Chapter 3
EDEN
“You guys ready to toast?”Kayla asks while raising a glass of sparkling wine in the air.
I hold up my hand, squinting down at my phone screen. “Not yet.”
She pokes me with her socked foot as she lounges next to me on our living room couch. “Oh, come on, Eden. This is a huge night! The night the Dream Guy app launches! We need to celebrate.”
“Not until we get our first subscriber.” I frown down at the app on my phone and refresh the screen before aiming my gaze at Kayla. “We shouldn’t celebrate until we have a reason to.”
Danny chuckles from where he’s sitting in the nearby armchair and sets his glass on the coffee table. “I’m with Eden.”
Kayla rolls her eyes at us before taking a sip from her glass. “You two are such rule-followers. You already put so much work getting to this point. You should celebrate it.”
She’s not wrong. It’s been nearly two weeks of working nonstop in the run-up to the app’s launch. It’s been endless hours of fixing lines of code and testing the app. Kayla put her stellar photography skills to good use by taking photos of Danny to post on his app profile. And she and I have been posting to social media nonstop to amp up the launch. And now it’s Friday night, the official launch day for our app, and my nerves are shot as I refresh the app a million times, waiting for people to sign up for Dream Guy.
“Just one sip! Come on!” Kayla waggles her flute of sparkling wine in her hand like she’s dangling a carrot. “You pulled seven all-nighters to get this app off the ground, Eden. Seven.” She turns to Danny. “Don’t you think Eden deserves a drink for all the blood, sweat, and tears she’s already put in?”
Danny grins and nods before looking back at me. “Kayla’s got a point.”
I bite back a smile, determined not to get ahead of things. “I can’t yet. It wouldn’t be right. Sparkling wine is for celebrating. And the only reason to celebrate is if we actually get subscribers to this app.”
“How about a shot of tequila then?” he says.
I do my best to keep my smile from getting obnoxiously wide as I think back to the all-nighter from hell I pulled and how one text from Danny turned it around completely.
There had been a glitch in the code I was working on and it took me half the night to resolve it. I had missed a call from Kayla checking in on me—she left in the middle of the night to pick up her cousin to drive her to the airport. I was equal parts delirious from sleep deprivation and thrilled to have finally conquered the line of code from hell, so I texted Kayla.
Guess who finally made that line of code her bitch?!
I FREAKING DID IT!
Suck it hard, you devil line of code!
You bow to me muahahaha!! Three cheers for MEEEE!! Wooo!!!
I ended it with a line of smiling devil emojis, tossed my phone on the couch, and darted to the bathroom to relieve my screaming bladder. When I came back, I saw a text alert on the screen.
Danny: Hey. Did you mean to text me?
My eyes bulged out of my head when I realized that I had mistakenly texted Danny.
Me: Oh my god. I’m so sorry! That was meant for Kayla
Me: Ignore that please haha
And then I realized what time it was: 5:30 a.m. Which meant that I probably woke him up with the five texts in a row that I accidentally sent him.
Also, I’m soooo sorry for texting you at this hour. It’s been a long night
And then I plopped onto the couch, groaning out of sheer embarrassment. But to my surprise, Danny texted back.
Danny: Haha no worries at all. I was going to get up in a little while anyway. What happened?
I explained the coding fiasco, and over the next few minutes, we texted. Danny was so sweet, letting me blow off steam after I had spent hours hunched over at my computer.
Danny: You definitely deserve a good breakfast after the all-nighter you pulled. What are you in the mood for? I’ll drop it off at your place on the way to work.
Me: Oh gosh, that’s so kind of you, but you don’t have to do that.
Danny: I know I don’t have to do it. I want to do it. Let me bring you breakfast, Eden.
Even now just thinking about that text he sent sends a jolt through me. Yeah, on the surface, it was a simple text—polite and nice. But something about it hit differently. How simple and to-the-point it was. How quickly he texted it. The way he used my name. Sure, I’m probably reading too much into it. But admittedly, people don’t often take the time to type your name when they text you. The fact that Danny did felt different—it felt special.
Me: Okay, thank you. Biscuits and gravy would be divine. I’ll pay you when you get here.
Danny: You got it. And no way, I’m not taking your money.
An hour later, Danny was at my door with a to-go container of biscuits and gravy along with a mini-bottle of tequila.
