A Blind Date for the Marine - Signed Paperback

Chapter One: Claire

I gaped at my best friend and boss as she stared at me expectantly. “You want me to what?”

“I want you to beta test Dex’s app.”

“But … why? Doesn’t he have a whole IT department testing it and making sure it’s ready for launch?”

Amy shifted in her seat. “He does. But what he doesn’t have is a single woman with insight into the dating world testing it for usability.”

I blinked, unsure of how to proceed. Amy had been the CEO of First Comes Love for a over year now. Her computer-genius-slash-Marine fiancé had developed a dating app for them to add to the company’s matchmaking services. Amy was determined to keep this multi-million dollar empire running in her mentor’s absence while also putting her own modern spin on it.

This app’s success meant a lot to her. She wanted it to take First Comes Love from Southern California’s most significant matchmaking service to a national dating brand. And as her highly paid administrative assistant, I wanted that for her. But testing it myself? I wasn’t so sure about that.

“Amy,” I said, “don’t you think it’s a little unethical for me to hop into this app and pretend to be looking for love so I can test its features for you?”

She shook her head, eyes wide. “Pretend to be looking for love? Why would you pretend to be looking for love?”

“Because I wouldn’t actually be looking for love. I’d be looking for things to report back to you about the functionality of the app.” I watched her as I spoke, then narrowed my eyes at her weighty silence. “Wouldn’t I?”

“Claire, you’re single. I’ve been dying to match you up for years. So why don’t you hop into this app and look for love for real? You know, while also testing its features. It’s a win-win.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Uh, no. Online dating is creepy as it is. You never know who is actually behind the pictures they put on their profiles, and Dex’s app is even worse because there are no pictures. It’s crazy.”

Amy waved a hand. “It’s unconventional, but it’s not crazy. Dex’s blind date app is based on tons of research about singles wanting to get to know their partners based on more than just looks.”

“I get that part, I do. And I hope you know I want the app to be a huge success for you and the company.”

“I do. And that is why I want you to give it a chance. Maybe we’ll have customers who are encouraged to give it a shot by a well-meaning friend, like me, even though they’re reluctant, like you.”

I snorted. “Well played.”

“Just give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen? You don’t find love, but you do help me make sure this app has the best user experience for the company?”

In her eyes, I could see that being the worst-case scenario. In mine, the worst-case scenario looked an awful lot like me getting my heart trampled in the name of app development. As an assistant at a matchmaking company, putting my heart on the line wasn’t part of my regular job description. I wasn’t sure I wanted to start now.

“Best-case scenario,” Amy went on, sitting up straighter with a devious smile, “is that you fall in love with the perfect man, and you live happily ever after. But, you know, while also giving me feedback about the app.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Either way, I want you to keep me posted on your progress and let me know what the app experience is like. Okay?”

I bit my lip and let out a burst of air through my nostrils. It didn’t sound like I was going to be able to get out of this. But, fine. If Amy wanted me to test her app for work purposes, I could do that. I was good at my job, and she was right about one thing: I knew the dating world back to front, so I had the perspective that Dex and his IT buddies didn’t have. But I wasn’t going to look at this as a way for me to find love. This was a work assignment and nothing more.

“Okay,” I said, nodding once and opening my ever-present notebook. “I’m in.”

Amy clapped her hands. “Yay, thank you! You won’t regret this. And I can’t wait to see what kinds of connections you’re going to make.”

“Speaking of, who else will be in this beta-testing phase? Like, what is the dating pool going to be made up of?”

“We’re launching just in Southern California at first. So it will be local singles.”

“Wouldn’t I want that anyway? To date in my own region, I mean.”

“Maybe so, but I just meant that there will only be one region at first, and it’s here in SoCal. Once we get all of the kinks out, we’ll go nationwide, and that’s when people will be able to set their settings to whatever location they want. But we don’t want to go big until we have a good track record of matching up singles on our home turf.”

I scribbled down some notes. “Got it. Well, the development of this app hasn’t really been on my radar thus far because I didn’t realize I would be doing any work on it. Can you explain how it works from a user standpoint? All I know is it’s like blind dating on crack.”

“Absolutely,” Amy replied with a laugh. “And we like to think of it as blind dating for the digital age. So, first, you’ll choose an avatar instead of uploading any pictures. Next, you’ll choose a super generic username. Make sure it doesn’t have your real name in it, or that will defeat the purpose. In this day and age, you can Google anyone and stalk their social media. We want a true, get-to-know-you-for-the-real-you experience.”

