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Chapter 1
Liz
“I’m telling you,” says Becky, my coworker. Her plunge into conversation is sudden. We’ve been getting the first orders ready to ship out in silence. Silence I’ve been using to daydream about heading into the university district when I get off work, finding the first hot guy available, and riding him like I haven’t had sex in months.
Because I haven’t.
Becky is holding her phone up, showing off the app she mentioned yesterday. “Check out this chick,” she says and flashes a picture of a girl dressed in burlesque. Her breasts are half heaving out of her leather bra. “This is Marla. We had a date last night and we’re already going out again today after I get off. She’s great, and we never would have met if we both hadn’t given this app a chance.”
I shake my head. “You know my opinion on dating apps. The pictures are never right. Either they’re from years ago or from many, many pounds ago. I prefer meeting in person. You know, like authentic humans.”
Becky releases a gigantic sigh. “I know your opinion, and it’s always pessimistic. What you need is a good fucking.”
“And if I were gay, I’d be more than happy to let you ravage me all night.”
Becky smiles and wags her finger. “Don’t go putting mental images in my head that are just going to tease me all day. Besides, there are plenty of guys on this app too. And you know what they say: You’re more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to find a husband after you’re thirty.”
“You’ve been watching Sleepless in Seattle again, haven’t you?” I accuse her.
“I can’t help that it has tremendous rewatchability,” she counters with, waggling her packaging tape at me.
I puff out an angry breath through my nose. “And I’ve still got a few years before I’m thirty. Besides, isn’t the quote supposed to be ‘forty years old’?”
Becky’s a hopeless romantic. I’m more just hopeless. But even I can’t help but smile at the ridiculousness of our conversation. Because although this is only the second time Becky has mentioned an app, we talk about my love life on the daily. Or, to be more accurate, my lack of a love life.
“So, you’re saying that even if there were a guy on one of these apps who ticked all your boxes, you wouldn’t even give him a chance?” Becky asks in a strangely expectant tone. Like she’s hiding something. The way she isn’t meeting my eyes, instead focusing on her roll of packing tape has me all the more suspicious.
“That would never happen because I would never download one of those apps.”
Finally she cracks a smile and pulls her phone out of her pocket. She slides it across the table. On the screen is a picture of me. Not a flattering picture either. “You might never use one of those apps, but it doesn’t mean other people wouldn’t.”
My eyebrows leap up into my messy bangs. “You didn’t!”
“Sorry,” Becky says, but no part of her body language reciprocates this apology. In fact, with the way she’s barely containing her giddiness at this reveal, staring at the phone and inching it closer to me, I would say she looks mighty proud of herself. “When I was with my date—that girl Marla I was talking about—I was telling her how sorry I felt for you. It all stemmed when she asked where I worked, and once we were on the topic of you, she had the brilliant idea that we should find you a man.”
I snatch the phone off the table and begin scrolling through the profile Becky and her girl-toy set up for me. Without my permission. “Because who better to find me a man than two lesbians?”
“Just because I prefer a softer body doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a hard hunk of a man.”
I shake my head. “No one says ‘hunk’ anymore.”
“I bet you will when you see the guy we found for you.”
Although I’ve never navigated this app before, it’s easy enough to find my way around. Before I jump over to see the connections my profile has made, I read a little bit more of the description Becky wrote for me.
I blanch at the end. “You wrote that I’m a ‘Southern belle looking for a man from the north to ring my bell?’ That’s just terrible writing.”
Becky laughs so hard at this that she snorts. “Shit, I forgot about that part. Marla wrote that. You have to meet her. She’s hilarious.”
I fake a laugh, my eyes on Becky and obviously not amused. “Oh, har har har. Well, let’s see what kind of moron would respond to this horrid person you made me out to be.”
I’m expecting to see picture after picture of thirsty guys all lacking in some very serious way. Maybe one will actually look halfway decent, but I’m sure as soon as I read his profile, I’ll find that he’s still living with his parents, entrenched in some online game he devotes all his waking hours to.
My disappointment reaches new lows when I find that there’s only a single connection. Only one guy desperate enough to send a message to this obvious mess of a girl. When I swipe right to see his profile though, his photo pops up. And my god is it not what I was expecting.
“Is this for real?” I ask out loud, not taking my eyes off the screen.
Becky’s answer is to point to the chat icon. She taps it and a new window pops up, ready for me to type out a message to the gorgeous hunk on the other end. “There’s only one way to find out.”
Chapter 2
Michael
When I wake, the house is silent and dark. The sun still hasn’t risen, and neither has anyone else. After throwing on sweatpants and a hoodie, I grab my gym bag, hitching the strap over my shoulder. In the hallway, the chill air hits me all at once. Even my father’s state-of-the-art heating system struggles to keep the halls of our massive house warm in the dead of winter. He says they were designed to look impressive not to stay warm, but after growing up here, the twelve-foot-high ceilings and arched openings aren’t imposing; they’re empty. In all the years of walking alone on my way to private tutors and breakfasts eaten in the silence of servants, I can’t remember a single time that laughter has rung down these vast empty stretches of my family home.
That’s the reason I always escape when the chance presents itself.
When I manage to get outside and in my car without meeting a soul, I let out a sigh of relief. No one understands why I don’t just use the gym in the basement. It’s got everything I should need, theoretically. All the weights and machines and dumbbells. It’s where my father exercises on occasion, and if it’s good enough for him, it should be more than adequate for me.
He doesn’t get me.
He never has.
Not like I give him the chance to understand me. Every chance I get, I hop in my car and drive forty-five minutes down the highway to this town calle
d Little Ridge. Here I’m just Michael, the guy who spends his morning at the gym and his lunches at the local diner. I’m such a regular that I don’t even have to order anymore. Nobody knows I’m sitting on a trust fund that could last me more than three lifetimes of frivolous spending. Or that my father’s the founder of Harding Enterprises.
Still, I feel embarrassed parking my late model Mercedes Benz in the parking lot with all the pick-up trucks and sedans sporting dings and scratches.
