Luca
I wake up in the morning to two things. The scent of Oliva’s hair on the pillow next to mine, all curly and messy and beautiful. And her dog, who is sitting next to my side of the bed staring at me.
A dog who has made it clear that she doesn’t like me.
Well, you know what, Vivien? I don’t give a damn.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her as I sit up in bed. I place my feet on the floor, assuming she will back up, but she doesn’t. I guess I shouldn’t have expected any different. They say dogs mimic the behavior and personality of their owners.
Salty. Forward. Stubborn. And oddly cute.
Yeah, that pretty much tracks.
Of course, I am interested in Olivia and not her wire-haired dog, so I don’t really care what she thinks. Assuming she will not bite me, of course.
“You heard me,” I say as I walk to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. “I’m not going anywhere. So you might as well get used to me.”
I can hear her nails clicking on the floor behind me as my eyes scan the kitchen counter for the coffeepot.
Maybe, if I’m lucky, an espresso machine.
I find a pod coffeemaker in the corner, and while that’s not my go-to, it’ll do for now.
I prefer to grind my own beans, steam the milk, that sort of thing.
I open the cabinet above the machine and find a bunch of coffee cups.
And I mean…a lot. None of them matching, none of them even the same size or shape.
There’s one shaped like a hedgehog, one with psychedelic flowers on it, ladybugs, cherries, and even one with Vivien’s face.
I take in a deep breath and opt for a bright blue one as it seems to be the most normal.
Of course, when I set it on the counter, I see that at the bottom of the cup is a whale, complete with a spout.
That should make stirring interesting.
With Vivien’s eyes still on me, I head over to the fridge to look for milk or half and half.
What I find is a stack of meal kit microwave meals, half a pineapple, vanilla yogurt, and “frosted sugar cookie creamer,” I say out loud while closing the door.
Guess I won’t have to worry about stirring since I’ll be drinking it black.
I press the button and wait as the machine rumbles and groans, trying to figure out how to heat up a cup's worth of water. Meanwhile, I lean against the counter, running my hand down my face and through my hair while I think about last night.
The tacos were good. The dinner in general was good. Olivia is quirky, but she’s funny and sweet; intelligent and real. Real is so hard to find. So rare. Especially in the epidemic that is our current dating world.
But it wasn’t just dinner that went well. The aftermath was above the bar, too. It’s insane how simply kissing Olivia, knowing that it’s not going to heat up beyond that, is more erotic than anything I’ve ever done with any other woman.
The machine finally stops grunting and whirring, and I take that as my sign that my coffee is done. I grab the mug, my mind still so lost in the rerun of Olivia that I fail to realize she is standing in front of me, long hair soaking wet and wearing nothing but a towel.
“Good morning–” I start to say when she plucks the coffee mug from my hand.
“You can’t drink that,” she says, setting it in the sink.
“Is something wrong with it?” I ask. I’m lost. Between her snatching my coffee from me and also standing there in nothing but a towel that hardly covers her perfect curves, I’m not really sure which part of this whole thing to wrap my brain around.
“We are going out,” she says, and I gotta say, this girl has a lot of perk for someone who hasn’t had any caffeine yet.
“Out? Before coffee?” I ask.
“Out for coffee,” she answers with a smile.
“Why would we do that when we can just use your German robot over there to make some?”
“Because I am taking you to the best coffee shop in all of Boston,” she says. “Now go put some clothes on.”
“Do I have a say in this?” I ask as she marches off.
“Nope!” she calls back. And as I watch her butt swaying from side to side, I know as well as she does that I will follow her to whatever coffee shop she wants me to. Hell, at this point she could say we are going to a coffee shop in New York City, and I’d probably follow her.
* * *
“So what do you think?” she asks the moment I take a sip of my latte.
We are at Flora, a small shop I’ve never heard of despite the fact I have driven past it a thousand times.
It’s a hole in the wall with terracotta walls, mismatched 18th-century furniture and plants.
A lot of plants. But despite not really being my style, I have to admit one thing.
“It’s good,” I say. “It’s really good.”
“Right?” Olivia grins, swirling her iced coffee in her hand. “I come here pretty much every day.”
“Really?” I ask.
“Yep,” she nods. “It’s on my way to work.”
“Yeah? Your studio is nearby?” I ask, taking another sip of what might be the best coffee I’ve ever had. I make a mental note to remember this place.
“You could say that,” she says with a funny smile, and I narrow my eyes at her. “Come here,” she says, and the next thing I know she’s pulling me through another door, though it doesn’t lead us outside.
“This says employees only,” I tell her as she heads up a flight of stairs.
“It does,” she states, and considering there is no other direction to go, I follow her.
Olivia unlocks and opens another door, and immediately it hits me. We are in her podcast studio.
