3. ERS
Chapter three
ERS
The next morning, Tessa Bloom sits at her desk in ERS's quiet offices, two intake forms displayed side-by-side on her dual monitors.
On the left: Seamus O'Malley, billionaire CEO, requested by his board for image stabilization.
On the right: Rosanna Lopez, children's book illustrator, seeking security without losing herself.
On paper, they're a terrible match—different worlds, different values, different everything.
But Tessa has been doing this work long enough to know that paper doesn't tell the whole story.
She scrolls through Seamus's responses, noting the careful, controlled language. Every answer is precise, measured, revealing nothing while appearing to reveal everything.
It's the kind of intake form that makes her job harder because the client is so busy protecting himself that he can't articulate what he actually needs.
Until she reaches question seventeen: What qualities are most important to you in a partner?
His answer is longer this time: Someone who sees possibilities instead of limitations. Someone who is "sunny side up". They don't ignore the difficulties, but face them with hope anyway.
Tessa sits back in her chair. "Sunny side up." That's... specific.
Unusually specific for a man who's been giving generic answers about compatibility and shared values throughout the rest of his form.
She switches to Rosanna's intake, scrolling through responses that are warmer, more open, but also more guarded than they first appear. Rosanna is good at seeming accessible while keeping her true fears hidden. But then Tessa reaches the answer to question twelve.
I know that sounds silly, but I try to approach my life sunny side up.
Tessa leans forward, highlighting both phrases on her monitors. The exact same words. Not just similar sentiments—the exact same unusual two-word phrase used in completely different contexts by two people who supposedly have never met.
She pulls up her notes document and types: Coincidence? Or shared cultural reference I'm not aware of?
She makes a mental note to ask around the office if "sunny side up" is some kind of motivational phrase that's popular right now. Maybe it's from a book or podcast or TikTok trend that she's too busy to have caught.
But even as she types it, her instincts say this is something else. Something more personal.
Tessa opens a new window and starts the preliminary compatibility assessment, looking for any obvious connections between Seamus O'Malley and Rosanna Lopez.
It's standard procedure. ERS needs to ensure they’re not walking clients into undisclosed conflicts—past relationships, hidden disputes, or social overlaps that could explode publicly.
Even with thorough screening, not every potential complication disqualifies a match. Some are simply flagged and evaluated—particularly when the compatibility score is unusually high.
These two have no mutual friends on social media.
No shared professional circles. No overlap in their visible networks.
Rosanna's Instagram is public and full of illustration work-in-progress shots; Seamus doesn't appear to have personal social media at all.
Different neighborhoods, different industries, different everything.
On paper, they have no connection.
They exist in completely different worlds, their paths never crossing in any obvious way.
Which makes the identical phrasing even more intriguing. Two people from utterly different backgrounds, using the exact same unusual phrase to describe their core values.
Tessa makes another note: Linguistic coincidence. May indicate compatible worldviews despite different backgrounds.
She pulls up the deeper compatibility metrics. Looking at personality assessments, communication styles, attachment patterns, and values alignment. And here, despite the surface-level differences, things start to click into place.
They're both lonely. Both afraid of being used. Both protecting themselves.
Tessa saves her preliminary notes and walks down the hall to the data science department, where George is undoubtedly already here.
George treats the office like his natural habitat. He is more comfortable here than anywhere else, surrounded by monitors and algorithms and the mathematical certainty of compatibility metrics.
She finds him exactly where she expected: hunched over his standing desk, three monitors displaying data visualizations that look like abstract art to anyone who isn't fluent in statistical analysis.
George Maddox in his natural habitat.
He doesn't look up when she enters, just raises one hand in acknowledgment while finishing whatever calculation he's absorbed in.
"George," Tessa says, dropping into the chair beside his desk. "I need your brain for a pattern recognition question."
