Chapter 7 #3
Hallie scoffed, even as she enjoyed the warmth of Brynn, pressed in close. “Me? Overwhelmed? I’ll have you know that I am the pinnacle of taking things in stride.”
Brynn’s brows drew upward. Her words were gentle even as she challenged, “Last night, you spent forty-five minutes going back and forth on your favorite Disney character, so much so that we had to narrow down the parameters until there was only one choice left.”
First of all, Hallie didn’t remember that, so it shouldn’t have counted.
But wow, had she really shown Brynn her true colors last night.
She’d watched almost every Disney movie ever made, something she still made time to do.
It was a vestige of her childhood, when she’d spent a lot of time here in the apartment, before Sydney had come along.
“Analysis paralysis?” Hallie defended weakly, before asking, “Who’d I pick?”
Off the top of her head, she could name at least a dozen characters who all had excellent qualities.
But were they talking vintage or modern?
Cartoon or live action or animated? Did Disney acquisitions like Marvel and Star Wars count?
Not to mention that Muppets were technically Disney characters, which made the whole situation even more complicated.
“Alfredo Linguini from Ratatouille,” Brynn said in a pleased tone, cutting through Hallie’s wild and wandering mind.
Hallie only blushed a little bit. Brynn’s approval, for whatever reason, made her feel like she had done something far more impactful and important than spending almost an hour picking something as insignificant as a favorite movie character.
But, she realized, she respected Brynn’s opinion on most things, her taste in men notwithstanding.
So that was going to be an area in which Hallie could provide immense and immediate value to Brynn’s life. Maybe by necessity, even.
Hallie grabbed Brynn’s pinkie to pull the phone she was holding closer to them. “These eyes aren’t what they used to be,” she said in a thin, shaky voice as she pretended to put on glasses.
Brynn laughed and brought the phone up to their chests, her right elbow pressing lightly into Hallie’s stomach. “Is this better?”
Hallie was, by nature, an affectionate person, and there hadn’t really been a lot of places to fulfill that need as of late. And not even in a romantic way. Tactile comfort, she argued with herself, was a completely reasonable and human desire.
But she hadn’t grown up in an especially touchy family, Sydney had lived far away for the last few years and was now glued to Reese, and she didn’t have any other friends she’d snuggle up with on a sofa.
The most physical affection that she’d gotten in the last few months was on Christmas morning, when Elliot had cuddled against her chest while she’d gently patted his back. Right before he’d explosively spit up all over her.
She didn’t anticipate that Brynn would do that to her. Thankfully.
Letting out a soft exhale, she pretended to adjust her invisible glasses. But then her eyes grew wide. “Brynn, you have at least two dozen matches.”
A light blush ghosted across Brynn’s cheeks, making her look even more innocent, which Hallie hadn’t thought possible.
“I handled all the checkouts by eleven, and I figured that it was a productive use of my time.” She looked at Hallie then, adding, “And I have discovered, via research, that people can be lonelier around the holidays. As such, I anticipated that I may need to cast a wider net to account for anyone whose moment of wanting to meet someone passes and then they don’t follow up. ”
Like Hallie.
She thought about someone like Brynn on the other side of a message that she’d never respond to, and suddenly, she felt like she was as much of a problem as the rest of the crazies on the apps.
She held Brynn’s hand, looking more closely at her phone. “Let’s go to your messages and see who’s already reached out. Unless there’s anyone you matched with who hasn’t and you’re desperate to talk to them.”
“Looking at the messages sounds good.” Brynn navigated them over to the tab where about ten profiles were lined up, like finding true love was as easy as picking it off a menu.
Hallie thought back to last night, filtering through her brain to try and glom onto remembering, specifically, what they’d talked about in relation to dating.
She squinted, an image of Brynn floating into her mind.
Brynn was sitting with her legs crossed on the sofa, her face scrunched in concentration as she’d come up with a list of important traits in a possible date.
Honest. Sincere. Someone who tried to leave the world a better place than they’d found it.
She’d remembered thinking that it was sweet at the time, that there wasn’t a superficial attribute to be found on Brynn’s list.
Hallie clicked into the first message. “Can I look at their profile first? I want to see who gets Brynn Fitzpatrick’s motor revving,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.
She felt a shoulder push into her as Brynn snuggled in more deeply. “Why am I suddenly feeling like, for the first time, I’m going to regret this?”
To some degree, Hallie was sure that Brynn would rue the day she’d opened herself up to the world of online dating, but at this point, she couldn’t let Brynn go through this alone.
Still… “Standing by your love isn’t always easy, Brynn.
And, sometimes, it’s helpful to get an outsider’s perspective. ”
Brynn made a sound, and from how it felt like she was trying to hide behind Hallie, it seemed like she could probably only see through one eye. Hallie grabbed the phone so that she could scroll more freely.
