Page 82 of People Skills

‘Who cares?’ Xavier says. ‘It’s kind of nice, actually.’

I glare at him.

‘I care. It was a photo from a year and a half ago.’

‘Why are you showing me a picture of him from a year and a half ago?’ Xavier says, laughing. ‘What do his current pictures look like?’

‘They’re fine!’

‘So why did you scroll back so far?’

‘That is an irrelevant question. The point is you have made me look like a psycho right before my date.’

Xavier can see I am genuinely anguished, and he stops laughing.

‘Just tell him your housemate was mucking around and did it.’

‘Say my housemate was scrolling back through years of his pictures and mucking around. That sounds like we were making fun of him.’ Not to mention, I don’t plan to mention Xavier if I can help it. The handsome man I live with is not the topic I want to frontload the date with.

‘Say…I don’t know. Say you were bored and looking at his socials and accidentally liked a pic.’

‘Maybe I say nothing.’

‘Yes! Say nothing. What kind of a loser has a notification on for every like? You undid it fast enough.’

‘Right. Right. Do you have notifications off?’

‘Yes. You made me turn them off,’ he says. ‘Do you?’

‘Yes,’ I say. A lie. But I need to be across things—for my job.

‘See? I bet he does too. It’ll be fine.’

‘Okay.’ I take a deep breath. It will be fine.

‘Go. Have fun,’ he says, but his tone doesn’t sound like he means it.

‘I will,’ I say.

‘I might get to meet him, if you bring him back here.’ Xavier is looking into his bowl of spaghetti as he says this, so I can’t see the expression on his face.

‘I’m not going to bring him back here,’ I say.

‘How do you know?’

‘I know.’

‘Okay. Good. Well, not good, bring him back here or don’t, I support your decision either way.’

‘Bye,’ I say.

‘Bye,’ he says. ‘I’m off to do some reading.’

‘Good.’

He pauses. ‘It’ll be fine. He won’t have got the notification.’

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