“So this is where the magic happens,” I say, looking around.
“I don’t know about magic, but this is where I work, yes,” she answers with a proud smile.
“It’s quaint,” I say. And it truly is. It’s no bigger than my childhood bedroom, actually.
The walls are painted white, save for the wall that the old paneled windows are on which is original brick.
There’s a shag carpet rug, an old wooden table with a couple rattan chairs, recording equipment, and a 70’s-esque couch against a wall with halo lights above it.
“We don’t need much,” she says, in no way taking the comment as an insult. I’m glad because it’s not intended to sound that way. I guess it’s just eye-opening to see how her job and my job are so different and the same at once.
“That must be nice,” I say. “I’ve lost count of how many people it takes to run a dating app.”
“Have you really?” she asks with a disbelieving edge in her tone.
“No. There’s forty three,” I admit. “How many people work with you?”
“Two,” she answers, and my eyes drag away from a Warhol canvas on the wall over to her.
“Including you?” I ask.
“It’s Kiersten and me, and then Henry,” she answers, and I just blink.
“Podcasts don’t take an empire,” she says as she walks over to the couch and sits down on one end.
She’s hugging herself with a timid smile.
It’s like she’s proud and humble. Like she’s taken off a layer of skin in front of me and is a little shy.
Yet, there’s confidence there. It’s intriguing.
And sexy as hell. “Just a couple of people with good radio presence telling the truth.”
“The truth,” I nod, sauntering over to the couch and taking a seat on the other end. “And what is the truth about love?” I ask.
“Do you really think we should be talking about this?” she asks with a small smile.
“Why not?” I casually ask. “You’re an expert in organic matchmaking, and I’m an expert in formulaic matchmaking. Between the two of us, surely we have it figured out, don’t you think?”
Olivia studies me for a moment, probably trying to figure out where I am going with this. I just want to see inside her mind a little. It’s a fascinating place I’m finding.
“The truth is people are lonely,” she states.
“People want connection. To be understood. The world is hard. Life is hard. It’s beautiful too, sure, but that’s not always easy to see.
Not when things don’t go the way you expect them to or hope they will.
At the end of the day, everyone wants the same thing. To not have to do it alone.”
I nod.
“Too romantic for you?” she asks. “Not enough algorithms?”
“No, I think you’re right. I think that’s exactly what people are looking for,” I admit. “Though I do have a hard time understanding how you can believe that all of that can be found through happenstance.”
“There are billions of people in the world, Luca. Running into someone that you could be compatible with isn’t that far-fetched,” she says, pivoting on the couch to face me.
She’s wearing jeans today with holes that expose her knees, a white tank top that is tight enough to give her shape but not too tight, and black and white knock-off espadrilles.
“Exactly. Billions of people,” I say. “The more people the lower the odds are of finding what you’re looking for.”
“How do you figure?” she asks, skeptically taking a sip of her coffee.
“Think of it like seashells,” I say. “The waves wash all these seashells onto the shore with every swoop, right? Each time there are dozens of new ones that catch people’s eyes.
But here’s the thing…while people like to have variety, they aren’t looking for variety.
So let’s say you are looking for something specific.
A sand dollar, perhaps. No amount of augers, scallops, or conchs shells are going to change the fact that you are looking for a sand dollar.
And to a lot of people, that’s going to feel overwhelming.
Hopeless. Impossible even. So that’s what we do.
We figure out what people want or need based on the information we need.
We weed out the augurs and show them a lineup of sand dollars. ”
I wait for her reaction. She is smiling, though there is something behind it. And the subtle movement in her head isn’t exactly a nod but something less committed.
“And how do you know who should be looking for sand dollars and not augurs?” she asks.
“Science,” I answer plainly.
“Science,” she echoes. “Well, call me crazy, Mr. Laurent. But I believe the human heart is more than equations and codes to be cracked. And I also believe the heart knows best.”
“So you leave the fate of the most important relationship in your life up to feeling?” I ask.
Then Olivia does something I’m not expecting. Something I didn’t calculate. Something I couldn’t have predicted. She inches closer to me on the couch, closing the space enough that her lips are less than a breath away from mine.
“I leave it up to instinct,” she says breathily.
“I see,” I nod, twirling a lock of her hair in my fingers. “And what are your instincts telling you right now?”
“That I should kiss you,” she says.
“Interesting,” I whisper back. “Because mine are telling me the same thing.”
Both of us lean in. But just before our lips touch, her phone buzzes, making both of us jump. Olivia looks at the text and then tucks it away, but not before I see the name on the screen.
Sadie.
I see a conflict behind her eyes that she quickly recovers from or covers up.
“Come on,” she says, standing up and holding out a hand. “There’s somewhere else I want to take you.”