Her Age Gap Match (Matched on Lake Michigan #1)

Johnny

I was about to become Bloom Matchmaking Agency’s first failure.

When I’d first met with Sophie Bloom, she’d been very clear that I was pushing their age limit for clients; they were an agency that specialized in matchmaking plus fertility, I was approaching fifty, and most women just…

didn’t want to have babies with men they’d outlive by decades.

At that point, I’d told Sophie that was fine; I’d go.

But she’d seen something in me…said she wanted me to join her network.

Since then, she’d matched me up with four different women of various ages.

There was Cassandra, the tattoo artist who’d decided I was “too good.” Leah, the high school teacher who’d thought I was “too bad.” Then Miriam, the architect who’d been perfect on paper and had told me so, repeatedly, through a dinner I’d spent counting the minutes on… then Dana.

That last one had been the worst.

It was so, so obvious we weren’t going anywhere.

And for this meeting…I was pretty sure I was going to get fired from the damn matchmaking agency. Which felt both hilarious and painful, and very much like something my best friend Elle was never going to let me live down.

Bloom Agency was housed in an old greystone in Lincoln Park, half a block off the main drag.

From the outside, it looked more like a yoga studio than anything else: hand painted sign, a little sitting area on the covered porch, a welcome mat at the door.

Parking was always rough, so I typically took my bike.

I tucked my helmet under my arm, braced myself… then I went in.

I didn't want to be this self-conscious about the damn matchmaker. I’d spent a decade in prison, for fuck’s sake. I'd been through worse.

But being outside had made me soft, I guess, because I was a little daunted by the whole thing.

Inside, the hippie aesthetic just intensified. Original artwork hung on the walls. A bulletin board with various holiday cards on it was placed by the door: happy families, success stories for the agency. The front desk was empty, an empty vase in the middle.

“Oh! Mr. Lawson…you're early!”

I looked up to find the receptionist and assistant extraordinaire, Poppy Hayes, walking toward me. Her red hair was a mess, as usual; her white button-up had been buttoned one off so it was crooked. She carried a bouquet of fresh flowers in her arms, still dripping with water.

“I'm so sorry about that,” she apologized. “I was just re-upping the flowers.”

“The flowers were more important anyway,” I said, smiling. She always brightened my day, no matter how hopeless I was feeling. “But…yeah. I have a meeting with Sophie at noon…?”

Poppy put the flowers in the vase, then went around the desk to lean over and look at the computer. She furrowed her brow in concentration, staring…

…as I stared right at her breasts, which were more than a little exposed with the pose and the fact that her shirt wasn’t buttoned right.

I cleared my throat and looked away.

Not the time or place.

She had to be half my age.

“Okay…” she said. “John Lawson, 12:00 with Sophie. I have you checked in. She’ll be down in just a moment.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I looked up at the clock, finding that I was, in fact, early. I put my hands in my pockets and took a long inhale, then exhale.

“Can I get you anything?” Poppy asked. “Coffee? Tea? We also have these like—I don’t know if you’re a kombucha guy, but Jasper insisted on bringing it in and now he doesn’t want to drink it—”

“Enticing,” I laughed. “But I’m okay, thanks.”

Poppy smiled at me—a slightly crooked smile that had her lips quirk higher at the left corner—and settled back into her chair. She pulled her keyboard and typed for a moment, the sound soothing. I took a seat in one of the comfy chairs in the lobby.

“So,” Poppy said, looking up from her screen. “Fifth meeting with Sophie.”

“That obvious?”

“I do the scheduling,” she said, a blush on her cheeks. “How are you feeling about it?”

It was such a direct question. I appreciated that about her too; she was always direct, which actually made the awkwardness of this whole thing easier.

“Honestly?” I said. “Like a man about to be told his money’s no good here.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Sophie doesn’t fire clients. I haven’t seen her fail—not once. If she took you as a client in the first place…she saw something in you. I swear. I mean, I can’t imagine someone turning you down—”

She paused, fixing her eyes on her computer.

“Anyway…I think this is the one,” she said. “I just—have a feeling.”

“Ah…” I nodded, smiling.

“Mmhm.” She nodded too, very focused on her work. “I mean, more than a feeling. It’s based on—your file and stuff.”

I waited.

“She’s really great,” Poppy said. “Your date. I mean, I haven’t met her, obviously, that’s not—Sophie handles all of that. But from what I know she seems really great. And like…you’re the whole package, you’re successful, you’re kind, you’re good-looking—”

She stopped.

The word "good-looking" hung in the air between us like she'd dropped something breakable and we were both watching it fall.

"—which is, you know." She cleared her throat. "Relevant. To matchmaking. Scientifically."

"Scientifically."

"People are more likely to—there are studies—" She gave up and looked back at her computer. "Anyway. I'm sure it'll go great."

I should have let it go.

"You read my file?" I asked.

"I file all the files," she said. "It's in the job description."

"Right."

She typed something. Deleted it. Typed it again. The flowers she'd just arranged were listing slightly to the left and she still hadn't noticed.

I looked at the bulletin board. The Christmas cards. The evidence of this place doing exactly what it was supposed to do for people who were supposed to be here for that reason.

