Olivia
I’m in the middle of curling my hair when the front door of my apartment flies open and slams shut. I jump, nearly burning myself.
“Hello?” I call out. Meanwhile, my heart is slamming in my chest hard enough to break my ribcage.
Nothing.
A crash comes from down the hallway, followed by someone shouting, “Shit!”
There is someone in my house. Maybe it’s a burglar with bad night vision who prefers to do his work during regular business hours. No buts about it, there is someone in my house.
Armed with only a curling iron (though a very hot one, by the way) I make my way down the hallway.
“I’m armed,” I call out. “And I have a dog.”
Somewhere? Where is my trusty guard dog when I need her?
“Vivien Leigh is asleep on the couch,” the voice calls.
Damnit Vivien. Wait.
It hits me. I know that voice.
“Sadie?” I ask as she comes flying around the corner.
“Of course. Who else would it be? Wait, were you going to hit me with a curling iron?” she asks.
“It’s still hot,” I say as I lower it. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, you’re not answering your phone,” she says. “And you’ve told me nothing about your date.”
“I got in late,” I say and immediately bite my tongue. Sadie’s eyebrows raise and I turn and walk back to the bathroom to plug my curling iron back in.
“That’s it?” she asks, hot on my heels. “You got in late?” Then she grabs the curling iron from me. “Here, let me help.”
“I was going to call you, I promise,” I say. “And tell you everything.”
“Well, I’m here now,” she says, tugging pieces of my hair to curl them. “Now spill it. Did you break his heart?”
I laugh at that. “Not exactly,” I say.
“Why the hell not?” She asks, looking at me in the mirror.
“Because it was a first date. No one is invested enough on a first date to put their heart into it. Kind of makes it hard to break it,” I say.
“But you led him on, right?” she asks. “Come on, Olivia! The man treated me like crap. I need to know everything that happened!”
As Sadie continues to curl my hair for me, I think about that. It’s kind of funny. I can’t imagine Luca being the way Sadie describes. He might be a little cocky. Kind of grumpy, sure. But the date checked all the boxes for a decent first date.
“Olivia?” Sadie begs.
“Alright. So we went to that sushi place,” I say. “And he asked me back to his penthouse,”
“For wine. I know. You texted me, remember? But what happened after that? Did you drink the wine? Did you not drink the wine?”
“We…opened the wine,” I say. “He poured the wine.”
“But you didn’t drink the wine…” she trails off.
I spin around to face my friend, panic spilling out of me like a shaken-up soda bottle. “Sadie, I’m sorry. You told me to play his game. You told me to follow his lead. And one thing led to another. I’m sorry. I know you really liked him and–”
“One thing led to another…” she echoes with a nod. “Does he want to see you again?”
“I…don’t know yet. Do you hate me?” I ask. I’m on the verge of tears here, which is why I’ve been putting off talking to her.
“No,” she says.
“You sound angry,” I tell her.
“I am angry. But not at you. At him,” she says, setting the curling iron down and unplugging it. “This is what he does. He leads women on until he gets what he wants. And then he kicks them to the curb,” she says.
“I don’t know if it was like that,” I say, and she blinks.
“No? Then what was it like?” she asks.
Mayday. Mayday.
“I just mean…I don’t really know what happened but–”
“Oh, I do,” she says, walking out into the hallway, and I follow her.
For one, I need to finish getting ready for work.
I’m still in a bathrobe. But also, I’m really confused about where she is going with this.
“He got you to sleep with him. Because that’s all he wanted. Because that’s who he is. A snake.”
“Did he ask you to sleep with him?” I ask, shedding the robe and walking over to my closet.
“Hell no,” she answers. “He didn’t even kiss me, remember?”
“Right.” I say, tugging a teal dress over my head. “Listen, Sadie, I think this whole thing kind of backfired.”
“I don’t,” she says, and I look at her.
“How do you figure?” I ask.
“Did he get what he wanted?” she asks.
“He didn’t make me do anything, if that’s what you mean,” I say.
“But did he get what he wanted? Did he ask you to come over for wine, insisting that he really just wanted to have wine with you only to not have wine with you?” she asks.
“I mean…”
“So you see it now. You see who he is and what he does. We gotta get him, Livv. We gotta get him good.”
I just blink. Because while I know that was the plan, things kind of derailed last night.
When I got railed…
“What are you suggesting?” I ask, grabbing the rest of my things and heading for the door.
“You have to go on another date with him,” she says, and a high-pitched laugh escapes my throat.
“Another date?” I ask as I lock up.
“Yes. Another date,” she says again.
“He hasn’t called me,” I say. “He hasn’t even texted me.”
“So text him,” she says.