“Tequila?” I said, feeling oddly giddy as I stared at Danny standing in my doorway at the crack of dawn, his hair mussed, sleep still in his slightly puffy eyes, looking as devilishly handsome as ever. God, this guy. Did he always have to look so damn good, even in the wee hours of the morning?
“You went hard last night. It’s only fitting that you reward yourself with a little of the hard stuff,” he said, with a tilt of his head and a quirk of his brow.
And that’s when my knees went wobbly because good lord, cheeky Danny is sexy as hell. Except I’m sure he wasn’t being cheeky; he was just trying to be nice. So I shoved away the giddy feeling, downed the shot, and thanked him for the food. He left to teach his early morning class and I spent the rest of the morning inhaling my breakfast while fantasizing about that head tilt and that eyebrow quirk. Such unexpectedly hot moves.
“Oh, we can definitely do a tequila shot!” Kayla says, jolting me back to the present. She starts to stand up, but I motion for her to sit back down.
“No shots either. Not until we have an actual subscriber,” I repeat.
I check the time—three minutes since we officially launched and still no bites. I pull up Danny’s profile and do a quick skim of it for the millionth time.
Danny is the well-rounded gentleman who can smoothly navigate any event or social engagement. This handsome charmer has a master’s degree in art, has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and South America, is well-read, and stays informed of current news. He’s also in killer shape if you’re in the mood for an outdoor date. Whether you’re looking for a wedding date, a plus-one to a holiday party, or just fancy the company of a kind, thoughtful, intelligent guy, Danny is the Dream Date for you. He is comfortable with light PDA, including hand-holding, hugging, kisses on the cheek, and lips-only kisses.
Danny is perfection on paper—and in person. Not to mention how yummy he looks in his profile photos. I swipe through them: A smiling headshot, him hiking along a river, a candid photo of him mid-laugh, shirtless on the beach crouched down next to a friend’s dog. My gaze lingers a few extra seconds on that one before I exit out of the photos. I really, really shouldn’t be counting the hard lines and bulging muscles on Danny’s torso. We’re technically work colleagues now, and that’s borderline creepy. He’s also sitting right next to me.
“Hey.” Kayla’s kind tone pulls me out of my thoughts. She aims a kind stare at me, like she can read the stress inside of me. “Don’t worry. It’ll work out. This app is gonna be mega successful.”
I toss my phone on the coffee table and slump back on the couch. “How can you be so confident?”
“Because Danny’s a hottie.”
Danny bursts out laughing before his stubbled cheeks turn red.
When my own cheeks start to heat, I glance away. She’s right about that.
“But seriously, Eden. Relax,” Kayla says. “It’s been five minutes. Give things a bit longer than that before you lose all?—”
My phone buzzes on the coffee table. Before I can even swipe it up, it buzzes again and again.
Kayla shoots up into a sitting position and lets out a squeal. When I open the app, I gasp.
“Holy…”
“What?” she and Danny blurt.
I hold up the phone at both of them. “Seven ‘Dream Date’ requests in the last five minutes!”
Kayla bounces up and down on the couch, pumping her fists in the air while Danny scrambles to dig his phone out of his jeans pocket. When he does, his hazel eyes turn to saucers. The corner of his mouth quirks up. “Damn…”
When we put together Danny’s profile, he asked to only make himself available for “Dream Dates.” He said he wasn’t ready to jump into anything romantic after his breakup, which I totally understood.
He’s grinning as he gazes down at his phone. He taps his finger on the screen. I switch to my laptop, taking a look at the back end of the app. Danny’s accepting all the dates. My stomach does a flip. This is actually happening. People are using my app—my app that I designed while pulling all-nighters in between attending class and working shifts at the pub.
“You’re a hit, Danny!” Kayla says. “An instant in-demand Dream Guy. I think that calls for a toast.”
The three of us raise our champagne flutes while my and Danny’s phones buzz nonstop. This time I’m the one holding in a squeal.
“To Dream Guy!” Kayla says.
“To Danny,” I say.
“To Eden, the brains behind this app.”
He winks at me, and yup, that’s definitely a flip I feel in my stomach. A double flip, actually. I try to shake it off, but it’s impossible. Even though we’re strictly friends and colleagues, I can’t deny just how good it feels to be complimented and winked at by my childhood crush. He’s just that ridiculously handsome and charming. No wonder he’s currently getting hit up for dates back-to-back.
I set aside that thought and focus on the moment, on how Dream Guy clients are currently blowing up the app. The three of us clink glasses and guzzle our sparkling wine while our phones buzz nonstop the rest of the night.