“Spare me the details and let me give you the log-in for the dating app for which you’re now a paid subscriber.”
“What?” He groaned and glared at his sister. “What did you do?”
“Nothing, really.” It was her turn to shrug and smile. “After you said what you said at Billy’s, I might’ve set up an account for you and paid the fees, just in case.”
“In case . . . ?”
“In case you and Vanessa crashed and burned.”
Jack sighed.
“Instead of making a fuss and pretending to be mad,” she said, looking pleased with herself, “just say ‘Thank you, Liv.’?”
“Butt out, Liv,” he replied.
“I’ll butt out,” she said, “as soon as you log in.”
Hallie
A week later
“You have to be kidding.” Chuck stabbed one of the Swedish meatballs on his plate and gave Hallie a look. “This could not have actually happened.”
“Which part don’t you believe?” Hallie asked her best friend as she dipped one of her french fries into ketchup. “The botched proposal or the drunken hotel sex?”
“More water?” The waiter looked down at her, and her cheeks got hot as her words hovered there. Drunken hotel sex.
“Um, no, thank you.”
Chuck started laughing and squealed out the words hotel sex, which made the waiter laugh, too. Once the server left, Chuck said, “All of it. I mean, what are the odds that you go to work, and all of that happens to you?”
Hallie jammed a few fries into her mouth and said, “I’m having trouble believing it myself, and it happened a week ago.”
“So the guy was attractive?” Chuck popped a meatball into his mouth. “Good under the covers?”
“He was hot for sure.” Hallie pictured Jack’s face and said, “Good under the covers, against the wall, in the elevator . . .”
“Remind me again why you’re complaining . . . ?”
“I’m not complaining.” Hallie took a sip of her Diet Pepsi and said, “I’m just disgusted with myself for being a hot mess shit show. Waking up at the foot of a stranger’s bed was the impetus I needed to change, and now I’m going to turn over a new leaf.”
“Your old leaf wasn’t fine?” Chuck rolled his eyes and said, “Because it seemed totally fine to me.”
“When Ben and I broke up, everything I started doing was supposed to be temporary. But I’m still living like a college student, Chuck. I need to get a real apartment without a roommate, a fresh haircut, some new clothes, perhaps a meaningful relationship—”
“Oh, my God,” he interrupted, his eyes huge and his mouth full of meaty ball bites as it hung wide open, his beard and mustache framing that mouth with orange fuzz. “Does this mean you’re finally gonna do it?”
Hallie inhaled through her nose, closed her eyes, and gave a nod of confirmation.
Chuck had been trying to get Hallie to go on Looking4TheReal, the dating app where he’d met Jamie (his now fiancée), since Hallie and Ben had broken up. He was convinced the app was some sort of magical matchmaker, and he never shut up about it.
Ever.
Chuck had never had a serious relationship before Jamie (which Hallie knew because she’d known him his entire life—he was also her second cousin). He was hands down the most unique person she’d ever met, but his inability to fit into a conventional category had always worked against him in the dating world.
Chuck was funny, smart, and handsome. But instead of watching football, he liked Disney movies. Instead of listening to hot singles, he listened to Broadway cast recordings. The man liked anime more than most humans did, and Hallie and Chuck had been known to spend hours texting about Bravo reality TV.
But a mere month after joining that stupid app, he’d found his soul mate.
And anyone who’d ever seen them together had no doubt that Jamie and Chuck were soul mates. She, too, was gorgeous, and Jamie loved his quirks, adored anime, and quickly joined Chuck and Hallie’s reality TV group chat.
Hallie had always said she “wasn’t ready” when he brought it up, because the mere thought of dating after Ben made her mildly nauseous, but now she felt almost desperate. It had occurred to her in the shower that morning that in addition to all the other ways she wanted to jump-start her life, she wanted love.
She did.
Maybe that made her pathetic, but she suddenly didn’t want to be alone anymore.
“Can I call Jamie?” Chuck pulled his phone out of his pocket. “She’s going to lose it—”
“No.” Hallie shook her head. Jamie was like an overcaffeinated version of Chuck, and there was no reining her in when she got excited. “No Jamie.”
“You know I’m going to call her the second we’re done, right?”
“Yes, but I can’t handle both of you at once. You’re too much.”
His mouth slid into a big stupid grin. He said around a dreamy sigh, “We are, aren’t we?”
“That wasn’t necessarily a compliment.”
“Quit being a grouchy twat.” Another thing about Chuck—he watched a ton of British programming, so he threw out the t-word all the time. He stood and dragged his chair around the table, not stopping until he plopped down right next to her. “Let’s create a profile while we’re here, so all you have to do later is sip on a glass of wine and scroll through the available gents.”
“You make it sound like shopping,” she said, watching as he grabbed her phone, punched in the passcode (030122), and immediately went to work on creating an account.
“It’s basically the same thing,” he replied, his eyes on the phone. “Only instead of the perfect handbag, you’re shopping for the one person in the universe who will make you blissfully happy for the rest of your life.”
“Well,” Hallie said, irrationally excited underneath her feigned cynicism, “that sounds impossibly simple.”
“Shut up and let me do this for you.”
By the time they’d finished dinner, Hallie had an actual dating profile on an actual dating app. Chuck had come up with kickass verbiage that made her sound fun and smart, and she was genuinely excited to go home and start “shopping.”
Only when he pulled up in front of her dumpy apartment to drop her off, Chuck gasped loudly and said, “Holy shit.”
“What?” Hallie looked out the window but couldn’t see any reason for alarm.
He said, “I think there was a delay or something when you told me about your new leaf, because your words are just hitting me right now. Did you say you’re going to get your own place—without Ruthie?”
“Yes.”
He tilted his head. “Have you thought about how you’re going to tell her?”
Hallie narrowed her eyes and said, “I’m just going to tell her. We’re both adults—it’ll be fine.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” His voice was higher in pitch.
“Yes.”
“Really.”
“Ohmigawd, Chuck, quit trying to freak me out. I will tell her, she will accept it with a smile, and all will be well.”
He nodded and said, “Sure it will.”
Chapter
THREE