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Chapter four

Foxx

I stare at my open laptop. My eyes burn behind my lenses as the half-finished lecture slides on probability for my freshman class glare back at me. I should be working, should be doing something productive, but my brain refuses to cooperate.

With a sigh, I shut it, conceding that tonight isn’t my night for working at home. Pulling off my glasses, I rub my eyes, feeling the strain of a long day, and clean them before putting them back on.

Eugene’s comments from last week have been bugging me, and since I’ve been home, I can’t shake this restlessness. I mean, it’s lame enough that it’s a Friday night, and I’m sitting in my too-quiet apartment, surrounded by neatly stacked books and a cat that isn’t even mine.

Poppy, Eugene’s grumpy excuse for a pet, lounges in my armchair, watching me like she knows I have no social life.

She’d be correct. All of my ex-husband’s friends picked him in the divorce because they grew up together.

I was left with a few people who I met here with him, but last year, even they moved away.

I sometimes go out with work colleagues, but it’s not often enough to call them friends.

Now, after thinking about it, I didn’t realize how much of my life, social and otherwise, was linked to my ex.

Ryan was always the more outgoing of us.

Poppy purrs loudly, gaining my attention again.

When I ran into Eugene this afternoon, he had the audacity to ask me to babysit his cat because he had plans.

My eighty-year-old neighbor needed a cat babysitter.

And I said yes, because what else did I have planned?

I have a stack of ungraded assignments and a freezer meal waiting for me, and I think he did it all to prove some kind of point.

I stare at Poppy, wondering what she thinks.

She doesn’t blink. She’s kinda cute in a stabby way.

I reach for my phone, needing to find something else to do rather than play the blinking game with my neighbor’s cat.

Swiping through some games, I decide to delete the ones that steal my brain cells, which happens to be most of them. Candy Crush can go, so can Bottle Flip and, Jesus, I have too many. I keep Sudoku and the few other brain-training games.

Then my thumb hovers over my dating app.

It’s been months since I touched it, but right now, the idea of not doing anything other than grading or staring at a cat sounds pathetic enough to make me cave.

Couple those reasons with Eugene’s timely pep talk…

and before I know it, I’m tapping the Spark app to re-download it. Don’t ask me why—curiosity, I suppose.

The loading screen flickers, and my old profile pops up, just as I left it a few years ago.

Name: Nicholas

Age: 29

Bio: “I’m allergic to bad grammar and small talk.”

I cringe. Not only because I hardly go by Nicholas anymore, but also because past me was a pretentious, moody ass. I must’ve been going through my post-divorce grump phase. I internally laugh at the ‘past me’ thought, since present me still is allergic to bad grammar and small talk.

I edit my profile and change my name first to Foxx and start to scroll through old messages, expecting nothing but ghosted conversations and a graveyard of bad matches. Instead, I’m reminded exactly why I stopped using this app in the first place.

The last time I actually went on a date from here, I matched with a guy named Joel. Looked normal. Mid-thirties, hot in a rugged, tattooed, owns-a-motorcycle kind of way. His picture reminds me of all that, and it looks like he’s still active. Unsurprisingly.

We talked for a few days. Nothing groundbreaking, but good enough for me to agree to meet. And then when Joel showed up, I realized a few things very quickly…

First red flag: His profile pictures were…not current. Like, fifteen years ago not current. While I don’t mind an age gap, it immediately made me feel on edge because he’d lied about something. But I gave him the benefit of the doubt because, hey, maybe we could’ve been friends.

Second red flag: He wouldn’t shut up about his bike and kept calling it his “precious baby girl.”

Internally, I yacked pretty hard.

Third red flag: Halfway through dinner, he got a call—from his mom. And answered it. “No, Mommy, I can’t pick up your dry cleaning right now. I’m on a date.”

I sat there, stunned, as he argued with his mother for five straight minutes and called her “Mommy” at least six times.

Final red flag: When I tried to leave early, he leaned in and whispered:

“You have the most kissable eye sockets I’ve ever seen.”

I fled.

I got blisters, I fled so fast.

Deleted the app the second I got home. I shudder at the memory. What was I thinking?

But Eugene’s words echo in my mind. “…suddenly, all you’re left with is waiting.” He’s right. I need to be more like Eugene. So I concede and adjust my location settings, pushing the search radius outside of town to a wider area. No way in hell am I risking matching with a student, or Joel again.

I tell myself I’m not looking for anything serious. Just a distraction. Something simple because that’s exactly what this app offers.

Poppy flicks her tail from the armchair, watching me with the air of someone deeply unimpressed. “I don’t need you to judge me,” I grumble at her.

One of the profiles that gets me laughing is…

Bryce, 25

“Looking for my gym partner. Hit me up if you can handle a real man.”

No. Immediate no. I don’t need a gym buddy. Running is more my chosen poison of exercise. And who’s to tell anyone who a real man is? I roll my eyes and swipe left.

Tyran, 27

“Let’s skip the small talk and get straight to the fun.”

He’s holding a fish in his profile picture. Why do they always hold fish?

Left.

I chuckle, adjusting my grip on my phone. This is exactly what I remember, mediocrity, desperation and, apparently, an alarming number of men posing next to sedated tigers or fish. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. But it’s also kinda fun…exhilarating.

I swipe again… And pause.

Finn, 20

“Not looking for anything serious. Just passing time.”

His profile picture is, well… He’s ridiculously good-looking, in that careless , I-don’t-even-have-to-try kind of way.

Sun-bleached shaggy blond hair, sharp cheekbones, easy smirk, piercing blue eyes, sun-kissed skin.

His second photo is him on a surfboard floating on the water, grinning at the camera, looking happy.

I swipe to the third picture. He’s standing on a beach, shirtless, abs on display like he was sculpted by the gods. Flicking to his age again, I see he’s younger than me by nine years, the same age as most of my students at work. I shouldn’t be looking.

But I don’t swipe left.

His bio is short, straight to the point. No emojis. No fake deep quotes. No obvious red flags, unless you count the fact that he looks like he could ruin my life if I’m not careful.

I hover over the screen, knowing I should keep scrolling, but I don’t, I’m all about taking a risk today.

So, I swipe right.