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Just looking at the photo filled me with joy…until I remembered how far away my brother was. Funnily enough, I missed my sister, too. She was still in the same city, of course, so her absence wasn’t as tangible, but she was so busy with work I often felt like a check box on her to do list. It was bullshit, really.
I waited my whole life to be old enough to hang out with them, and now that I was, they were still getting older. And busier. Hell, maybe I was a typical youngest child who craved copious amounts of love and attention. Regardless, it was hard not to resent the obligatory adulting that kept me from spending more time with them.
My phone plinked on the bed, and I guessed it would be a text from one of them, either because their ears were burning or because I’d texted each of them that morning. Instead, it was a Tinder notification, saying I’d matched with some guy named Pierce who lived in Lakeview down the street from my old apartment. Figures.
I studied his picture but felt nothing, so I started swiping to see what other fish might be interested in swimming up my stream. There were a few maybes, which I left-swiped right away. A girl’s got to be choosy with the app these days or minding your Tinder inbox can become a real chore. After that, there were a few hell nos. Not that I didn’t love a twenty-year-old who dressed like Simon Cowell, but in my opinion, plunging necklines were a fashion trend that only women should try to pull off.
The next guy was a total babe. He was far away in his first picture—on a boat, no less—but in the second one he was shirtless and tan and… Quinn. Oh my god, he was Quinn. My eyes went cross-eyed when I tried to count his abs, and I backed towards the bed to sit down. Damn. If I didn’t know him, I’d say he was hot. His third picture was of him looking stern in a suit, and it had all the personality of a LinkedIn profile pic, which was to say it had none. But in the last one, he was hugging a white-faced Labrador and looked surprisingly…normal. He was even smiling. Like a regular guy. A happy guy.
As for his written profile, it was vague, to put it mildly. Just a single Muhammed Ali quote that read, “It’s hard to be humble when you’re as great as I am.” I scoffed. What an incorrigible dick. I went through his pictures again, wondering if Sweet Caroline was his daddy’s boat and who owned the lucky dog that had elicited one of his rare smiles.
I set my thumb on the screen and was about to swipe left when the cardboard boxes leaning against the far wall fell down. The sound startled me—probably because I was terrified that Quinn might’ve caught me creeping—so my whole body jerked away from the door. To the right. I glanced down at my phone, my ribcage collapsing when I saw what I’d done.
I tried not to panic, tried to take deep breaths. Tried to tell myself it didn’t matter because he’d never make the same mistake. And right after I decided I would never mention it or think about it again, my phone plinked.
I looked down at it, my heart stopping when I saw the notification that I had a match.
Guess I was wrong. Things could be more awkward.
