Meet Cute Reboot: A Southern Sweet Romantic Comedy (Matched by Cupid Book 1)

Chapter 1

Luke

I hear a low moan and shoot up from bed, memories of my pleasant dream tumbling from my brain like Peanut MM’s from a candy dispenser. If I hear that sound again, I might have peanuts in my boxers.

Korg is awake and alert on the bed next to me, his ears perked and his nose glistening in the faint morning light.

“Did you hear that?” I ask him.

There it goes again: a low, gurgly moaning, almost like a hungry stomach.

I glance out my window and examine the lumbering oaks in my front yard. Their heavy boughs are still, the faded moss upon them hanging motionless and heavy with morning dew.

It wasn’t the wind. What was it then? The plumbing?

My heart slows at the thought of an old rusty pipe under the house moaning at the slightest pressure change. It’s a possibility. I had an inspection before I bought the house. The plumbing passed, but who knows? In a house like this, things settle, move, break. I knew that going into the purchase.

Also, in an old house like this, people have died. Of natural causes. Of unnatural ones.

I hear it again, and my heart revs like a jackhammer. Korg whimpers. Not a good sign. Dogs don’t whimper at old pipes. Maybe he’s scared because I’m scared. And I’m scared because he’s scared. And—

The snarl of an angry cat sounds in the hallway. On the other side of my door. Adrenaline tosses me out of bed like it’s in charge and my bare feet land on the cold, antique wood planks. Korg leaps from the bed and barrels toward the door, hackles raised, a deep growl vibrating from his throat.

“Whoah. Korg. Back.”

That doesn’t work. He starts scratching at the floor under the door. I walk over to him and pat him on the back.

“Calm down, boy.”

My touch visually relaxes Korg. He stops growling, sniffs under the door, and barks.

“Maybe we do have a cat under the house,” I say.

I really don’t want to crawl under there. What if there’s no cat? Or what if there is, but it’s disembodied? Do I really want to tangle with a ghost cat?

Still doesn’t explain that low moan, the one that woke me up way quicker than any alarm clock.

I sit down next to Korg and drape my arm across his back. He gives the door a few more sniffs before sitting and allowing me to scratch behind his ears.

“Let’s buy a historical home in Charleston, I said. It will be fun, I said.”

Korg licks my cheek.

I take his face in both of my hands and peer into his black eyes. “You could have vetoed me, you know.”

Except for the strange noises, Korg loves this place. Loves the gardens, the expansive yard, the quick access to the tidal creeks where he likes to ride along on my kayak. Nothing’s going to chase us away. We’re here to stay, ghosts or no ghosts.

I stand and pat Korg between the ears.

“Come on. Let’s eat.”

My hand lingers in the air above the doorknob. What if a cat leaps onto my face with its teeth bared and its claws out? The domesticated feline is no jungle cat, but those retractable claws can do some serious damage. There is no cat. I repeat, there is no cat. Korg’s lack of growling, scratching, and sniffing confirms it.

As soon as I open the door, Korg sprints into the hallway. I let him out the front door to do his business and give him a few minutes to run free before calling him back in.

We both head into the kitchen to the click, click, click of his claws against wood. He runs to his empty food bowl, but I freeze.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The cabinet door is open again. I clench my jaw along with my fists. The cabinet door that keeps opening by itself.

Large yard with mature oak trees, great location downtown, a guest house and a barn, original woodwork, history, southern charm. The house’s positives still far outweigh the negatives.

I walk over to the cabinets, gently close the door, head to the mudroom to fill Korg’s food and water dishes, and then return to the kitchen.

The alarm I’d set to wake me up in time to catch Cassie’s news segment still hasn’t gone off. I tap my watch. I have twenty minutes until I need to turn on the TV. In the meantime, I swipe off the alarm, toast a bagel, eat the bagel, and brew a cup of coffee while mentally preparing myself for Cassie to press the Choose button on live TV.

Thanks to my insider knowledge, I know Cassie’s database is small, only one hundred eligible bachelors, so there’s a one in a hundred chance Cupid will choose me. (I’m good at math.) More if you consider how much she and I naturally have in common.

If I’m chosen, I have a spiel prepared. I’ll tell her I was approached by an investor friend who works for Excel, who knows I’m single and new to the area, and who thought I might be willing to try a new matchmaking app.

After punching me in the face (well-deserved), she’ll calm down, and I’ll win her over again with my charm. Yes, it’s sneaky. Yes, I’m sort of lying. Guilt is a thing, and I’m suffering from it, but I think she’ll understand this is a romantic gesture, like the prince who slays the dragon, wards off evil spells, crosses the moat, and climbs the booby-trapped tower to rescue the princess. I’m the prince. She’s the princess. It’s a fairy-tale love story. What can go wrong?

She could hate me. I mean, continue to hate me. My lies could blow up in my face. She could see them as another betrayal in a long line of betrayals, and I could be stuck alone in a huge house with a haunted cabinet and a feral ectoplasmic cat.

I sigh and rub my face. Cassie’s app probably won’t choose me anyway.

I top off my coffee mug, make a pit stop in the bathroom—Korg follows me in, of course—and then I head back to my bedroom to retrieve my phone before returning to the family room and flopping onto the couch. Korg jumps up beside me while I flip on the television.

I’m early. Cassie’s segment isn’t for another five minutes, so I clutch my phone and jiggle my knee as meteorologist Kenny Blackburn tells me it’s gonna be another hot one in Charleston, SC.

