From Secret Desire for My Stepbrother to Reality novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Slide
At the Hush launch, Tom puts Lindy's secret listing for her stepbrother on an eleven-foot screen, marked mutual; she takes the mic, quits on stage, and finds in the log that Tom hid the match himself.
The slide behind Tom was eleven feet tall, and my face was on it.
My face, and my stepbrother's.
Fifteen hundred people turned in their seats to find me.
"Our very first mutual match," Tom said into his headset. "Beta, three years ago. Two people who would never have said it out loud."
Under the photos, in our brand font, it said: Lindy H. and Jem M. Step-siblings.
And under that, in green: MUTUAL.
The room made a sound I'd never heard a room make.
Half a laugh. Half a gasp.
Then the phones came up, row by row.
I was in the company row, seat four, with my badge around my neck.
I had written the engine that made that green word.
I had written the promise on our homepage too. Nobody ever knows unless it's both of you.
Row three was family seating.
My mother had her red reading glasses pushed up in her hair, and her mouth was open.
Pete had taken off his ferry cap and was holding it over his chest.
Jem was between them.
He wasn't looking at the screen.
He was looking at me.
"Lindy," Tom said, warm as a talk show host. "Want to tell them how it felt?"
A spotlight swung onto my seat.
That morning I had stood in the boardroom and said I'd go to the press before I let Heard ship.
Tom had smiled then too.
Now I understood the smile.
Nobody would listen to the girl who wanted her stepbrother.
I stood up.
The man beside me pulled his knees in to let me pass, and wouldn't meet my eyes.
I walked down the aisle and up the steps at the side of the stage.
I held out my hand to the tech with the spare mic.
He looked at Tom.
I kept my hand out.
He gave it to me.
Tom put two fingers on his headset. "We're running a little long, folks."
"No, we're not," I said, and the speakers threw my voice to the back wall.
I turned to the screen.
Up close my photo was a crop from Pete's birthday. I could see the frosting on my thumb.
"That's mine," I said. "I typed his name when I was twenty-four."
Somebody whistled.
"I typed it because this company swore that nobody would ever see it. Not him. Not my mother. Not my boss."
I looked at Tom.
"Not my boyfriend."
The room went quiet in a different way.
"In ten minutes he's going to sell you Heard," I said. "Nine ninety-nine to find out somebody wants you. Twenty-nine ninety-nine to find out who."
I pointed at the green word.
"He just showed you how it feels from the other side."
Tom laughed into his headset. "Lindy's been under a lot of strain."
"I quit," I said. "Effective now. That's the only thing I'll say on this stage that he didn't write."
I held the mic out to Tom.
He didn't take it.
So I set it down on the floor in front of his white sneakers, very gently, and walked off the way I'd come.
Down the steps. Up the aisle.
Row three was on the aisle.
My mother caught my sleeve.
"Lindy. What is that? Is that true?"
Her hand was shaking.
"Mom, I'll call you."
"Is it true?"
"Pam," Pete said quietly. "Let her go."
Behind them, Jem stood up.
I pulled my sleeve free and kept walking.
The doors at the back of the hall swung shut on Tom saying, "Okay! Let's get back to the fun part."
The parking garage under Pier 66 smelled like salt and exhaust.
My car was on level two.
I put my laptop on the hood and opened it with my hands not quite working.
My admin access would last until somebody in IT got the message.
Maybe five minutes.
My phone kept buzzing in my blazer pocket. Kath, Kath, Kath.
I let it buzz.
I typed my own user ID into the match console.
It was the first record in the whole database. Row one. I'd built the table.
Lindy Hartigan listed Jem Muir. December 19th, 11:31 p.m.
Above it was a line I'd never let myself look for.
Jem Muir listed Lindy Hartigan. December 4th, 8:02 p.m.
Fifteen days before me.
I put my hand flat on the cold hood of the car.
He'd wanted me first.
He'd wanted me, and our phones were supposed to light up at the same second, and they never did.
I had spent three years thinking the app worked and the answer was no.
I clicked the status column.
It should have said Delivered.
Footsteps came down the ramp behind me, fast, a man's boots.
I didn't turn around.
The status said: Notification suppressed.
December 19th, 11:52 p.m.
Twenty-one minutes after I typed his name.
The night before Tom Sedgwick knelt in my kitchen and asked me to move in with him.
I scrolled to the last field.
Suppressed by admin: tsedgwick.
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