MAKE ME A MATCH (Running Wild) by Bobby Hutchinson

too much time making out with the wrong kind of lovers.”
    “Only one wrong one.” Tessa told him about Bernard and the Christmas party, but he didn’t find it funny the way she expected him to.
    He growled, “Dumb ass needs his butt kicked.” For some reason that made her deliriously happy. “A guy like that could cause you real trouble, Tess.”
    She opened her mouth to tell him that blundering Bernard was too busy making out with his assistant to bother with her, but just in time she remembered that was privileged information. So instead she told him about Clara’s resistance to computers, and how much easier it would be to do her job if Synchronicity was computerized.
    “You should come over to my office and talk to Henry, my office manager. He’s a whiz at computers. He computerized my entire business, and he just finished setting up an astrology program for Anna. Which wasn’t the best move he ever made.”
    “Why not? I’m gonna get Anna to do my chart. I want to find out when I start to live happily ever after.” She was sort of happy right now, though. She jumped over cracks in the sidewalks and said she hoped her mother appreciated it. She quoted Jabberwocky and then cried when an ice-cream truck drove by.
    “It reminds me of being little and having that excited feeling, like anything was possible. And then you grow up and find it isn’t.”
    He handed her tissues and hugged her until the tears stopped.
    “I’m enjoying the hell out of this, but I think you need something to eat, Tess. ” He bought them burgers in a fast-food joint because that’s what she said she wanted.
    “Grease, the grease will settle my stomach,” she insisted. “Or was that olive oil? Grandma Blin always claimed it was a cure for hangovers. But maybe you had to drink it before you drank.” Famished, she wolfed down a veggie burger and fries and a vanilla shake
    But she realized afterward that it was the coffee that did it. After the second cup, she burped twice, really loud, and then suddenly wasn’t drunk anymore, but man, she was embarrassed. She covered her eyes with her hands and moaned.
    “Headache? I’ve got Tylenol here somewhere.” He started fishing in his pocket.
    “No headache. I’m just mortified. I was drunk. You got me drunk.”
    He nodded. “Oh, yeah. But I didn’t take advantage of you, did I?”
    Not that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. That must be what any port in a storm meant. Damn wine made her horny. How could she have kissed him that way, leaning into his pelvis right there on Granville Street? Why couldn’t she be the kind of drunk who didn’t remember anything?
    “Is it too late to go to Karen’s?”
    “Nope. I’ll call and tell Karen we’re on our way. They’ll be waiting.”
    She noticed his hands on the cell phone. He had workman’s hands, big, with veins showing, nails broken, knuckles swollen. Clean, though. It was so refreshing to be with a guy who didn’t have manicures.
    He also didn’t have the sports car she expected.
    “Here she is, my pride and joy,” Eric purred, opening the passenger door to an orange Volkswagen van with a white top. “She’s a classic, nineteen seventy- two, super reliable, great for carting things around. Henry’s mother, Gladys, had her sitting in her garage, mint condition. Gladys wanted to buy a red Cadillac, if you can believe that, so she let me have this baby for a song.”
    Tessa hoped it wasn’t a very long song, because this baby was downright ugly. It, too, was clean, and about all you could say for it was it got them where they were going. But who was she to criticize his taste in transportation? Personally, she was with Gladys, she’d have gone for the red Caddie in a heartbeat.
    There were cracks in the sidewalk leading to Karen’s condo, and someone had used spray paint on the wall. Karen’s adorable sons dove at Eric the moment the door opened, crawling up his legs, wrapping their arms around his waist, shouting