Cassie

As Kenny Blackburn uses his entire body to draw the path of tomorrow evening’s thunderstorms across the Charleston metropolitan area, I sit on the leather sofa wringing my hands. Felicia Acrea and I are already in place for our interview segment. Felicia’s distracted by her jacket, fiddling with her lapels and smoothing her blouse while the makeup guy floofs her hair. Guests don’t get special treatment. I hope my nose isn’t shiny.

This was my idea. Go on TV, be the guinea pig, the first to click MatchAI’s Choose button and trust Cupid to find my perfect match. It won’t be a real date. Heavens no. I’ve only been divorced for six months (yeah, that happened), and I’m not ready to jump back into dating. This is just a publicity stunt—a way to advertise and let people know that I, the CEO of the company, am so confident in my app that I’ll use it myself.

In addition to pressing the Choose button on live TV, I’ll go on a blind date with my match, livestream portions of our date on Instagram, and do a follow-up radio interview on Monday morning. There are two hundred singles in my database. When the men signed up, they agreed to cooperate with my launch plan if their name was selected. Nothing could go wrong.

The guy behind the camera points at us. Kenny isn’t talking anymore. It’s our turn.

I start sweating under the hot studio lights. If my nose isn’t shiny, it will be in five seconds.

Felicia starts the interview like we’re old friends, like we’ve been chatting all morning. She laughs at something, and I laugh too, even though I didn’t hear what she said. Nerves do funny things to a person.

Deep breaths. In. Out.

“Let’s talk about you first,” Felicia says. “MatchAI isn’t your first gig. You have an established ghost tours business as well. Do you want to give it a plug?”

“Sure. My mom says I’m an overachiever.” I rattle out a nervous laugh. “I suppose she’s right. After I earned my associate degree at Trident Tech, I knew I wanted to own a business, and combining my love of Charleston’s history with the tourism industry seemed the perfect place to start. I bought Old Towne Ghost Tours from an older couple and took the company from a fledgling mom-and-pop to a profitable business with a reputation for bringing Charleston’s vibrant history and legends to life.”

“So, MatchAI is just your side hustle.”

“I guess you could say that. I manage them both with the help of my talented assistant, Sarah.”

I glance at Sarah, who is standing, arms crossed, at the back of the studio, her brow furrowed in response to my callout.

“You’re already a successful businesswoman,” Felicia says, oblivious to Sarah’s glare. “What made you want to create a dating app?”

“My nickname in high school was Stupid Cupid because I had a knack for matching people up. With the advent of AI technology, I realized I could take my talent virtual. My app features an artificial intelligence—we call her Cupid—and she matches people based on hundreds of categories including custom keywords and phrases.”

I prop my elbow onto the armrest and lean toward Felicia. “We also use biometrics software to match people based on facial geometry,” I continue. “Studies have shown that we are attracted to people we resemble, and Cupid harnesses that tendency to find your perfect match.”

My voice sounds confident. Fake it till you make it. The time I spent practicing with Sarah last night is helping.

“So, you’re in beta right now. Tell me a little about that.”

“Yes, we’re rolling out the beta version to the Charleston metro area and surrounding communities. I’m from Charleston, and this city is dear to my heart, so it makes sense to roll out here first.”

“Why do you think people will allow Cupid to choose their date for them, versus browsing through singles themselves?”

I tell her what I told Sarah: some people aren’t good at choosing a match and they need a little help from a state-of-the-art AI. I say a few words about AI technology, how it’s already helping us write novels, create art, drive our cars, provide companionship. I finish by explaining how Cupid will learn from each successful match to increase the odds of creating successful matches in the future.

“No one has approached dating from this angle,” I say. “I’m the first, and I think as MatchAI produces more and more successful matches, people will come to trust Cupid better than they trust themselves.”

Sweat trickles down my temple and slides down my cheekbone. Hopefully it’s not visible on camera. If I wasn’t wearing this light clothing, I’d be a raging furnace right now.

Sarah helped me choose my outfit. I wanted to wear a suit jacket and matching pants, but she pulled this blouse and cotton skirt from my closet because, according to her, “It’s too hot in Charleston for a fitted acrylic straitjacket.” I like my suits, but Sarah was right.

Felicia asks me a few more questions about my plans to grow the user base, whether I’m going to take the application national or even global. I tell her I’ll follow demand. The more interest there is, the more I will expand into new territories.

“We’re going to use the app today, right?” Felicia says.

“Yes, that’s the plan.” I remind myself to smile.

“We’ve already set up your phone to stream to the screen behind us,” Felicia continues, “so let’s get to it.”

“All right. I can’t wait.” Excitement mingles with my nerves, like the feeling a gambler gets in Las Vegas before punching the button on the slot machine. I mean, who knows? Maybe I’ll find my perfect match today.

I lean over and grab my phone from the coffee table. “Okay... Let me pull up the app.”

I click the MatchAI icon on my phone and look over my shoulder. The home page displays on the LCD screen behind us.

“Do we have the feed?” Felicia asks the tech guy. He gives us a thumbs up.

The app is simple. A person icon in the bottom left corner leads to the extensive profile page where the user can enter hundreds of details and stats about themselves. A conversation button in the bottom right corner leads to the embedded messaging application. Otherwise, the home page consists of a very large, very pink Choose button.

I tap the button and a carousel of male pictures zooms by, losing momentum as the seconds wear on. Next comes the slow click of potential matches, one after the other, until the phone dings and Cupid’s choice fills my screen.

A fire ignites in my belly, a fury of nerves, shock, anger, disbelief.

This can’t be happening.

My ex—the guy who cheated on me—smiles at me from my phone screen. I don’t dare look over my shoulder where I know he’s smiling at me larger than life in high definition.

My worst fear is about to happen.

I’m gonna throw up on live TV.