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

Chapter 23

It’s Friday, aka a major day for me.

Not only is today the first time my daughter will spend the night away from home since being diagnosed with epilepsy, but also tonight I will have my first date with a woman other than Natalie in about eleven years.

As I’m searching through my closet for something to wear, I realize how out of touch I am. I think my mom got my birth certificate wrong, and I’m actually one hundred years old instead of thirty-three. Do I wear a T-shirt? Do I wear a tux? A tux is probably a little much.

Okay, breathe, Jake. You know you can’t wear a damn tux.

I’ve just put on a shirt I hate when I hear Sam scream from her bedroom. I’ve never run faster in my entire life than I do on my way to her room. I’m expecting to find her in a pool of blood on the floor.

Nope.

But I do find her in a pool of clothing. Her dark, wide eyes look up at me, and she says, “I have nothing to wear!” What? How can we be having the same dilemma?

“What do you mean? I see lots of clothes.”

“Dad!” She rolls her eyes and sounds way too exasperated with me for stating a fact. “These are all day clothes. I don’t have any cute PJs! All the girls are going to have the perfect slumber-party PJs, and I’m going to have to go in these old stained polka-dot pants that are way too small for me!”

This is catching me completely off guard. I had no idea that fashionable PJ attire was a must-have to attend an eleven-year-old’s slumber party.

Although . . . now I feel like I should have known this. I’ve seen the cheesy teen movies.

I sigh and look at my watch. “Okay. We have an hour until I have to get you to Jenna’s. Grab your stuff, and we’ll swing by the store on the way and get you some new PJs.”

“And a bra.”

“What?”I’m going to have a full-on panic attack now.

“Dad, I’m almost a teenager!” Hardly. “All the other girls who will be there have already been wearing them. It’ll be embarrassing if I’m not.”

My gut instinct is to pull the emergency lever and shut this whole thing down here and now, because I’m having trouble breathing. My daughter is almost a teenager, and she’s wanting to wear bras, and up next is the sex talk that I don’t feel at all ready to give her. But after I give myself a mental slap, I remember that I’ve been training for this very moment. A man doesn’t watch all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls for nothing. I know to stay calm. Don’t panic. Stop, drop, and roll. Basically, do anything besides make my not-so-little girl feel uncomfortable about her changing body.

Channel your inner Lorelai Gilmore.I will not be that single dad that sucks.

“Got it,” I say with a firm nod and start ticking things off on my fingers like it’s no big deal. “New bra. New PJs. And probably a new toothbrush because I’m guessing you don’t like that princess one I bought you last time?”

She smiles, and I feel like I can sigh with relief. And then she looks at my chest, and she scrunches her nose. “And a new shirt for your date. I hate that one.”

“Perfect. Meet me downstairs in five minutes.”

I go back to my closet, change into a plain white tee that’s good enough for shopping and dropping her off at her friend’s house, then hustle downstairs. Sam and Daisy are already waiting for me when I reach the bottom floor. It’s then that I notice something in Sam’s eyes that I saw in my own the last time I looked in the mirror.

We stare at each other for a long minute, both of us heavy with emotion. We are moving on with our lives, not letting the obstacles of this year hold us back.

I pull her in for a hug, and she doesn’t resist. “It’s okay. I’m a little scared too, kiddo.”

“You are?” she asks, sounding relieved.

“Yep. But we’re both going to do great. The first steps into change are always the hardest.”

She pulls out of my hug and picks up Daisy’s leash. “I wish Evie could help me pick out my new bra. I don’t really know what to get, and I’m guessing you don’t either.”

Should I be worried that she’s wishing for Evie right now and not her own mom? I probably would be if I didn’t completely get it. Natalie basically abandoned her. It’s hard to want someone who doesn’t seem to want you back. Evie, however, has been more invested in Sam’s life over the past several weeks than Natalie has been all year.

I would love to be able to call Evie right now and beg her to go with me and Sam to pick out a bra. I bet she would be perfect in that role. I’ve no doubts that she would make Sam feel special and grown-up without making it awkward like I probably will. Yet Evie and I haven’t even been on a real date yet. I can’t call her.

But maybe I can at least text her when we get there about tween bra sizes. Would she think that’s weird?

EVIE: OMG. I loved my first bra. Get her a white one and a gray one so she has something to wear with both a light and dark outfit. Size: small. No underwire and nothing with the words “push-up” unless you want to have a heart attack. And whatever you do, get in and get out as quickly as possible without saying anything remotely close to “My baby girl is growing up so fast.”

So . . . I guess she doesn’t find it weird.

I drop Sam off at Jenna’s house with a backpack filled to the brim with turquoise-and-white PJs that have some kind of sequined koala face on the front of the shirt and the words Don’t wake me until noon on the back. She talked me into not only a white and a gray training bra but also a pink.

All in all, I think I’ve crushed the single-dad thing today.

When we pull up in front of Jenna’s house, Sam tells me I can stay put in the truck. I suggest dropping her off a block away so she can walk back—that way, no one will even need to know she has a dad. And she just replies with a simple, Not this time, like it wasn’t even a joke and she was really contemplating it.

She’s in for a treat if she thinks, for one second, that I won’t be sitting a row behind her at the movies on her first date.

Sam jumps out of my truck with Daisy in tow and her bag strapped on her back. She darts toward the house with one of her friends who has also just told her parents to keep the car running and drive off as soon as her feet hit the grass. But my kid—the good one—pauses and looks over her shoulder at me. She comes sprinting back and jumps up onto the running board of my truck to kiss my cheek through the open window. “Love you, Dad.”

“Love you too, Sam. Have fun. Call me if . . .” I let the statement dangle because, somehow, I’m afraid that if I say the words out loud, I’ll be responsible for a seizure if she has one.

She smiles and nods. “I will.”

And then my little girl goes into her friend’s house for her first ever slumber party. My heart squeezes painfully. I’m glad now more than ever that I had the forethought to plan a date to distract me tonight.

I put the truck in drive, and I’m headed home to get ready for my date with Evie when my phone buzzes with an incoming text. A text that makes my heart drop into my stomach.

NATALIE: Headed back from Hawaii soon. Thinking of coming to visit when I get back. Hug Samantha for me. 3