I was a client. She worked here. I was forty-five years old and she was—young, and crooked-shirted, and currently pretending to be very busy with something that was clearly not real work.

The stairs creaked.

"Mr. Lawson," Sophie said warmly, coming down to meet me.

I stood and extended my hand, Sophie taking it in the usual handshake. She was a short, curvy woman with brown hair cut to her shoulders. Always well-dressed, always crisp, but with an edge that suggested she did it for show more than because it was how she was comfortable.

“I hope your ride in was comfortable,” she said as we walked into her office and she shut the door behind us. “I saw your bike outside.”

“It was good,” I said. “Not long, though—I was staying in the city to see Elle and Kim and the kids anyway.”

Sophie smiled as she took a seat. Her office was more like a therapist’s place than a doctor; cozy chairs, warm lighting, a window on the back wall that looked out on a well-kept green space. “It’s sweet that you spend so much time with them,” she said. “Your dates haven’t been receptive to that?”

I sighed, shaking my head. “It…raises uncomfortable questions. If I talk about the kids, Harlan comes up. Prison comes up. Then it’s just…” I raised my hand to gesture a downward spiral. “Turns out old ex-cons aren’t marriage and family material.”

Sophie tilted her head slightly. “Do you believe that?” she asked. “That you’re not marriage and family material?”

“I believe that’s what women decide when they find out.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I looked at the garden out the back window. November had stripped it down but you could tell it was well-tended, the kind of garden someone came back to every year.

"No," I said finally. "I don't believe that."

"Good." She made a small note. "Because I don't either, and I need you to hold onto that for this conversation."

I looked back at her. "That sounds like a preamble."

"It is." She set her pen down and folded her hands. "Johnny — can I call you Johnny?"

"You've called me Johnny for two years, Sophie."

"Johnny." She smiled briefly. "I'm not going to match you with a fifth woman."

The room was quiet. Outside, faintly, I could hear Poppy's keyboard.

"Okay," I said. "So I am getting fired."

"You are not getting fired." Sophie's voice was patient in the way that suggested she'd anticipated this response. "I'm removing you from the active matching pool because I think the matching pool isn't actually your problem."

I waited.

“I want to ask you something,” she said, “and I’d like you to think about it honestly before you answer.”

“I always try to be honest.”

She nodded, then: “Is there someone in your life already?”

I frowned. “Like…Elle? You know she doesn’t swing that way—”

“No,” Sophie said. “Like—not a client, not a friend. Just someone in your life. Someone that’s making it harder to be present with the women I’m matching you with.

I need to share with you that the women you’ve been matched with…

we do an assessment to find out why the date wasn’t great.

Everyone has had something different to say, but the one unifying factor is that you’re distracted. ”

“Well…” I thought about it. Didn’t like where my thoughts went. Made up an excuse. “It’s probably work. I work a lot.”

“Right,” Sophie said. “Okay. Fair.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Because I’m not,” she laughed, shaking her head. “Johnny, these are perceptive women. They’re not imagining it. And my read is that it is absolutely not about work.”

I stared out the window. Wondered what the view would look like in spring. Felt like an asshole for lying, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what I was lying about.

“There’s no one,” I finally said.

Sophie watched me for a moment.

Then she nodded. “Okay.”

Didn’t push it. That was almost worse.

“In that case,” she went on, “I think we should take a break from the matching process. Just for ninety days, just enough to give you time to breathe, me to strategize, see if someone new comes into our pool that I think would sit right in the sweet spot. In the meantime, I’d like you to think seriously about what you want.

Not what you think you should want. Not what makes sense on paper. What you actually want.”

I nodded. “So…we’re done here?”

“One more thing,” she said. “If the answer to my question changes during that ninety days…I’d like you to sit with it. Really sit with it. Before you do anything at all.”

She held my gaze just long enough that I felt the back of my neck go warm.

Then she stood, smoothed her jacket, and smiled like she hadn't just said exactly what she'd said.

"I'll walk you out," she said.

Poppy looked up when we came back through. Her shirt was still crooked. The flowers were still listing.

"All good?" she asked, looking at me.

"Taking a little break," Sophie said pleasantly, before I could answer.

Poppy’s lips parted. “Oh,” she said. “Oh—okay. I’ll note that in the system.”

"Thank you, sweetheart." Sophie touched her shoulder briefly on the way past, heading back toward the stairs.

Which left me standing at the front desk.

Poppy looked up at me. I looked at her. The office was very quiet.

"So," she said. "No fifth date."

"No fifth date."

She nodded slowly, pressing her lips together. "That's — I mean, a break is good. Probably. Regroup." She was typing something that I was fairly certain was nothing. "Very smart."

"Poppy."

She stopped typing.

"The flowers are crooked," I said.

She looked at them. Reached over and straightened them without a word.

When she looked back up I was already pulling on my jacket.

"Take care of yourself, Mr. Lawson," she said quietly.

"You too," I said.

I made myself walk out the door without looking back.

I almost made it to my bike before I admitted to myself that Sophie had been asking about Poppy.