Matchmakers 2.0 (A Novel Nibbles title) Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Married-with-kids material, or at least meeting my mother and worming it out of her.”
    “Any other terrible secrets I should know about before we grab some burritos?”
    None I was willing to share, particularly since Sam hadn’t creeped me out in the first sixty seconds.  In the legendary world of my dating exploits, that’s a pretty good sign.
    I shook my head.  “Let’s eat.  Have you been here before?  The deluxe burrito is awesome.”
    Sam grinned.  “I’m a single guy, a writer, and my place is down the street.  I practically live here.  I’ll go get the burritos.  You want a beer to go with that?”
    Cute, easy to talk to, sense of humor.  He had to have some awful secret.  Yeah, I’m jaded; it’s an occupational hazard.
    Sam returned in a couple of minutes, two Sierra Nevadas in his hands.  “They’re pretty backed up in there, so the burritos will be a minute.”
    “You don’t have VIP status?”
    “There’s a pretty big crowd that eats here daily.  We’re trying to talk them into serving breakfast, too.  Then I could probably sell my fridge.”
    Uh-oh.  Hawking household appliances didn’t sound financially stable.  “Starving writer?”
    Sam was distracted.  “Huh?  Oh, sorry, no.  I just need more places to put my books.  Kitchens are underused as book storage, don’t you think?”
    “What’s caught your attention?”  I figured she was curvy and scantily clad.
    Sam looked a little embarrassed.  “Sorry.  People watching is an occupational hazard for a writer.  I was just looking at that old couple over there in the corner.  They look like they’re on their first date.  It’s sweet.”
    I looked over and nearly choked on my beer.  There was Hazel, and I was pretty sure that was one of the guys we’d matched her up with.  I’d handled her file personally.  She caught me looking and gave me a wave and a thumbs-up.
    Sam looked at me with interest.  “You know her?”
    “Only a little.  I met her at the library.”  I lied.  Sue me.  Sometimes, the truth does not set you free. 
    “You like to read?”
    “I do.  My library fines could probably fund a small third-world country.  I’m thinking about getting a Kindle, though.”
    Our food arrived.  There is nothing that smells as good as a Cosmic deluxe burrito. Sam shuffled things to fit on our very small table.
    “I sell a lot of books on Kindle,” he said.  “But I still like my dead-tree books.  If I can’t sell my fridge, I might have to get a bigger condo.  I’m running out of book-storage space.”
    “Have you written anything I might have read?”
    Sam laughed.  “Not if you stick to libraries.  They don’t tend to stock my stuff.”
    “What, you write about evolution?”  Here in the South, that could definitely get you banned from the library shelves.
    Sam choked on his beer.  “Not exactly.”  He took a deep breath.  “I write erotica.”
    That’s pretty much guaranteed to be a first-date conversation stopper. 
    I only had a vague idea of what erotica entailed, other than lots of sex.  There were a couple of books I’d snuck under my covers as a teenager, but I had no idea if they were very representative.
    Sam was watching me closely.  I had no idea what to say.  My date writes sex for a living—or maybe not.  “Can you make a living doing that?”
    He nodded.  “Yeah, actually.  I write sci-fi, too, but it doesn’t sell nearly as well.  Erotica pays for the condo; sci-fi covers the burritos.”
    I had to ask.  “Do you tell this to all your first dates?”
    He shook his head.  “No.  Just the ones that seem to be going well.”  He sighed.  “I’m Catholic.  If I’m not honest with the women I like, I feel guilty.”
    “Writing erotica doesn’t trigger your Catholic guilt?”  Now there’s a sentence you don’t get to say on your average first date.
    Sam’s eyes danced.  “Some of it might.  My stuff’s steamy, but pretty