Free It's a Match by Ana Tejano Page A

it’s still early,” Cams said. A glance at the big clock behind
the counter said it was only a little past eight, and she knew he never got
home before midnight on date nights. She wanted to believe that he was here
because of her, but this was Gabriel, her friend, who ignored even work emergencies
whenever he was out on a date. “You can’t possibly be here just because of me.”
     “Camilla,” his voice had turned low, her full name rolling off his
tongue, sending a slight shiver down her spine. “I’m here for you. Why is it so
hard to believe that?”

02. Three hours earlier.
     
    Gabriel rolled his window down to surrender his ID at the
subdivision gate, but the guard just nodded and allowed him to go in. It took
him a second to recover from the surprise, then he lifted a hand to salute and
went on his way. It was about time they finally recognized him and simply let
him through after all the times he’d gone here.
    After rolling up his window and tucking his ID back into his wallet,
Gabriel reached for his phone and hit the number on the screen. The phone linked
up to his car’s speakers as the call connected.
    One ring. Two. It cut off halfway through the third ring, and Cams’s
familiar soft voice filled the car.
    “Hello, Gabriel.”
    He smiled, slowing down to let some people cross the street in front
of him before speaking. “Congratulations, Camilla Ronquillo! You’ve won an
online date!”
    There was a pause, and he could imagine her rolling her eyes.
“You’re never going to let me hear the end of this, huh.”
    “Be proud, it’s an achievement,” Gabriel answered with a chuckle. He
turned left, noting the house on the corner with a windmill in its yard, one of
the landmarks he remembered from the first few times he went to visit her. “You
finally let someone take you out!”
    He heard some rustling, then the sound of her voice became
different, and he knew he was now on speaker. “I shouldn’t have told you all of
this,” she said regretfully.
    “But you did, and remember who helped build your profile,” Gabriel
teased. “Look at you, going out with an almost-perfect stranger!”
    Cams snorted. “Of course you’ll be proud. You practically pushed me
to go out with this guy.”
    For the record, that wasn’t true. He didn’t make her say yes when
the guy she met on Sparked Match asked her out. He did give her an opinion when
she showed him the guy’s profile, but as for her saying yes, it was all her
doing. Gabriel had already pegged the guy as someone who wasn’t going to follow
through, despite all the interest online. He had that look. He knew the type
because he was one of them too. Sometimes.
    Gabriel had been in the game for a while now, so he knew these
things. After all, online dating was all about numbers: the person you’re
talking to is also talking to about five other people, so you should be talking
to more. It was a matter of knowing who to ask—or in Cams’s case, who to say
yes to—from the matches you’d collected.
    And he’d been in the game long enough to know that it was time for
him to quit. He had a reason, after all: Cams.
    But thanks to all of Gabriel’s reservations and thoughts on how to
cross the boundaries they set for each other, some online guy got to her first.
And she agreed to go out with him. And of course, she told him. And Gabriel,
suddenly hit by some form of cowardice, didn’t do anything.
    He couldn’t understand it either. Now this date bugged him worse
than a mosquito buzzing around his ear.
    “Anyway, where are you? Are you still picking up the cupcakes? You
know I can’t be late for my date.”
    He laughed, ignoring the little prickly sensation in his stomach,
just as he turned right onto Cams’s street and slowly approached her white SUV
parked in front of her place. “I’m five seconds away from your house.”
    “Already? Geez, Gabe, you could have told me earlier so I’d have
been ready.” He heard some footsteps,