Chapter 3 Harlow
Chapter 3
Harlow
“I’m telling you guys, it could not have been any more awkward.” I have my laptop open in the bathroom as I take off my makeup, back from drinks. I would have called my friends sooner, but it would have been too loud doing it in public.
I want my friends to hear every single syllable about my day and not miss a thing, from my meeting in the park to my meeting with the beverage company I hope will advertise on Kissmet, to my second run-in with Mr. Athletic.
Not only are my friends privy to my personal life, they’re privy to most of the business side of my life too. People say not to hire friends, they say not to mix business and pleasure, but these are the people I trust the most. So when I was looking for people to be on my team—to help run, design, and get the Kissmet app on its feet—my besties from home felt like the perfect fit.
Listen. We’re from a small town—this is what we do.
Luckily so far it’s been great with Ava, Danny, and Portia.
No drama. No one has gone over budget. No one has dropped any balls or missed their deadlines.
Yet.
Knock on wood.
“Why was it awkward?” my friend Ava asks. I can see her in the chat screen on my computer, pouring a glass of wine for herself before settling into the chair next to the window in her apartment.
I watch Danny pet his cat, RuPaw, while also sipping a drink.
My friends don’t mess around when it comes to these Zoom calls, and I appreciate their efforts. Building a business can be lonely, and I’m grateful to have them to lean on.
They understand the assignment.
“He was obviously about to crap his pants, and there I stood, making small talk and teasing the poor bastard.”
Portia cackles. “Serves him right. Everyone knows not to eat that food truck shit.”
“I mean, not everyone .”
I certainly love to partake when I see one. And isn’t there something special about a New York City food truck in particular? They’re a whole vibe!
They are one of my favorite things about this city!
On my last visit to the park, you would have found me gnawing on chicken, quickly followed by a terrible case of food poisoning. I couldn’t leave my hotel room for two days during that trip and had to cancel two important meetings—one with an advertiser, another with a man whose job it is to get apps approved for the App Store.
That chicken fucked up more than my stomach!
Ava lifts her wineglass and swirls it, staring into the glass as if it were a crystal ball. “Was he, like, trying to act cool and collected?”
I tilt my head, trying to recollect the exact look on his face.
“Eh, not really. He had actual sweat beads dripping down his forehead. I think he was too sick to care what I thought, honestly.”
She leans forward. “And he was good looking?”
I nod, using a cotton ball and toner and rubbing it in small circles over my skin to cleanse it, getting all the residue off my cheekbones.
“Really good looking.”
“And now he owes you dinner?”
I shrug, still wiping toner on my face. “I gave him my room number and told him to send up a message. We’ll see if he actually does it, or if he skips town first.”
Ava’s eyes go wide, and she stops swirling her wineglass. “You dumbass, you gave him your room number? What if he shows up at your door?”
Shoot.
I stop my toner routine. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“We have to save you from yourself.” Danny, the resident know-it-all of the group, rolls his eyes. “We’re from Green Bay, Wisconsin, where people are nice and smile at each other and don’t lock their doors.” He clicks his tongue disapprovingly. “Honey, you’re in New York City. Never give out your address, and never let them know you’re interested.”
“I’m not interested!” I protest. “I was being ironic and sassy—and I never thought I would run into him again. I mean, what are the actual odds I would be getting off the elevator at the same time he was getting on. In the same hotel?”
“Slim to none,” Portia allows.
“It’s fate,” Ava announces. “This is the universe telling you to go for it.”
“I can’t go for it. I don’t know who he is.” All I know is what he was wearing and what he looked like. “Plus, he was about to crap his pants. That’s gross.”
Like, he couldn’t even get it together enough to have a conversation.
“Ava, no.” Danny defends me. “Do we want her dating a man who is back at his hotel shitting his brains out and probably threw up in every trash can in Tribeca?” His lips purse as if he’s sucked on a lemon. “No.”
Danny is the literal definition of diva , and he makes no apologies about it.
“He was having a bad day.” Ava tries again, defending a man she has never met because if Ava is anything, it’s romantic.
Danny stares at her, cocktail glass suspended midair, still stroking his cat. “No.”
“Listen, he’s not going to message me, okay? I’m not going to hear from him,” I insist. “This is a nonissue, everyone calm your tits.”
“How do you know he’s not going to message you?” Portia asks, debating the point. “You’re a catch.”
I sigh, unable to prevent an eye roll. “You know I’m a catch. He doesn’t know I’m a catch. He only knows I can’t mind my own business. He knows I curse. He knows I’m in room 905.”
