Page 20 of Swiped

He scoffed through his drink. “Please. Most people’s pop culture taste just shows that you both live in America in the year 2025. It means nothing romantically.”

Nat drank her martini and considered this.

She looked at Rami, his shoulders sagging from some clear weight as he eyed the intricate flora and fauna in the mural.

His guard was down. He wasn’t trying to intimidate her or insult her.

He was telling her about his experience with her app.

She leaned her elbow closer to him. “So how often did BeTwo match you with people that you didn’t like? ”

He looked at her with bright eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, and Nat noticed his full lips were tinged a faint blue color that somewhere in her mind she wanted to lick off — when Sara burst through the door.

“Sorry, late bus!” she wheezed, out of breath. She eyed Nat and Rami for a beat. “Ready to go?”

“Yes, definitely!” Nat downed the last of her martini as she watched Rami straighten his posture away from where he’d been leaning toward her. “I was thinking about the place with The Smiths cover band?”

Sara crossed her arms, mean-mugging Rami, as she said, “Faux-rissey. Yeah, I already got us on the list, so get ready for some feels.”

“Amazing!” Nat hopped down and reached for her purse. Rami held out his hand.

“It’s on me.”

She froze. “Really?”

He fixed her with a sad smile, but his puppy dog brown eyes danced with mischief. “It’s the least I can do now that you’re in the BeTwo trenches of despair.”

“You make it kind of hard to thank you.”

He shrugged with a satisfied glow. “Well, you’re welcome.”

Nat took Sara’s arm. She pulled her scarf tighter around her neck, but something felt off. She made sure she had her phone in her purse. Then she turned back to Rami. “Take it easy,” she said.

He raised his glass to her with a tiny smile. “You too.”

Warmth rushed up through her, and she smiled. It was the best she’d felt all night. Then she pushed open the red pleather doors and left.

* * *

Sara and Nat clutched their jackets closed as they walked down the sidewalk. The fog blurred the streetlights into fuzzy halos around them, and the tops of the pastel Victorians that lined the street disappeared into gray mist.

Sara let out a whoop and smacked Nat on the shoulder. “Holy hell, that was the weather app guy who’s out to destroy you?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So? He’s totally cute!”

Nat thumbed her phone on. “He’s a pill,” she said.

“Yeah, he is. Yum.”

“No, like a bad pill. Not a fun pill.” Nat sniffled away the last of her earlier tears.

“Are you OK?” Sara asked. She rubbed a few brisk circles on Nat’s shoulders like she was prepping her for another round in the ring. “Wanna talk about your terrible-no good-very-bad date?”

“Definitely not.” Nat shot Sara a quick smile to signal that she really was feeling surprisingly okay after her awful night. The best martini in the city must’ve done the trick. Then she opened BeTwo. After all her swiping, she’d earned a red number 18 emblazoned on her inbox. Goodie.

Sara peered at the screen. “Oh, more messages! Let me?”

Nat happily handed over the phone, which had begun to feel like an albatross. “Be my guest.”

Sara silently read as they walked, but her commentary was out loud. “No . . . Weird! . . . No . . . Oh, yikes!”

“Yikes?”

Sara shook her head. “Just a classic neg, moving on.”

Disgust curled into Nat’s face. “Negs are classic now? Are they that common?”

“Totally. I once had a guy send me three full paragraphs of his pros and cons for dating a woman with short hair.” She gestured to her jaw-length undercut curls. “It ended with a line about how I would probably think I was too good for him, but he was, and I quote, ‘just being honest.’”

“Seriously?” Anger made Nat’s footsteps fall harder. “I’m so sorry.”

Sara shrugged. “Happens all the time, and way worse. It’s whatever, and also part of why I’m focusing on the ladies right now.

” She stopped walking and held out the phone.

“Here, what about this guy? Coder, but not douchey. Cute in a ‘you’ kinda way. His message was obviously written about your profile, and his profile says he’s looking for commitment. ”

Nat peered at the man smiling out at her. His name was Nick. Close-cropped beard, shaggy salt-and-pepper hair, kind eyes, lanky frame under a charmingly dorky sweater. He was definitely cute. Eighty-five percent match. That was really, really high.

“Nah,” she said.

Sara was shocked. “What? Come on! We’ve got to beat the hot weather guy!” She laughed at her own pun. “Hot weather.”

“Just nah, OK?” Nat started to walk again.

Sara matched her stride and slipped the phone back into Nat’s purse.

“I’m just saying, you might have to step up your game to win this thing.

” She put an arm around her friend’s tight, tense shoulders.

“But that is a concern for tomorrow. For tonight,” she continued in a dramatic tone, “all that matters is the dance.”

Nat laughed as Sara struck a pose in the fog. She hooked her arm around her friend’s elbow. “I love you,” she said. “Let’s see if we can get Faux-rissey to give us his orthodontics business card again.”

* * *

Hours later, Nat stumbled into her room and drunkenly kicked off Sara’s beautiful red shoes.

