it doesn’t escape my notice that she still makes time to spend with Sam. She’s been a miracle for us, and today I arranged for her to come stay with Sam for a few hours so that I can go to the grocery store and shop in peace. And wow that statement makes me feel like the physical manifestation of my mom from twenty years ago.

But I don’t know what I would have done without the help

of June (and my other three sisters) this past year. At one point

in my life, I lamented the fact that I had four of them—all younger than me. Growing up, it was like I was always sneaking into

a sorority house, trying not to get noticed as I tiptoed past

each of their rooms. It smelled like nail polish. They were either fighting ruthlessly or laughing hysterically. One of them was always stealing the other’s stuff, and hell was always breaking

loose.

But now that we are all grown adults, living our own lives, I wish they would move in with me and never leave.

June glances up when she sees us approach and smiles wide. But her grin falters when she sees Sam open the truck door and dive out before I’ve even had a chance to pull into the garage. It’s as if I’ve kidnapped her and she would rather open the door and hurl herself out onto the concrete while driving seventy miles per hour down the interstate than live the rest of her life with me.

Sam’s flip-flops slap the ground angrily, and her ponytail swings like a pendulum all the way into the house. She doesn’t even look back at me, just slams the door shut behind her.

I wince a little and turn to my baby sister, whose eyes are now as big as saucers.

“What in the world was all that about?” she asks as I make my way up the front steps and join her on the porch swing. She offers me a donut, but I don’t feel like eating right now.

“She’s mad at me.”

June laughs. “Yeah, I gathered that. But why? I’ve never seen her throw a fit like that. Usually, she just goes quietly and hides in her room.” June is the only one of my sisters who isn’t married yet, so she’s been around this past year more than anyone else.

“Yeah, well. Unfortunately, those outbursts are becoming more normal by the minute. She even slammed her door in my face the other day. Nearly gave me a bloody nose.”

“Yikes. So, what are you doing wrong?” she asks with a playful grin.

I know she doesn’t mean it seriously, but the comment still stings me somewhere vulnerable. I feel so out of my element lately. I’m quickly approaching the day when Sam will enter puberty, and then I’ll have a whole new pile of worries and insecurities on my plate. Right now I’m just obsessed with making sure Sam doesn’t have a seizure while she’s in the shower, where she could fall and hit her head. In a few years, I’ll be worrying about seizures and the boy who keeps her out past curfew.

My hands find my face, and I rub my palms over my eyes and all the way up through my hair. “I wish I knew. I’m ninety-nine percent sure I’m failing at this single-parenting thing.”

June shifts beside me and puts her hand on my back. “Oh, come on now, it was only a joke. You’re doing a great job with Sam.” She rubs circles on my back like I’ve done for her a hundred times. My reply is a halfhearted grunt.

“I’m serious!” She leans in and lays her head against my shoulder. “You’re the best dad I know, besides our own. Top-notch, really. I can’t think of anyone else in the world who could handle all that you’ve gone through this year with so much ease.”

With so much ease?Last night, after Sam went to bed, I was so angry with how hard life has been that I tore a pillow in half. I’d never felt so powerful and masculine . . . until feathers went flying everywhere, making it look more like a scene from a 1990s slumber party movie.

I shake my head and sit up straight, dragging a deep breath into my lungs. “I feel like I’m losing her, June. She’s only ten, but she’s gone through so much heartache this year. It’s like I can see her physically shutting down. And last night, Natalie called and bailed on her visit again.”

June looks pissed. “What was the excuse this time? Another potential audition?”

“I don’t think I should tell you.”

“I swear, Jake, she better be bedridden with a hundred-and-three-degree fever.”

I smirk. “Hawaii with some dude.”

June’s eyes look feral. She closes them and breathes through her nose to cool her temper. “I don’t care how big of a movie star she becomes, that woman doesn’t deserve to have a daughter as wonderful as Sam.”

And that’s the thing: Natalie is finding success in Hollywood. In the two years she’s been out there, she’s already landed a few minor roles in some big projects and has been filling her plate with commercials between auditions. She is reaching her dreams. It would be so much easier to be happy for her if she wasn’t completely abandoning our child in the process.

June wraps her arm around mine, and we start to swing. “Listen, you’ve both had a tough couple years. And as much as I want to rip Natalie’s silky brown hair from her head, I want to squeeze you with hugs until you burst. Because I see you continue to show up for Sam time and time again, and it’s because of your love and perseverance that I know she’ll pull through it all. And eventually, Jake, you’ll both figure out how to live with her seizures. I know it. It’ll just take some time.”

I nod and attempt to swallow the lump in my throat. “I wish there was something I could do to cheer her up, though.”

“Well, maybe there is.”

“I asked if she wanted to go out for ice cream, but she didn’t seem too thrilled by that idea.” Apparently, when your dad shuts down your masterful plan to con him into getting you a service dog, and you have to watch him act like a jerk to a perfectly nice stranger, you don’t have much of an appetite for bubblegum ice cream.

“Hmm. Maybe there’s something I can do with her while you’re running errands. Any movies she’s been wanting to see?”

“No.”

“Does she need any new clothes? I could take her shopping.”

“She hasn’t been interested in clothes lately.”

“Well . . . is there anything else you can think of? Anything

she’s mentioned lately that she really liked? Or wanted? Anything she’s shown interest in that would get her excited about life again?”

I stop our swinging, and my gaze turns toward the house as if I’ve suddenly developed X-ray vision and can see right through the walls to the stack of pamphlets piled up on the kitchen counter.

The answer has been in front of me all along, but I dislike the idea now just as much as I did yesterday. I’m still holding tight to all the reasons I think getting a service dog is a bad idea, but I’m just desperate enough to see that maybe it’s exactly what Sam needs to give her something to look forward to.

But more than anything, I really don’t like that I’m about to have to eat a whole truckload of shit.