“Hello,” Portia drawls. “You’re freaking adorable. Look at you with those freckles and that auburn hair.”
“Freckles and auburn hair—every man’s wet dream.” My voice is droll, and I take the next several seconds to ignore them so I can smother on the first of my face serums. “Not.”
“Girl, freckles are hawt .” Danny snaps his fingers, the same way he does every time he’s trying to punctuate a point, startling RuPaw. “Have you never heard of a freckle pen? Please. ”
“You should be working at a fashion magazine, not a dating app,” Portia tells him to butter him up. “You’re so good with makeup and shit.”
He preens under her compliments, smoothing back the imaginary long, silky hair that isn’t there. “Obviously.”
“And you.” Portia turns her attention back to me. “How dare you talk about yourself that way—you’re gorgeous. Don’t let New York change you, even if you are only there and back. If you were out by yourself sitting at the bar right now instead of back at the hotel talking to us like a loser, you’d be getting hit on left and right.”
I doubt that but take her word for it. “Thanks.”
“Seriously, if that man has a set of functioning eyes, he’ll be contacting you.”
“Too bad we don’t have the app up and running yet, we could see if he was on it,” Ava teases. “Then you could swipe on his sexy ass.”
“I don’t know if I’d have the guts to swipe on him even if I did see him on an app.”
I don’t have the heart to tell them that even though I had the idea for Kissmet, a different kind of dating app—one where you answer questions at setup and select more filters—I haven’t used one in years. There were some things about them I did not enjoy: the bots, the fake accounts, the catfishing, the men who claimed they were single but were actually in relationships.
Of course, I’m not saying it was all negative. But I did burn out trying, and failed to connect with anyone, and all my first dates were just that: one-hit wonders. Not that the men were always the problem.
It’s me.
I was the problem—it was me.
One guy was too nice. One brought me a cookie his aunt baked. One was too short; one was way too tall. High-pitched voice. Mama’s boy. One had three cats; another traveled too much for work.
Not necessarily bad things, just not ... right for me.
No chemistry.
“I want to meet someone the old-fashioned way,” I tell the group.
There’s a collective laugh from my laptop screen.
“What does that even mean, the old-fashioned way?” Ava says. “I mean, seriously. We aren’t our grandparents. We aren’t going to meet our partners playing darts at a bar, or meet them at a square dance, or accidentally trying to get into the same cab with them at the same time like you see in the movies.”
“Wait. What?” Portia looks surprised. “Are you saying that’s how your grandparents met? They met at a barn dance? Or are you making that up, because a barn dance sounds pretty fucking cool.”
Ava rolls her eyes. “I’m making that up to prove a point.”
Portia’s shoulders sag with disappointment before she turns her attention back to me through the screen. “Your point is, there’s no such thing as the old-fashioned way anymore. The way we live and work is nothing like the way it used to be. We don’t even live how our parents lived anymore—my mom didn’t have a cell phone until she was a sophomore in college, or so she’s constantly telling me. So if you meet a guy on the street who seems like a decent dude, and he’s good looking too? Go for it.” She stretches her arms above her head, already in her pajamas for the night. “Your odds of meeting someone in New York while you’re bopping around alone are higher than if we’d have gone on that trip with you.”
“How do you figure?” Ava takes the question right out of my mouth. “Because. We would go out in a group, and men these days ... not just men in New York ... are far too ...”
“Chickenshit.”
“Cocky.”
Danny and Portia speak at the same time, and we share a laugh, launching into another debate about men and sex and dating, and as they speak, my mind wanders back to the guy from the park, in his tight Mickey Mouse shirt, his ball cap pulled down over his eyes but not so low that I didn’t catch the perspiration on his brows earlier at the elevator banks.
We’re in the same hotel.
He is literally somewhere above or below me at this very second.
Seriously, what are the chances of that happening?
I twist open the blue jar of moisturizer I brought along and stick my finger into the white paste. Put a small dollop on my palm and rub, rub, until it gets warm and goes clear, then wipe it on my skin.
“What’s that look for?” Portia suddenly asks, interrupting my thoughts.
“What look?”
She pulls a face. “This one. What were you just thinking about when you were ignoring us completely?”
I decide to be honest. “That guy. How cringey I was by the elevators. I mean, I was so weird.”
He had looked so sick, I actually feel bad for saying anything in the first place. Then I went and reminded him that he owed me when he clearly needed to be near a toilet?
It was so obvious he was going to puke.