"My brain is currently occupied with the Riley-Thompson match," George replies, still not looking at her. "Their compatibility score is lower than I'd like, but Evelyn insists there's something the algorithm isn't capturing. I'm trying to figure out what variables I'm missing."
"This will just take a minute," Tessa promises.
"I have two intake forms that use identical phrasing in completely different contexts.
'Sunny side up'—one client uses it to describe what they're looking for in a partner, the other uses it to describe their own life philosophy.
No apparent connection between the clients. What does that tell you?"
That gets his attention.
George finally looks away from his monitors, his dark eyes focusing on her with the intensity he usually reserves for data problems.
Something warm flickers in her chest—unexpected and inconvenient. She ignores it, like always.
"Identical phrasing in disconnected contexts? Could be a linguistic coincidence. Could be a popular cultural reference."
He pauses, thinking. "People who process the world similarly landing on similar metaphors independently."
"So it could mean they think alike," Tessa summarizes. "Even though they come from completely different backgrounds."
"Correct." George pulls up a new window on his screen. "Show me the full profiles. I'll run a linguistic analysis on their entire intake forms, see if there are other pattern matches beyond the obvious one."
Tessa transfers the files to his system and watches him work. George's fingers fly across the keyboard, pulling up analysis tools and natural language processing algorithms that are completely beyond her understanding.
She's good with people; he's good with patterns.
Together, they make ERS's matching process as much art as science.
After several minutes, George sits back. "Interesting. They have remarkably similar communication patterns. It's subtle enough that a human reader wouldn't necessarily notice, but the algorithm flags it as unusually high linguistic compatibility."
"Which means what, practically speaking?"
"Which means they'd probably communicate very well together," George explains. "It's actually one of the stronger linguistic compatibility scores I've seen. Despite their different backgrounds, they genuinely seem to think alike."
Tessa leans forward, studying the data George is showing her. "So matching them makes sense from a communication standpoint."
"It makes sense from multiple standpoints," George confirms, pulling up more metrics.
He looks at her. "This could be a very strong match if you can get past the surface incompatibilities."
"Or it could explode spectacularly," Tessa counters.
George shrugs. "That's why you get paid for judgment calls and I get paid for data analysis. The numbers say they're compatible. Whether they can actually build a relationship across their different contexts? That's the human question the algorithm can't answer."
Tessa thanks him and heads back to her office, thinking about sunny side up and linguistic patterns and two lonely people who describe the world in similar ways despite never having met.
Back at her desk, Tessa does one more search. This time she's looking specifically for any "sunny side up" references in popular culture, self-help books, motivational speakers, anything that might explain why two unconnected people would use this exact phrase.
She finds breakfast references. She finds a few songs with "sunny side" in the title. She finds exactly nothing that would explain this specific phrase used as a life philosophy.
Which brings her back to the same conclusion: somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, Seamus O'Malley and Rosanna Lopez share a connection.
Tessa pulls up the matching interface and runs the full compatibility analysis.
The progress bar creeps across the screen while she sips cold coffee and thinks about fate and coincidence and whether "sunny side up" means something she's not seeing.
The results populate: 78% compatibility. Higher than she expected given their surface differences.
She opens Evelyn's secure messaging system and types: Have a match to run by you. High compatibility metrics but significant surface-level differences. Billionaire CEO and struggling artist. Both used the same term ("sunny side up") despite no apparent prior connection. Your approval requested.
Evelyn's response comes back within minutes: Sunny side up? That's delightfully specific. Send over the details.
She wonders if her instincts about "sunny side up" are right. If it's just a coincidence, or if it's a sign of something deeper. Of two people who were always going to understand each other, who were just waiting to be introduced.
Tessa creates a new case file and begins outlining the match to send to Evelyn.
She adds a special note: "Sunny side up" phrase—could accelerate bonding. Could also be useful touchstone during difficult moments.
Every match has complications. But something about the "sunny side up" coincidence feels right. Like the universe offering a breadcrumb, a hint that these two people speak the same language.
Even if they don't know it yet.