A Taylor-Made Life (2 page)

“I’m looking for someone very
specific, but I have limited time. I’m dying.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Her harsh
voice softened.

An uncomfortable silence stretched, as
it always did, when he spoke of his death. As if the listener
expected another outcome, or maybe an explanation.

When he didn’t offer one, she
continued, “I assume this ailment is non-communicable.”

“It’s cancer.”

“Tell me what you’re looking for,
Gavin.”

He took a deep breath and pictured the
girl of his dreams. “I want a sincere woman who is kind and loving.
Someone who knows how to make a home, and who’ll grieve for me when
I’m gone.”

He looked down at his reflection in
the shiny lacquer of his desk. Fear reflected back at him. Fear
that no one would miss him. That no one would care.

“Looks?”

Her business-like tone snapped him out
of self-pity and helped him focus. “Doesn’t matter. In fact, I’d
prefer she not be perfectly proportioned. Only her heart
matters.”

A long pause on the other end.
“Age?”

“Any woman of legal age under
forty.”

“Well, you’re at least making the
preliminaries easy. Likes? Dislikes? Commonalities?”

“She has to like rum raisin ice cream
and online computer gaming.” He intended to spend his last few
months making love and playing computer games with his wife. That
was his hope, anyway. “And the most important thing—she can’t marry
me for my money or out of pity.”

“Now you’ve made my job more
interesting. What are my time constraints?”

“I need this magical princess in two
weeks.”

* * * *

With Mom’s go-ahead, not that I’d
really need her permission, I scoured the Internet, trying to find
the perfect guy. Tall, dark and handsome, mysterious, funny, good
dresser, MMX RPG player, especially
LAION
and
Rist
,
smart and someone who wouldn’t mind a woman—I giggled—with no hair.
Protectively my hand shot to my head, making certain my hat was
still there.

I focused on the computer screen. I
needed someone like Matt McCallum. My ex-boyfriend was a regular
jock on a football scholarship now that he’d graduated. But he was
hawt,
and hotness was a big part of what I was looking for.
If I hadn’t gotten sick, if Matt hadn’t broken up with me, he
would’ve been the one. We’d talked about it. In fact, everyone had
said we were the couple most likely to get married. I snorted.
For better or worse
clearly hadn’t been on Matt’s agenda.
But during all those months in treatment, the memory of his kiss
tied my life to normal. Like the ribbon on a helium balloon, it
kept me connected to what reality away from leukemia was. That
memory bound me to happy thoughts of days when my only problems
were a geometry test and if the football team would win, but now, I
wanted more than a memory. I wanted that knock-you-to-your-knees
emotion again.

Jittery feelings of liking some new
guy were what I needed to take my mind off other things. And the
excitement of having sex—even though I was alone in my room my
cheeks burned—could surely take my mind off things. Not that I
personally knew what sex was like, but based on everything I’d
heard, it seemed like a way to escape.

I settled in my desk chair with my can
of Mountain Dew and flipped through another five pages of responses
to my singles ad on Flirtbox, the only site that would actually let
me sign up before I hit eighteen. I guess I could’ve lied, but it
seemed wrong to go into the relationship on a lie, no matter how
short-lived. Looking at the first three pictures, I grimaced. Maybe
Mom would have more luck. Several ladies in her Bunco group had
college-aged sons, but I could just imagine how she was gonna
introduce that subject.
So, Helen, how’s Tommy doing at TCU? Do
you think he might want to have sex with my daughter?
I spewed
my Dew, but then I sobered. Remembering Tommy from the neighborhood
Fourth of July party, I figured he wasn’t a bad choice.

There had to be someone for me out
there. It wasn’t like I was asking to move the moon, and
considering God had cursed me with wonky blood, he owed me
one.

My phone rang, and I eyed the caller
ID. “Hey, Rach.”

My best friend and partner-in-hospital
crime had called every day since I’d been home. In the last year,
Rachel had become my sole confidant in all things boys.

She’d had her bone marrow transplant a
few days before and sat sequestered in the cancer ward of St.
Andrew’s, hopefully doing well, but I didn’t ask. We had an
unwritten rule—we never spoke about cancer. Everybody else in our
lives did enough talking about it. With each other, we didn’t need
to. But I knew Rachel felt guilty about finding a donor when I
hadn’t yet.

“So? What’ve you got?”

Her perky voice made me smile because
it meant she was doing good. Even if we didn’t talk, we could still
worry. Then I studied my computer screen and frowned at the
results. “I’ve had five hundred responses since
yesterday.”

“Holy crap, Tay. Anybody
good?”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, there’s
Bernie, who claims to be twenty-two, but according to his picture,
he has more hair in his nose than on his head.”

“Ewwww.” She made a gagging sound. “So
gross.”

“Or there’s Karl with a ‘k’. He looks
young and would be pretty hot if he wore his false
teeth.”

“Oh God.” Rachel blew out a disgusted
sigh. “That’s rank. How’re you gonna find the right
guy?”

I huffed. “No idea. All I know is I’ll
know him when I see him. Just like I knew Matt was the
one.”

“Matt?
The ass-wipe who dumped
you in the hospital?”

“Hey. If I hadn’t gotten sick, we’d
still be together.” I gnawed my cuticle and scrolled through more
profiles.

“And you’d still be blissfully
ignorant.”

“Maybe. But I’ll know the guy when I
see him.” I clicked to the next page of messages. “Do you know what
BDSM stands for? Lots of dudes include it in their profiles, and
they all seem to have tattoos.” Where was I going to find a nice,
non-perv who would—my body tingled all over—make love to me?
Sigh.

“Oh
my
God!” Rachel hissed in
my ear.

I winced. “What?”

“I just looked it up. Delete all those
and block them forever.”