It was hard to discern anything from the thumbnail image attached to the message that said, hey, u look hot. But from the opening salvo, they weren’t off to a good start, at least not in Hallie’s humble opinion. She opened the profile.
Navigating through the basic information Jay—if that was his real name—had shared, Hallie wasn’t impressed. “Thanks for the fruit, by the way. I’m glad the guests didn’t have to see me in my current state.”
Like it took more than a little effort, Brynn pulled back from where she was glued to Hallie’s side and looked at her, soft brown eyes scanning up Hallie’s outfit—if you could call it that—before their stares met. “You’re, like, objectively gorgeous, Hallie. Sweatpants or not.”
It was the way that Brynn said it, so matter-of-factly, that caused a pleased warmth to soak into her chest. She wasn’t used to being complimented, unless you counted the middle-aged men who were here with their wives and shouldn’t have been hitting on her behind their backs.
But she assumed that married men who still hit on service workers while on vacation with their families were also the type of men to cast a net no matter what, just to see what it would drag in.
Which was all to say, she usually didn’t take any attention that she got very seriously, given who it was coming from.
Instead of responding to Brynn, who was actually objectively gorgeous, she focused her attention back on the profile, even though she’d already deemed Jay to be a dud.
Hallie wasn’t self-conscious about her looks, normally.
There was no reason to be because, most days, she was dressed in her Stone’s Throw uniform.
Which, personally, she didn’t think was a real head-turner.
Anyone who hit on her while she was working had already lost before they’d started playing the game.
On top of it all, she was best friends with Sydney freaking King, who, along with being a former professional tennis player, had done a ton of modeling spots and graced the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Next to her, it was hard for Hallie not to feel a little plain sometimes.
When Sydney walked into a room, people noticed.
Topping off the perfect-looks package, Sydney had this charisma that drew people to her.
People used words like flocked and dazzled and enchanted to describe her best friend, and still, Sydney was humble and funny and self-deprecating even as she had people eating out of the palm of her hand.
Thank god her best friend only used her powers for good.
Conversely, Hallie had spent so much of her life working hard to blend in as a uniformed member of the staff that trying to take up space these days felt antithetical to her existence.
Which was probably another reason that she should get out there and date. Even if it went horribly wrong. If she let this ride any longer, she really was going to become fixed in her rut, truly unable to dig herself out.
Even as she tried to hype herself up, she could feel Brynn continuing to stare at her.
“I take it you don’t like him?” Brynn finally asked.
Hallie looked up to meet her stare, confronted by soft, searching eyes. Obviously a woman who had fluttery, unfairly long lashes and still slightly sun-kissed skin in January would think this was a good idea.
Chastising herself for only thinking about Brynn’s level of attractiveness, she cleared her throat and handed the phone back. “I don’t like his first message. It’s lazy, which is the nicest thing I can say about Jay.”
She suddenly hated the idea of Brynn even considering going on a date with this guy. Even though Brynn and Sydney were cut from the same cloth in the looks department, they were so, so different in just about every other way.
Brynn scrunched her face in thought—as Hallie was realizing she liked to do—while cradling her phone. “Lazy how? He messaged me first. Doesn’t that show positive intent?”
Whew. This was going to be an uphill battle.
Hallie scratched her chin, trying to figure out how to say this as delicately as possible.
“Commenting on your looks right off the bat usually indicates two things. First, they’re only looking to hook up.
Second, they didn’t even bother reading your profile.
I assume that you want someone who can keep up with you intellectually?
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m not getting that vibe from Jay. ”
Brynn took a few seconds to absorb the information before she pulled her phone away from her chest and deleted the conversation. “Okay. One done.”
Hallie quirked a confused eyebrow, even if it did also make her feel pretty damn good inside that Brynn valued her opinion this much. That wasn’t generally the case with people in her life. “You’re just going to blindly trust me on this?”
She expected some thoughtful, nuanced explanation of how Brynn had come to the same conclusion on her own, but instead, Hallie was met with a ridiculously attractive smile that made her want to blush. Yeah, Jay definitely didn’t deserve Brynn.
After a beat, Brynn snuggled back into the pocket of space she’d claimed on the sofa, right against Hallie. She lifted her phone back up so they could both look at the app, opening the next message as she did.
Hallie was about to make a joke about Seth, the next possible suitor, and his penchant for muscle tees, but her words stuck in her throat as Brynn said softly, “I have a really good feeling about you, Hallie.”
Hallie suppressed a reflexive urge to roll her eyes at the compliment. Instead, she snuggled down so that she and Brynn were shoulder to shoulder, trepidatious but—a little embarrassingly—more pulled into Brynn’s enthusiasm than she wanted to admit.