Continuing to take notes, I nodded. “Okay.”

“Then, once you’ve added your avatar and username, you’ll update your profile with a few details so you can help potential dates decide if they like what you’re all about. Things like hobbies, likes and dislikes, fun facts that make you unique, and what you do for a living. Pretty standard stuff.”

“Right.”

“Oh, and a few whimsical questions about hopes and dreams that I made Dex put in there because I think that really gives people a sense for who you are as a person, you know?”

I swallowed, mentally trying to answer those questions while trying not to feel too self-conscious about it. Was an unhealthy addiction to light-roast coffee with a metric ton of caramel creamer a turnoff for most men? What about the fact that I refused to use the hand dryer in a public restroom because it was basically recycled poop air? Should I keep these little tidbits to myself, even though I felt like the “right” man would see them and come running?

This was going to be a mess of second-guessing myself, I could tell. See? This was why I didn’t date. Especially not online. The idea of putting the very essence of my being into an online questionnaire and expecting my soul mate to stumble across it went against everything I believed in about love.

Besides that, I couldn’t truthfully answer the questions about my hopes and dreams. No one—not even Amy—knew the truest desires of my heart. They were locked up so tightly that Fort Knox looked like SeaWorld San Diego on Military Appreciation Day.

Then again, the whole point of this app was that no one would know who I was. I could be anyone I wanted to be. And by that, I obviously didn’t mean that I’d make up some weird dating app persona. Because that would be wrong.

But instead, I meant I could actually be myself. I could be the woman I wished I were brave enough to be in real life, even though it was all just a fantasy. Which would be cool until I actually had to meet the guy, and he found out who I really was. And that I was nowhere near as brave as I’d need to be if I were really living out my dream.

I looked up at her, deciding to get back to business. I tapped the end of my pen against my chin. “What happens after I update my profile? How do I start talking to people?”

“Dex’s algorithm is really intense, and as an end-user, you don’t really need to know how it works. In fact, I don’t want to tell you because if you were a real client, you wouldn’t know. And I wouldn’t want that to change how you behave in the app.”

“Got it.”

“But basically, you’ll have a recommendations tab in your app that has suggestions of potential matches. You can scroll through there, or you can browse and search by character traits, hobbies, interests, or careers, too.”

“Can I filter out careers?”

Amy tilted her head at me. “What do you mean?”

“You know, like, say I don’t want to date anyone in the military. Can I filter them out?”

Since Amy’s fiancé was an active-duty Marine about to retire and go full-time with her at First Comes Love, she smirked. “What do you have against the military?”

“I don’t have anything against the military. But I don’t think those guys are my type.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who stereotype Marines as jarheads. Look at Dex and his friends. They’re all a bunch of gamer nerds.”

My chest tightened at the mention of Dex’s friends. Mateo, the best man at their upcoming wedding, had always given me major butterflies. I’d first met him when Amy invited me to come to game night. There was just something about his smile and the way his laughter brightened his eyes that turned my insides into total mush. But since he was moving to Germany in six months, I’d actively avoided hanging out with him ever since. What good would it do? I didn’t want to crush on a guy who wouldn’t be a permanent fixture in my life.

“Maybe it’s because they move around so much, then,” I answered. “Not to mention the heartache that I’m sure goes along with deployments. I’m just not interested in that lifestyle.”

Amy nodded. “That makes sense. I’m grateful I met Dex at the end of his career, so we didn’t have to deal with that. I definitely don’t think I would have enjoyed missing him for months at a time.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, either way, yes, there is an option to filter things out, too. You’ll see it when you go into the settings.”

“Perfect. Then let’s say I find someone I want to talk to. How do I do that?”

“You’ll just send them a message request. They’ll be able to look at your profile and either accept or decline that request. Once they accept, you’ll be in your first official conversation with a blind date.”

I scribbled on my page. “And then what?”

“Then, you talk. See if you click.”

“And if you don’t?”

“You just stop talking to each other.”

I looked up. “And if you do?”

“You keep talking to each other.”

It sounded so simple and yet so profound. “Until when? Like, when are our real identities revealed?”

“After thirty days of meaningful conversations.”

My eyes bugged out of my head. “Thirty days? Are you serious?”

