Page 37 of Swiped

He hopped out of the car and opened the door for Allison, barely pausing his narration. “Anyway, I can’t wait to show you these penguins. The live feed just doesn’t capture it.”

She gave him her hand as he led her up the steps.

“One of the penguins, Harold, I swear he can look into your soul.” Rami sauntered up to the ticket booth. But it was a void of darkness. He checked his watch — it was only three o’clock.

Allison tapped on a handwritten sign taped to the glass.

“Closed early for cleaning?” he cried. “But penguins regularly preen themselves in order to stay warm and waterproof!” He sighed and fixed Allison with a sad stare. “I’m sorry. Again.”

Allison bounded down the steps, trailing red curls. “Hey now, don’t give up so easily.” She shot him another of her sly looks. “What would Fun Sun say?”

Rami caught up with her as she poked around a construction fence on the side of the museum. “You’re right,” he said. “Fun Sun lives in the moment.”

Allison nodded as she rattled the chain and sized up the chain link fence. “We used to do this kind of thing all the time back home.”

He watched her ignore his nervous chuckle and keep exploring.

“Really gotta make your own fun in a farm town.” She put a sneaker into a gap in the fence and hoisted herself up. “All right!” she cried. She grinned at him over her shoulder. “Ready for an adventure?”

Rami felt his eyes widen. “Seriously?” He waited for her to say it was a joke. She didn’t. “I mean, I’d do anything for Harold, but . . .”

“No one is here. You can do this!” She climbed up the fence like it was something she did every day. “Just pretend you’re Jason Bourne.”

“Yeah, that’s not the character who I play in that movie.”

She dropped to the ground on the other side and dusted off her hands. “We’ll just walk around the open areas for a bit, and if we see a guard, we can hide in the bathroom!” Her teeth flashed in a feline grin. “And who knows, maybe we’ll find a golden statue and solve a mystery.”

“Are you making a From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler reference?”

She nodded with the same toothy smile.

Rami sighed and hoisted himself onto the fence. “I think you’ve discovered my data point.”

Allison jumped up and down when he landed on the other side. She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the building.

He followed for a few steps and then tugged her gently back toward him. She turned to him, her green eyes gleaming. He pulled her close and kissed her.

“Ooh, I see someone likes a little danger,” she cooed.

“Mmm-hmm.” Rami nodded. “I do.”

“Come on.” She pulled his hand again. “Let’s go inside!”

“Yeah, I know the guy who designed the AI surveillance system for this place, so we’re definitely not breaking in,” he said. “But that’s also how I know there’s a blind spot in the system right about . . .” He led her toward a copse of trees.

She followed.

“Right about here.”

She leaned back against a tree and reached for him.

He put his arms around her. Droplets of rain fell as the wind rustled the leaves. And they made out in a way that he imagined would be described as “furiously.”

* * *

Nat tapped her fingers along the stem of her martini glass. She was at her stool in the bar, waiting to see if Rami would take his customary place at the one beside her.

She realized that she could no longer pretend that she was merely sipping her martini until he arrived — there were only about two sips left. She downed them and checked her phone for what felt like the hundredth time.

Nothing.

Even in her current, fuzzy state of having had a powerfully strong martini after a full day of wine tasting and a pasta dinner, she knew with certainty that this only meant one of two things — neither of them good.

The first possibility was that Rami was having such a great time on his date that he couldn’t be bothered to interrupt his romantic reverie to simply do her the courtesy of a response, or a simple emoji tossed her way, or hell, even a “liked” reaction.

Nat scowled as she swirled around the few drops of alcohol clinging to the bottom of the glass. She wondered if Rami’s dream date had lush, shampoo model hair and the body shape needed to pull off puff sleeves.

The other possibility, of course, was that Rami no longer wished to speak to her. The thought landed like a lead weight in her belly, and a ripple of fear splashed through her as she imagined this being the truth.

They hadn’t had any contact since establishing that they were on the same page , a phrase that still confounded Nat’s mind despite having stared at the inert blue text message bubble every night as she tried to fall asleep.

What had become crystal clear from reviewing the texts dozens of times was how deeply she had bungled the exchange.

It was no big deal , she’d written, followed by the factual observation, we were drunk .

Both of these statements could be interpreted as simple statements of objective reality.

People kissed all the time, right? It was an extremely commonplace occurrence, even if she had just recently ended a two-year streak without so much as a peck.

And the remark that they had both been drinking cocktails all night and so were at least somewhere between tipsy and drunk, no matter their respective metabolisms? Nat scoffed to herself. That was definitely impossible to negate.