Pale.
Sweaty.
I caught sight of him with a hand on his stomach as the elevator doors slid closed, at the same time I gave him what I thought was a flirty little wave and a wink.
God, I’m so awkward.
Why?
Why had I waved and winked?
What an insensitive asshole.
Danny nods. “You were probably being weird.”
I scowl at him. “Hey. You’re not supposed to agree; you’re supposed to lie and tell me I wasn’t being weird. It’s the polite, supportive thing to do.”
He laughs. “Okay, but you have to admit, you’re a little weird.”
His cat jumps from the arm of the couch he had been perched on, landing on the floor with a swish of his angry feline tail. Ru has had enough of our nonsense.
“We’re all weird.” I sound defensive, even though I know he’s teasing.
“Tell us again what he looked like—and be specific, you’re doing a terrible job handing out details.”
“I told you he’s good looking. What other details do you want?”
“Height. Hair color. Descriptive features.” He snorts. “Like, how good looking, sliding scale of one to ten, one being ‘coyote ugly,’ ten being ‘he could turn a straight man gay.’”
“Jesus, that’s the scale?” Ava laughs. “That escalated quickly.”
I’m not going to rank a man—I wouldn’t want him ranking me—but I do say, “He was cute. You know, the kind of guy that works out a lot, maybe spends too much time in the gym.”
Everyone groans.
“Gym rat?”
“Maybe?” Or maybe he likes to be fit and prioritize his health? Although with a body like he has, it’s likely he is indeed a gym rat.
“What else?” Portia has herself propped up against her headboard and is half watching our conversation, half watching the television she has mounted to her bedroom wall.
“He was wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt.”
Everyone pauses to stare at their camera.
“Say again?” Ava looks as if she didn’t hear me the first time, but I know that’s not the case and therefore don’t repeat myself.
“What? What do I care if he’s down for the mouse?”
“Um, hello.” Danny flips his hair. “What if he’s a Disney gay, and you’re panting after him? Honey, how good is your gaydar?”
“Are you telling me you think he’s gay because he was wearing a Mickey shirt?”
My friend nods enthusiastically. “I’m saying it’s probable.”
“Danny, leave her alone.” Ava is almost done with her glass of wine and seems to be glancing around to find the bottle. “Don’t listen to him, Harlow. You know he’s only bitter because his ex loved Orlando, and it brings up too many bad memories.”
“We said we weren’t ever going to mention him!” Danny squawks, affronted. “We said we weren’t going to bring him up or mention his name ever again!”
Dennis is the traitorous ex, by the way, not that it has any bearing to this story.
“He was not giving me gay vibes,” I admit. “But who knows.”
Portia pushes on. “And?”
“I think he had brown hair?”
I have Danny’s full attention again. “What does that mean, you think he has brown hair?”
“He was wearing a ball cap.”
“And no hair was peeking out?”
I shake my head. Negative, no hair peeking out.
“Bald,” Danny declares. “Bald!”
“You are not the authority on men just because you are gay,” Portia admonishes him. “Stop scaring her.”
Scaring me?
“What?” Danny practically shouts. “Clearly the man is hatfishing.”
“Hatfishing?” I blurt out. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Men wear hats when they don’t want you to know they have no hair. If he never takes if off, just assume he ain’t got nothing underneath it.”
I laugh because they all sound serious. “Bald men do not scare me.”
“Okay, but how was his actual face ?”
These questions are getting to be too much. “I said he was good looking.”
“But what do you consider good looking? Name some celebrities.”
“I ...” I swallow, feeling pathetic. I don’t watch enough television or see enough movies to give them a single name they can relate to. “He had a strong jawline, five-o’clock shadow, and brown eyes.”
I think.
“Hmm. Okay, I can live with brown eyes.” Danny is trying to call the cat and get him back onto the couch to snuggle, patting the spot next to him at the same time as giving me the third degree. “What about his eyebrows?”
“What about his eyebrows?”
He waves his hand around in the air. “You know—did he have them? Were they bushy? Thin?”
Seriously, this whole discussion is too much. “Can we please change the topic? I’m not drunk enough for this conversation right now.”
“Fine, we’ll change the subject, but only because I want to hear about Danny’s potential new roommate,” Ava allows. “But if Central Park sends a message to your room, you better freaking tell us. Immediately, do you understand?”
Sure, sure. “We’re calling him Central Park now?”
“Only if he’s cute,” Danny says. “Otherwise we’re calling him Central Bark , and you’re never staying at that hotel again.”