“Now, who’s the negative one?” Colton crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re assuming it won’t work out.”
“When it doesn’t work out…if it doesn’t work out…semantics.” Ace sighed. “Just do it to make Emma happy. We gave her enough grief about getting back into the dating scene. She deserves the benefit of the doubt on this BODS thing.”
“I’m texting Ariana now,” Dillon said. “I’ll go out once, but that’s all I’m promising.”
Colton turned to Brand. “Wanna bet on how this turns out?” He slapped a twenty dollar bill on the table. “Twenty dollars says Dillon marries his match.”
Brand’s eyes widened. “You’re all positive.” He reached into his wallet and pulled out two fifties. “I meet your bet and up the ante to one hundred dollars. I’m betting he’ll ditch her.”
Ace slapped two one hundred dollar bills on the table between them. “Make it two hundred, and I’m betting she’ll ditch him.”
Dill stared at the money on the table. “You guys suck.”
As Ariana left the garage and headed home to her house in the suburbs of west Austin, she tried to get the handsome stranger out of her mind. No amount of Zen-anything would shake his image loose.
By the time she got home, she was on the verge of calling Leslie and asking for the man’s number.
Instead, she entered her house, lit twenty candles, ran a hot bath with essential oils and sank into water up to her neck. She closed her eyes and pictured a beautiful field of ripened wheat waving in the breeze.
A handsome face and broad shoulders rose up out of the wheat and walked toward her, a sexy grin spreading across his face.
Ariana’s eyes popped open, and she sat up straight, splashing water over the edge of the tub. “No, he’s not the one. BODS is working on my match.” She had to be patient and wait for Leslie’s program to sift through the data and connect her to someone truly perfect for her.
A little voice whispered in her ear, Who could be more perfect than the stairwell stranger?
Ariana dipped a washcloth in the water, wrung it out and placed it over her eyes. She sank back down in the water and focused on serenity. She was almost there when her cellphone pinged with an incoming text.
She ignored it. The text could wait until she cleansed the tension from her system.
But what if it’s BODS sending you the data on your match?
Sitting up again, water sloshed over the edge of the bathtub, as she reached for her cellphone on the bench beside her. She fumbled with the device, her hand wet and slippery with essential oils. When she had the phone steady in her hands, she swiped the screen and read the text.
Congratulations! BODS found your match!
Click here to view your match’s profile.
Her heart beat so fast, Ariana felt like it might just leap out of her chest. She clicked the button and waited while the application pulled up the man’s profile.
No picture?
Where the picture should have been was a silhouette of a face and a note: Photo unavailable at this time.
“Damn.” She sighed and scrolled through the personal data. At least she had a name. Dillon Jacobs.
She frowned. Her friend Emma’s last name was Jacobs. Could it be one of her four brothers? Jacobs was a pretty common name. Maybe not.
She read more about the man.
He was in construction. That was good. Warmth spread throughout her body and down low in her belly. A man who worked with his hands would know what a woman wanted and know how to get her there.
So far, he intrigued her.
He liked dogs and horses. Another attribute in his favor. Ariana couldn’t be with a man who didn’t like animals.
He enjoyed fishing, hunting, sports and the outdoors. Ariana shrugged. She had never been fishing, but she was willing to give it a try. Her father had been an accountant, a little nerdy and never into sports or interested in the outdoors, beyond his neatly trimmed yard.
Ariana loved getting outside and going for long walks. It could work.
She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She could go out with Dillon Jacobs. One date wouldn’t be too much trouble. Hopefully, he would let her pick the location for the first date. That way she would know what to expect.
So, how did she go about letting him know she was interested? She scrolled down and found a button to push if she wanted to know more.
As she pressed her finger to the screen, another text came through, flashing across her phone.
Ariana, this is Dillon Jacobs. BODS matched us. Want to go out tomorrow?
Her heartbeat fluttered, and then pounded so hard she could barely breathe. As she positioned her hands to respond, the phone slipped and fell into the tub.
“Shit!” she cried, pushed to her feet and fished for her phone. Once she could get her fingers around it, she stepped out of the tub and wrapped the device in a towel.
Please, please, please, still work, she prayed as she dried the phone and looked down at the screen.
Nooooo! Ariana sank to the bathmat on the floor and shook the phone, hoping the water it had ingested would fly free and the phone would miraculously recover.
She tried rebooting it. Nothing.
Rice? Oven? Anything?
She ran naked through her house, dripping on the wood flooring. When she rounded the corner of the hallway and moved into the living room, she slipped and nearly crashed to the floor. A quick hand out to the side caught the wall, and she slowed her pace a little as she hurried to the kitchen.
She pulled out a glass casserole dish, poured uncooked rice into it, laid the phone in the rice and placed it in the oven. The she turned the oven on low and murmured a prayer. A friend had used this