“Yes. Does that feel like it’s too long? We went back and forth between thirty and ninety. At one point, we even thought about doing six months.”

“Six months! Okay, thirty days doesn’t seem so bad now. But what do you mean about the part with the meaningful conversations?”

“Basically, a meaningful conversation is when you go back and forth at least five times each. So once that happens, the app will register that as a day of talking to each other. Once you’ve had thirty days of those—whether that takes you thirty consecutive days or three months—you’ll be able to send each other a photo. And obviously, you can choose to meet up at that point, too.”

I took notes on all of that, but it was mostly so I could wrap my brain around it. I supposed if you liked someone enough to make it happen in thirty consecutive days, that would say even more about the connection you have. Not missing a single day of conversation would be pretty big.

“So, what’s stopping people from just giving each other their numbers or social media info to skip the waiting period?”

Amy chuckled, leaning forward to fold her hands on the desk between us. “I mean, I suppose nothing is stopping them. But studies have shown that people really want to form a meaningful connection based on more than just physical appearance. So we’re hoping that by thirty days, if you’re still interested in someone enough to keep talking to them online without even knowing what they look like, then there’s an excellent chance it’s the real deal.”

“So you don’t think people will give up on it before they get there?”

“I mean, if they’re falling in love, will they give up? Or will they keep talking so they can get to a point where they can finally see each other or meet in person after all of that time?”

I sat back in my chair. When she put it like that, it suddenly sounded incredibly romantic. And I would know. I was a closeted romance author who worked at a matchmaking company by day and wrote love stories by night.

Love stories that no one had ever read. Love stories that likely would never see the light of day. But still. When you lived in a tiny apartment above a beachfront bookstore and worked there on Sundays to keep your rent affordable, stories filled your soul. Could this be the beginning of mine?

“There’s just one more thing,” Amy said, breaking me from my daydreaming.

“What’s that?”

“Do everything you can to conceal your identity in there.”

“Isn’t that the whole point?”

Amy bit her lip. “Well, yes, to an extent. But, I mean, this is kind of an undercover gig. I’m not telling Dex that I have a mole inside the app.”

“What?” I shrieked, then looked out the glass walls of Amy’s office and found several employees looking at us curiously. I leaned forward, lowering my voice. “What?”

“I don’t want him to think I’m questioning his app-designing skills. It’s just that he’s so technical when he talks to me about it, and I want someone to give me the scoop in layman’s terms. You know? What do you see, feel, and experience while participating? These aren’t things Dex or any of the guys in IT can tell me, and I run this business from my heart in addition to my head. It’s necessary.”

“But why can’t you tell him I’m in there?”

“Because I don’t want him to get all wigged out about us potentially manipulating the data or skewing the algorithm or some such thing. I don’t understand how it all works, so maybe that won’t even be the case if you’re just in there using it like any user would. But I don’t want to risk him shutting down our little secret mission before I hear how this thing functions in the wild. We clear?”

I gulped. “No pressure.”

❤️ Mistaken Identity

❤️ Military Hero

❤️ Romantic Comedy

❤️ Online Dating

❤️ Friends to Lovers

❤️ Small-Town Vibes

First Comes Love

📚 A Match for the Marine - Dex & Amy

📚 A Blind Date for the Marine - Mateo & Claire

📚 A Princess for the Marine - Huck & Zara

📚 A Royal Christmas for the Marine - Theo & Maya

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Mystery

"Literally loved the mystery behind this book! The love story just blew my mind. I loved the way they fell into place! Definitely one of my faves."

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Couldn’t put it down and finished it in one day!

"Short and sweet! I loved Claire and Mateo in this book. They had good chemistry, their banter was cute and funny, and thankfully there was no extreme drama. This book gave me all of the feel-good vibes. I love “You’ve Got Mail” and I loved this story just as much!"

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Must-read!!

"I loved book 1 in the First Come Love series but book 2 knocked it out the park for me. I stayed up late reading this because I had to know what happened. A bookish heroine who dreams of being a writer? I sooo identify with this and loved the nods to reading, writing, and the writing community. A hero, Marine, and a fellow reader? Double yes. The messages between the two, the humor, the mystery around it all kept me turning the pages until I reached the end. Oh and the epilogue was perfection! I canNOT wait until book 3.*I received an ARC copy from the publisher. My review was not required nor influenced."