A shiver ran through me. “I’m not even
gonna ask.”

Under normal circumstances, the
thought of sleeping with Mr. Random Guy would’ve never crossed my
mind. I grinned. Okay, it might have crossed my mind, but I
would’ve never followed through on getting naked with a complete
stranger. But the possibility of spending the night with a guy I
didn’t know pumped that messed-up blood through my weakened veins
at broadband speeds.

My excitement reminded me of how
worked up I used to get at football games, literally making myself
sick if the team didn’t win, and living on the top of the world if
they did. The angst I’d had seemed silly after two surgeries and
forty-four weeks of chemo, fighting a disease my body couldn’t
beat. My hopes for finding a donor had been dashed so many times, I
never thought anything would excite me again. Disappointment had
become a way of life. But this—
this
plan put a spark in me.
Even beating that cocky little twerp Ogger19 in a game of
CROG
didn’t thrill me like searching for the perfect guy to…
I snickered again.

“Hey, did you get your CanSM mentor
yet?” Rachel asked. “I got mine yesterday. A lady lawyer from
Georgia. She’s gonna come in next week and see me before the
charity ball.”

“Wow. That’s pretty cool.” I scanned
and talked. “I haven’t gotten mine yet, but I haven’t sifted
through all my email either.” The Cancer Survivor Mentoring
Program. I’d forgotten all about signing up months ago. Didn’t
those yahoos know we were on a short time leash? I had better
things to think about.

I scrolled through more
responses.

Crap.

I was never gonna find the right guy
on Flirtbox. Even if the picture looked good, how would I be able
to tell if the dude was perv or not? “Rach, I’m beginning to have
serious doubts about the viability of this plan. I need a way to
find good guys to choose from.”

“The
viability
? Ooh, getting
serious. You’re using your big doctor words.”

I laughed. Rachel always found a way
to make a joke. “Well let me translate for you. This site sucks,
and I need to go in another direction.”

“There has to be at least one good guy
out of five hundred.” Rach’s voice rang with hope.

“You’d think so, but so far it’s
nothing but crap and crappier.” I clicked through several more
pages, barely scanning.

“I wish I could help.”

“Yeppers. I wish you could, too.” This
would be my first time having sex—I tingled again—maybe my only
time. I had to at least, find someone who met my minimum
requirements. Like all his own body parts would be a good start. I
could spend months weeding through profiles and never find what I
wanted.

Maybe I could pay someone. My college
fund was sitting there gathering dust. It wasn’t like I’d actually
need it. And as long as my funeral was paid for….

The smile slipped from my face, and I
stared blankly at the computer screen. Sometimes I caught myself
off-guard when I thought about dying. So I usually kept my brain
moving in other directions. It was an art form I’d mastered two
years ago. I hadn’t given up on living. Not really. I might be
tired of chemo, but I still hoped for a miracle.

“Taylor? You still there?”

“Yeah.” I brushed the thoughts back
and refocused. “Hey, here’s my CanSM guy. His name is Gavin
Taylor.” I focused on his name. It sounded familiar.
Strange.
“I didn’t think they matched guys to girls.” The
Cancer Survivor Mentor Program paired up youths with an adult
cancer patient. The mentor usually was successful in the field the
youth desired to work in. Even though it was called a survivor’s
program, there weren’t very many participants, so most of the
mentors still had cancer, too. The program was new but had been
very successful, and it was a pretty big deal to be
accepted.

“OMG!” Rachel’s voice pierced my
eardrum.

I winced again. “Would you quit
yelling? I’d prefer not to lose my hearing along with my healthy
blood cells. What is it?”

“Have. You. Seen. Your
Mentor?”

“No.” My heart began a
Maroon 5
beat. I typed in his name— “Holy wizards of warfare! His company
created my computer games, Rachel.” No wonder his name sounded
familiar. Everything in my past and present locked into place. The
universe wasn’t really against me afterall. Fate had brought me to
this moment. “He’s my guy.”

“I know. You’re sooo
lucky.”

My eyes were glued to the monitor.
“I’m totally getting goose bumps right now. I mean he’s
the
guy
I’m looking for.”

Gavin paced the floor of the
boardroom. Rick and Charlie sat stone-faced at the table, their
hands clasped firmly in front of them like a pair of pretentious,
cheap lion statues, ready to pounce and protect. Unfortunately,
they were pouncing on him.

“Look, Gavin, we understand this
company is your baby, but there’s more at stake here than just you.
Hundreds of employees count on us to provide income for their
families. What’ll happen to the company when you’re gone?”
Charlie’s question hung with accusation.

Walking to the window of the San
Francisco high-rise, he pinched his chin between finger and thumb.
Fog crept across the water from the Golden Gate toward Alcatraz.
Spring hadn’t decided to settle in yet, but it was flirting in
patches of green on the golden hills.
Come to California
,
people had told him,
where folks still dream of striking it
rich
. The form of fame and fortune had changed in the centuries
since the Gold Rush. There were no more miners or panhandlers. Now,
the gold came in the form of computer chips and technology or on
the silver screen. And people still flocked to California to make
their fortune.

He spun to face his college
buddies-turned-business partners. “Guys, I understand. But I have
the VITA project. I’m not giving up control to satisfy your
fears.”

Rick raked his chunky fingers through
already thinning hair. “Gav, be reasonable. What provisions have
been made if something happens to incapacitate you? The company
goes into limbo? Even if you hand over the reins, you can still
work on your project and retain CEO status for another year. If
nothing else, could you at least name one of us Interim President
in your living will?”

He stared at the two men who’d ridden
the wave of his success. TM Enterprises was the premier online
gaming community in the world. Over five million users. It was
irresponsible not to name one of them, but he couldn’t bring
himself to do it. And there was no one else.