Scoring a Soulmate, a Mr. Match Novella: Mr. Match

By Delancey Stewart

I discovered the formula for love.

 

Ironic, since love is the last thing I want. (I have my reasons.)

 

My life is full. I'm the leading scorer for the South Bay Sharks pro soccer team. Women aren't hard to come by, either (see the pro soccer thing).

 

My sister, however, is a different story. She wants the fairytale.

 

And I'm pretty sure that with just a little bit of tweaking, I've got a surefire way to help her find it. She might have to kiss a couple frogs first, but I can definitely find her the prince. In the end, it's just math, after all.

 

Now I just have to convince Cat to let me try it out on her. What could go wrong?

 

A snort-laugh-worthy series lead-in to the bestselling pro-sports romcom Mr. Match, from USA Today Bestselling author Delancey Stewart!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Delancey Stewart
• Release date: Feb 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393634232

Delancey Stewart

Delancey Stewart writes contemporary romance. Stewart has lived on both coasts, in big cities and small towns. She's been a pharmaceutical rep, a personal trainer and a direct sales representative for a French wine importer. But she has always been a writer first. A wife and the mother of two small boys, her current job titles include pirate captain, monster hunter, Lego assembler and story reader. She tackles all these efforts at her current home outside Washington D.C. Find her at www.delanceystewart.com

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

LOVE = MATH

MAX

Iwas twenty-four when I discovered the equation for love.

Maybe that sounds nuts, but the reality is that I'm a fucking mathematical prodigy. It's not a claim, or an arrogant assertion of hubris. If I was going to make an arrogant statement, I'd tell you how I was recruited to play pro soccer for the South Bay Sharks after my sophomore year at college. I'd tell you about my ridiculous mansion, my three cars, or about the fact that I've already saved enough at the age of twenty-six that no one in my family will ever have to work again.

But I'm not actually an arrogant prick. Just a genius.

And like I said, I discovered the equation for love at twenty-four.

But let me back up a bit.

When I was a kid I watched my mom's heartbreak when we lost my dad. Maybe I didn't get all the nuances of their love, of what exactly she was grieving when he was gone. I knew what I missed. I missed piggyback rides and wrestling, kicking the ball around the yard and the patient way my dad would explain the rules of soccer to me as we watched World Cup games. I missed the way he'd get me up out of bed in the middle of the night so we could sit side by side on the couch and cheer for Manchester United—something my mom really never understood.

And I sort of got what my older sister Cat missed—a man to model how women should be treated, a set of big arms to comfort her when high school girls proved just as diabolical as the movies reputed them to be, and someone to steer her when she brought home guys with more piercings and hair product than her. I was too young to do any of that.

But the hardest part about losing dad was what it did to Mom. And as I grew, I saw that while it was tough losing your best buddy and your dad, it was maybe harder losing your soulmate.

I became fascinated with the way two people might fit together, and Mom suggested that we all started out just slightly incomplete to begin with. Not so much that we couldn't live on our own, but just lacking enough that when we found that thing we'd been missing, life turned into a whole other kind of adventure.

It's chemistry and luck, Mom said once as we sat at our favorite diner with milkshakes. But it's not rocket science. Parts of you just fit with parts of the person you love. And if it's right, things just snap into place. It's not perfect, but it's close enough. The hardest part is finding that person who fits. And there's not just one fit, I don't think, she would say. There are probably a few different people who might be right for each of us. Maybe more. But it's the right combination of elements—

Like an equation, I'd suggested. Where both sides need to be balanced.

Just like that, Max.

Oh my God, can we have one family outing that doesn't turn into a math lecture? Cat, my older sister, wasn't as fond of math as I was. Love isn’t a math problem, she went on, drawing a series of hearts on the napkin in front of her as she spoke and then shading them to look three-dimensional. Love is something magical, something you can’t define. Something you just know when you feel. She looked up from the drawing, and added, it’s the way I feel about Zac Efron. That’s love.

It’s like that too, Cat, Mom told her as I rolled my eyes.

It makes more sense if I think of it like an equation. My sister might not enjoy it, but math was a comfort to me—it made sense. And the more I talked to Mom about love—something everyone seemed to regard as mystical and fated, the more I became convinced that it was just another equation, one I could solve.

And as an adult, I started really working on it, testing different theories and algorithms, looking for the one that worked. When I was twenty-four and my sister was at the end of another dramatic relationship with a guy who was so wrong for her he might as well have been wearing a sign that said NOT FOR CAT, I found the one I was pretty sure would work. But it needed refining. And I needed to help my sister find someone who would appreciate all the great things about her, and love her despite her complete incompetence at math.

I’ll be honest—part of my motivation was that if Cat was settled and happy, I’d feel better. She took Dad’s death hard, and I was too young to step up. She and Mom have always taken care of me, and now that I’m in a position to take care of them—financially if necessary, and mathematically, if they’ll let me—I plan to do it.

With some convincing (mostly me assuring her there’d be no math involved on her part), my sister Cat was a willing participant in the tests, and this is her story. And mine.

This is the story of how I became Mr. Match.

CHAPTER 2

MAVERICK, ELVIS, AND POLAR BEARS — OH MY!

CAT