So, her only conclusion was that when given the opportunity to discuss an event that had been replaying constantly in her mind since it happened, with the very person she’d shared it with, she had really only managed to get him to agree that they seemed to be inhabiting the same reality.

No quantum jumping between timelines, here.

They had indeed kissed. When they were drunk.

And now they weren’t talking.

Nat scowled deeper at her empty glass. That pithy red-headed woman was a monster, and her friends were idiots.

Her phone buzzed. She sprang to attention.

It was a text from Thom.

Thom: Nat, please tell me that I didn’t just hallucinate our day. It was too perfect.

Nat ran a hand through her long curls and glanced around the small bar. Couples leaned in together in cozy triangles over their small tables. The empty stool next to her seemed to burn in the red light. She started typing her reply to Thom.

Nat: Well the day’s not over, right?

* * *

A little over an hour, and one quickly downed round of drinks later, Nat and Thom stumbled into her dark apartment. She could barely bring her face away from his lips long enough to take full breaths. So, she really couldn’t be bothered to turn on a light.

Until she cracked her shin on something hard that wasn’t usually there.

“Mother of pearl!” she shouted, unsure why she’d opted for the PG version around Thom.

Burning razors of pain radiated up her leg.

She clutched her shin and hopped on one foot.

When she closed her eyes, all she could see were spirals of electric hurt jolting through her body.

Her brain needed another outlet. “Hats!” she cried, randomly.

Thom flicked on the light. Nat winced at the stack of moving boxes she’d knocked against.

“Good evening to you, too,” said Sara. “You OK?” She was leaning against the kitchen counter in a silk kimono, passing a glass of water back and forth with a tall, muscled woman with close-cropped hair and tattoos over every inch of her body that Nat could see.

Considering that she was only wearing a sports bra and small white briefs, Nat could see a lot.

“It’s like a troll cave in here,” said Nat, realizing that packed boxes lined the apartment. “Light a sensual candle or something, geez.”

“Oh, we packed up the candles already,” said Sara’s companion, innocently.

“Yeah, I can see you’ve been working really hard,” Nat grumbled.

She and Sara had become ships in the night, barely speaking and certainly not sharing details of their lives and paramours.

Now there was some unknown and unnamed person half-naked in her kitchen with her best friend, and Nat had no idea who they were.

She felt like a stranger in her own life.

So, she wrapped her hands around Thom’s firm arm with a contented smile.

“This is my boyfriend, Thom,” she said in the tone one might use to announce the latest addition to their house — just had this Italian marble added to the guest bath.

It really matches the soaking tub and heated floors, don’t you think?

Sara arched an eyebrow and held a hand out toward Thom. “Sara, nice to meet you,” she said.

“Pleasure.” Thom shook her hand with a winning smile, but his eyes were helplessly fixed on the half-naked woman.

“This is Jax,” Sara added, nodding to her smiling friend. “We’ll give you two the space.”

“No, no!” Nat sputtered, the martinis pushing her to make a scene. “Stay. Enjoy it while you can!”

Sara sighed and fixed Nat with a look she knew was a warning.

Nat didn’t care. “And feel free to take any sentimental objects as mementos, you know, if you even want to remember this place at all.”

Thom cleared his throat awkwardly.

Jax winced. “You said she was your ‘roommate,’ babe, not ‘ex-girlfriend,’” she said, scowling at Sara.

“Nat’s not my ex,” Sara replied, coolly, wrapping an arm around Jax’s waist. “She’s my friend.” Sara looked Nat square in the face, and her chocolatey eyes pleaded through their cat eye liner and sparkly shadow. “She’s my best friend, actually, and I’d really like to keep it that way.”

Sadness blurred tears into Nat’s vision, and she shook her head to clear it away. Sara was her best friend, too, and she wanted more than anything to hold onto that. It was just hard to feel secure when Sara’s things were packed in boxes all around her.

Nat took Thom’s hand. “It’s fine, we’re tired.” She couldn’t bring herself to look at Sara, but she managed to mumble something about seeing her in the morning as she led Thom down the hallway.

* * *

In her room, Nat pulled Thom into her bed like she’d done it a hundred times before. She nestled her backside against him as he curled around her. They fit together in exactly the way she would expect from a ninety-nine percent match — perfectly.

Then her phone buzzed and slipped out of her pocket.

“Really?” She grabbed it and sat up.

It was a text from Eric, her very first BeTwo date. She blinked in shock at the picture of his blurry, purpled dick.

Eric: U up?????

“Everything OK, beautiful?” said Thom, pushing pillows into shape. His voice was gravelly with sleep.

Nat set her phone on the floor. “Everything is perfect.”