matchmaking for experts || h.s au

three

When Maia walks into Matchcierge's kitchen on an early Sunday morning, the last person she expects to see is Harry. As far as she's concerned, he's not supposed to be here today -- he doesn't have clients to meet or anyone's date to plan.

Maia, on the other hand, is.

The plan is to meet up with Gavin and Chelsea at Matchcierge before they head to the location of Kieran and Helena's date to set up their date.

With Harry's back on her, Maia weighs her options. She could retreat from the kitchen and wait outside instead, pretending like she didn't see him at all or she could just walk into the kitchen and ask him why he's here.

Before she can decide, though, her choice is made for her when Harry turns around and sees her lingering at the doorway. His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, eyes behind his glasses widening.

She likes it when he wears his glasses. He doesn't wear it often, claims that it gets uncomfortable at times and besides, he can still see without it, so when he does wear it she often finds herself admiring it. He looks good.

The shocked look on Harry's face melts away, replaced with a small smile as he takes a seat at one of the chairs near the table. "Morning," he says to her. Holding up his cup (it's actually hers, a light pink cup with the quote 'life begins after coffee' on it, but he uses more than she does that everyone starts to think that it's his), he asks, "Want some coffee?"

"Morning. It's okay I've already had one." Maia replies as she steps into the kitchen and looks around. No sign of the two people she's looking for. Gavin's known to be fashionably late, which isn't a surprise that he's not here, but Chelsea is always on time. "Have you seen Gavin and Chelsea?"

Harry's brows descend into a frown as he palms the back of his neck. "Gavin didn't tell you?"

Maia's face mirrors Harry's. Except she looks even more confused. "Tell me what?"

Harry straightens in his seat as he runs his fingers through his hair. "He's not coming," he informs her. "He has last minute things to take care of and he asked me to take his place."

It's then Maia notices that much like her, he's dressed in athletic gear— except whereas she's wearing black leggings, Harry's wearing black shorts. Something someone would wear if they had to go on a hike for their clients.

The line between Maia's brows deepens. She would completely understand it if Gavin can't be here today, but what she doesn't understand is why he didn't tell her about it.

"Don't worry; he told me everything I need to know about this date so I won't screw it up," Harry adds.

Maia's eyes meet Harry's and she shakes her head. "No. I—I'm not worried about you screwing it up." In Maia's dictionary, Harry is incapable of messing anything up— he's one of those people who are blessed to be good at everything. He can't mess up a client's date even if he wanted to. "I'm just... I'm surprised he didn't tell me about this."

Harry presses his lips together and then, nods. As he brings his cup up to his mouth, he says, "It must've slipped his mind."

"Yeah, probably."

Maia takes out her phone from her back pocket and unlocks it. She goes to her messages app and scrolls through it to see if she's missed anything from Gavin but apart from the messages that she has no intentions of reading, there's nothing from their head of matchmaking. No heads up, no anything. But then again, it's not like Gavin is aware of Maia's wariness of spending her Sunday with Harry. In fact, she's pretty sure Gavin chose Harry because he thought she'd appreciate the gesture, what with everyone in the office thinking that they should be together.