“And if he doesn’t answer?” I ask, and Sadie just stares at me.
“He opened an eight-year-old bottle of wine and didn’t drink it,” she says. “He’ll text you back.”
“I gotta go,” I say, looking at my phone for the third time.
“Text him!” she calls out, and I smile with a sigh.
What even is my life right now?
* * *
“So how was your date?” Kiersten asks as soon as I walk in the door of the studio.
“Doesn’t anyone want to talk about anything else?” I ask, setting my things down and ripping the wrapper off the straw for my iced macchiato with my teeth. “And wait. How did you know about my date?” I ask.
“You’re kidding, right?” Kiersten asks while setting up her station. We are live today, starting the catfish series, and only have a few minutes. “You went on a date with the CEO of Realr. Everyone knows.”
I choke on my coffee, and it dribbles down the front of my dress. “Everyone? Who is everyone?”
“Okay, not everyone,” Henry says. “But that kind of news gets around to your friends. So what happened?”
“We have to go on air,” I say.
“In nine minutes,” Kiersten says. “Talk. Tell us everything.”
I let out a defeated sigh, knowing full well that these two aren’t going to drop it even if we do go live. So I tell them everything I can in the shortest amount of time possible.
“Sadie went out with Luca Laurent, and he was a total jerk to her. Ended the date before anything could happen, but led her to believe that there was something between them. Then, before she could ask him about it, he fired her. So, in a wine-induced moment of rage and loathing for Realr and everyone involved with the company, we came up with the idea to…catfish him…” I trail off towards the end.
“Hold on…” Henry says, shaking his head.
“You…were going to catfish someone?” Kiersten asks the question for him.
“I know, it’s terrible,” I say.
“No, it’s not,” Kiersten says. “It’s great.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?!” I ask.
“Because it’s kind of brilliant,” Henry agrees.
“No,” I shake my head. “No, it was wrong. Catfishing is wrong,” I say.
“Not when you’re catfishing a catfish,” Henry says.
“And a player,” Kiersten says. “And the CEO of Realr. And the guy who hurt your best friend.”
“Right, right,” I nod, covering my face with my hands for a moment. “He just…he seemed so nice last night.”
“Of course he did,” Henry says. “He was gaslighting you. To get what he wanted.”
“How do you know he got what he wanted?” I cut in and both of them give me a look.
“Please, honey,” Henry says. “I’m not even into girls and I still know a girl who got laid when I see one.”
My mouth pops open, and Kiersten nods.
“He’s right. He got what he wanted, and now you’re confused, which is also what he wanted.”
They’re right about one thing. All three of them. My head is, in fact, spinning.
“So what am I supposed to do?” I ask. “If he really was just leading me on to get what he wanted, as you put it, and I failed the mission to catfish the world’s biggest catfish, then what am I supposed to do?”
Suddenly, Henry’s face lights up. “I have an idea.”
Oh boy.
“Oh, really?” Kiersten asks.
“Yeah! So Olivia is currently on a mission to catfish the king of catfish, right?” he asks, and Kiersten nods. “And we are about to start a series about that exact subject, right?”
“Right,” Kiersten says. Then she stops, and her face transforms to the same expression Henry has. “Right! I see where you’re going with this.”
“I don’t,” I say. Because they can’t be serious if they’re saying what I think they’re saying. “Where are you going with this?”
“Right Swipe, Wrong Person…needs a spotlight,” Henry says. “Maybe a current situationship one of us is in…in an attempt to expose the catfishing crisis–”
“While taking down the CEO of the app that claims to be catfish free,” Kiersten says. “I love it.”
“Hang on,” I cut in. “You want our podcast series to be focused on my date with Luca Laurent?” I ask.
“Exactly,” Kiersten says.
“I don’t know…” I say.
“What don’t you know?” Henry says.
“If it’s a good idea,” I say.
“It’s a brilliant idea,” Henry says.
“For upping our numbers of followers, maybe,” I go on. “But not in terms of what we stand for.”
“Olivia. The man is running the industry that is the reason our listeners call in broken and lost. The reason chemistry and fate and bravery and effort no longer exist in the modern dating world,” Henry says.
“And meanwhile, he’s going out with girls and doing whatever he has to in order to get whatever he wants from each of them before ghosting them.
All while having the audacity to claim he is bettering the world of dating. ”
“Not only that, but your best friend was one of his victims,” Kiersten says.
“You were one of his victims,” Henry says, and I swallow, chewing on the inside of my cheek.
“Alright. Maybe you’re right. Maybe he was using me. And maybe it would make for a great series to talk about all of that. But how would we do it? How would we expose everything?”
“Easy,” Kiersten says, and they both smirk. “You gotta get him back on the hook. You gotta go out with him again.”