He looked at me, eyes wide and contrite. “No, no, I’m sorry.” He winced. “You’re right. I do say that a lot.” He dropped his phone on the countertop in frustration. “It’s just more of the same. Work.”
“I thought the servers were being upgraded tonight.”
“Well, someone has to monitor the upgrades, make sure everything’s going according to plan. Greg said he’d do it, but I guess there’s some error message that keeps popping up and God forbid he fucking Google it.” He winced again. “Sorry.” And again.
“It’s okay. Things happen.”
“I don’t understand why he can’t figure it out for himself. I told him you were coming over tonight, so he knows I’m busy.”
“He knows I’m here?” I flashed back to last Thursday, when Greg was giving me that creepy stare. This explained why he’d noted my existence for the very first time: he knew Alex and I were...doing something. Though last Thursday we hadn’t done anything yet, except have lunch. “What exactly have you told him?”
Alex shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “That we’re, you know, hanging out.”
Ugh. The dreaded “hanging out.” It connoted any number of things in guy-speak, all of which were firmly in the realm of “casual.”
Then again, we’d only been “hanging out” for a week. What did I expect, for Alex to announce to the entire office that we were involved in a serious, monogamous relationship?
I mean, it’s not like I would’ve minded. But it was completely insane to think about a commitment this early on.
His phone buzzed against the countertop again. “Are you serious?” He stabbed at the screen and grumbled, “Just fucking Google it, Greg.”
“This is the story of my life,” I said. “I can’t tell you how many times someone comes to the help desk with a problem that could be easily solved with a Google search.”
“I’m sure it happens all the time. To be honest, I don’t understand how half these Hatchlings got their funding. Aren’t start-up founders supposed to be innovative and resourceful?” Alex shook his head and sipped from his wineglass. “Sometimes I wish I’d never quit my last job. It was soul-sucking but at least I worked with competent people. I wasn’t harassed by idiots on my one night off.” He gestured angrily at his phone. “And if I’d stayed there, I wouldn’t be on the verge of losing my paycheck in six weeks.”
“Are you really worried you guys aren’t gonna get funded?”
“The way things are going? I don’t know. I always thought I wanted to get in on the ground floor at a start-up, but the whole experience with Hatch is making me want to run back to corporate America.”
I reached across the table and touched my fingertips to the back of his hand. “You know, you told me Hatch was just a stepping-stone to bigger and better things for you. So maybe it sucks right now, but it’s not gonna last forever. Soon you’ll be on to the next thing. And when the time is right, you’ll create the perfect opportunity.”
Alex looked at me, his eyes meeting mine, all traces of irritation gone. “You’re right. My time at Hatch has its purpose.”
“It does.”
“If I’d never started working at Hatch, I’d never have met you.” He covered my fingers with his other hand and gave them a gentle squeeze, sending a ripple of joy through my entire being.
“You never know,” I countered. “Maybe we would’ve met on Fluttr.”
“Do you think you would’ve swiped right on me?”
“It depends on what picture you used.”
“See for yourself.” He picked up his phone and loaded his camera roll, swiping through and selecting a photo. “This was my default profile pic.”
One glimpse at his screen and my stomach dropped to my feet. Because I suddenly remembered that I’d seen this photo before. On Alex’s JerkAlert profile.
I opened my mouth to speak, but had trouble forming words.
“It’s that bad, huh?” he asked.
“No. It’s just...” I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence, afraid the quiver in my voice would reveal all my insecurities.
“Your silence speaks volumes.” He smirked, then swiped through to the next photo. “Here’s the one I used before that. Any better?”
This time, it was a different image of him looking like his usual gorgeous, dapper self—but he was standing beside an even more gorgeous hazel-eyed brunette. They looked like they’d just shared a hilarious secret. His arm was wrapped tightly around her shoulder.
“Are you serious?”
“What?”
“This was really the profile pic you used?”
He glanced at the phone and then back at me. “Yeah. Is something wrong with it?”
“You’re canoodling with a beautiful woman.”
“We’re not canoodling.” He looked aghast. “This is my sister! We look exactly the same. See?”
I snatched the phone from his hand and studied the screen. Upon closer inspection, they did look alike. Same dancing eyes, same disarming smile, same olive skin and curly black hair. He wasn’t being rude or obnoxious with this picture; he was merely clueless.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Fluttr users make split-second decisions. They’re not going to take the time to figure out if she’s your sister or your ex-girlfriend. A woman in the photo is almost always an automatic left swipe.”
He pressed the home button to dim his phone screen. “Then we never would’ve met.”
“Simply because of a picture.”
“I told you, Fluttr’s the worst.”
“It is.” I couldn’t help but think about the dozens—or more like hundreds—of men I’d left-swiped because they were oblivious to the unspoken rules of Fluttr photo etiquette.
“Okay. I showed you mine,” he said. “Now you show me yours.”
All of a sudden, I felt shy, afraid of being judged. Even though countless men had already seen this picture and made the instantaneous decision to swipe left or right on my face, having Alex right here next to me, delivering his verdict in person, made me anxious. Especially knowing that I’d have swiped left on him without a second thought.
I didn’t have much of a choice, though. He was standing there, eyebrows raised, waiting for me to hand over the goods. So I tapped my screen and showed him my selfie. I’d snapped it on a whim, a couple of months ago, while I was walking home from work at dusk. The light had been perfect, all soft and golden, and my hair was in an unusually cooperative state. I thought it was flattering.