Her throbbing feet were absolutely wrecked.

Now that it was nighttime, her cat, Pixel, had emerged and was curled up on her pillows.

He stood and arched his back for her arrival.

She collapsed onto the bed beside him and pushed her face into his warm belly.

“Baby boy,” she cooed as he purred and writhed around in the affection.

She knew she had a small window between him happily wrapping his paws around her hands and him turning those same paws into razor-sharp weapons that would grab hold of her hands so as to bite the shit out of them. It was a risk she was willing to take.

The alcohol made the room wobble. However, her memories of the night, particularly the humiliating date and pocket dial from Jo, remained frustratingly steady. The bass of the dance music echoed in her ears, and the cheap alcohol flip-flopped in her stomach.

She pulled her purse off and poured its contents onto the bed.

Pixel darted off as his paws knocked a few mints to the floor.

Her phone. That’s what she needed. She pulled up BeTwo and the message from Nick, her eighty-five percent likely Prince Charming, and tapped open a response window.

She stared into the white void of the text box. The cursor blinked.

“Hey, there he is,” she said to herself. “P.S. Your haircut sucks. Let’s get married.”

She groaned and rolled over and looked at the line-up of other messages in her inbox.

She could see that some of the matches were ranked below sixty percent, so she wasn’t even going to bother opening those.

No other user came close to Nick’s eighty-five, but a few were in the respectable high-sixties and low-seventies range.

Seeing that his message contained only the word hey , Nat opened the profile of a guy who went by “B,” and immediately recoiled.

B was in his fifties, at least, and seemed to only have pics of himself where the camera had been placed directly underneath his large, orange-tanned nostrils.

Flash, very unfortunately, on. B also listed himself as unemployed, and had written a long and poorly spelled paragraph on all the things he didn’t want in a woman, including a warning that he was not looking to rush into a relationship right away , which didn’t seem like a problem a guy like B would actually encounter all that much.

Were there that many women rabid to lock down a middle-aged man with no job, no hair, no discernible waistline, and no problem writing the words don’t be uptight about condoms in his digital introduction?

Nat shuddered and blocked B, but his profile lingered like a bad taste in her mind.

Surely this was just the product of her manic swiping earlier that night, not the fault of her algorithm — plus her profile was just an assortment of high-performing traits, so this didn’t reflect on the accuracy of the match.

The more disturbing truth was, a man like him had thought he had a chance with a woman like her — twenty years younger, successfully employed (she’d just put that she worked in tech), and in full command of grammar and common etiquette.

Did he really think they were on the same level?

Even as her logical mind recoiled in indignation, she felt the dent in her self-confidence all the same.

Nat thought about how Jo was horrified at the prospect of being like her, how Eric hadn’t even thought she was worth treating kindly, and now some gross guy thought he had a chance with her.

The scientist in Nat couldn’t deny three consecutive data points, no matter how much she wanted to.

So, what was it about her that was so rotten?

She closed out of the messages and went back to swiping. She raced her finger over the screen, looping into faster and faster swipes.

“Swipe right one, two . . . ten! There! Are you happy now, Algorithm that I designed ?”

She sat up with a cold sloshing in her stomach. She knew she should go get herself a glass of water, but she also knew that would be an impossible feat at this point.

She thumbed open the message from Jo. No further response. The overheard call seeped into her thoughts like spilled ink.

She lay back down on her bed, opened her email, and found the contest contract from BuzzFill.

She did a quick copy and paste and opened a text message to Rami.

He seemed to hate her. Maybe she could get answers on her loathsomeness from him.

She knew from experience that he certainly didn’t sugarcoat his words.

Nat: Hey, thanks again for the drink. I still wanna know if my app mismatched you a lot

She hesitated before pressing send. That was no way to address her enemy. She erased it and tried again.

Nat: It’s Nat. Here’s a question for all your BeTwo wisdom. What’s the best opening message to send a guy?

Three typing dots appeared right away. She sat up straighter. The room wobbled.

Rami: You’re asking me to help YOU? AKA The Enemy?

She scoffed.

Nat: Don’t you have all the answers?

Rami: Just be yourself!

Nat cackled.

Nat: That’s beautiful. You should sell T-shirts

Rami: IDK I just ask about something in their profile.

Smth like

Hey I love that band too! Did you ever see them live?

You like to cook! What’s your favorite dish to make?

Is that a llama in your profile pic?

Nat: Can the llama come on our date?

Rami: If I become emotionally attached to the llama, is that going to be a problem?

Nat: No prob-llama at all!

Nat laughed and stretched. Her phone buzzed again.

Rami: See? You’re a natural.

She watched the typing dots wiggle.

Rami: But I’m still gonna kick your ass . . .

In a totally figurative way

Llamaste

She stared at the phone for a beat, but couldn’t think of anything else to say. Besides, she had her information.

She opened BeTwo again and started writing her response to Nick.