Chapter 1
I blink hard through a fizzy veil of prosecco, but the numbers on my banking app remain unchanged—more commas and zeros than anyone in my position has a right to.
This moment may not be picket-fence-wrapped or sealed at an altar with a kiss, but it’s a dream come true nonetheless, and it’s mine. As are all those zeros.
For the first time in almost three years, I let myself acknowledge my own audacity for dreaming any of this. For wanting this impossible thing that had felt too fragile to even name aloud. Like if I’d let the universe know how badly I wanted it, it might not have let me have it at all.
But fuck I wanted this.
At the first prickle of tears behind my eyes, I close the app, grinning back at the matching smiles on the phone’s lock screen.
My vision clouds with emotion again when I see us—when I see him and that little smile that has always been a sort of full-body undertaking.
Every muscle contracting to split not only his face wide open but the entire world.
My son has split my entire world wide open.
And that’s been even more than a dream come true—it’s my happily ever after.
I swipe up and into my photo album to reveal another memory—a rubber band–armed Zane mid-belly laugh. I know the tune of it so exactly that I could swear I hear it now, echoing out of the screen and filling the room as I speak to the image aloud. “We did it, baby.”
Unfortunately, the response I get in return isn’t sentimental coos or phantom giggles. It’s a violent banging that pulls me from my reverie, drop-kicking me back to this dank and too-dim East Village bathroom stall.
When the next round of pounding comes, I don’t know if it’s the second or maybe third assault on the heavy metal door separating me from the bar outside. But before I can figure that out, a woman’s frantic voice cuts through my cloudy Korbel haze.
“What the fuck? I’ve been waiting for like twenty minutes!”
I yank at the toilet paper, as if she’ll be able to sense and appreciate that I’m hurrying now, and though I also don’t remember if I actually peed or if I’ve just been sitting here this whole time, I still use the entire giant ball of tissue to wipe as I yell back, “Coming!”
At the sink, I cringe a conspiratorial oops at my reflection as the woman outside continues her complaints. Quieter now. With less banging.
The brief moment of calm gives me just enough time to forget again that I’m supposed to be rushing—thanks, champagne!
I’m too distracted now by the girl in the mirror.
Boho braids tossed to the left, reminding me of my long-forgotten side-part superiority.
The freckled brown skin of my cheeks flushed a tipsy pink, and my eyes, that are usually piercingly dark, now unfocused and slightly hidden under lazy lids at half-mast. It’s not Zola the mom staring back at me or even Zola the CEO, whose matchmaking company was recently acquired in a landmark deal for Black female entrepreneurs. It’s just Zo. It’s just me.
When the heavily New York–accented “I swear to god” snakes into my consciousness, I briefly consider texting my sister for backup. Sure, making drunken friends in line for the ladies’ room is a thing, but so is getting jumped.
Kaia’s never been known to de-escalate a situation in her life, though, so I leave my phone pocketed—already starting a genuine, if not slightly slurred, apology as I open the door.
“Girl, I’m so sorry. I think I actually got drunker in there. I forgot I was in the bathroom.”
The woman raises one perfectly sculpted brow and I can’t tell if that means I’m making it better or worse. But now that I’m standing, my buzz has floated directly to my brain, so I can’t stop myself. “I never go out. And I never drink like this. I’m a mommy. Mamacita!”
Shockingly, loosely quoting that old Love Island meme hasn’t immediately made this person want to be my best friend, but she doesn’t shoulder-check me as she shuffles into the bathroom either. A win is a win.
An email notification buzzes in the pocket of my too-tight jeans as I vibe through packed bodies bopping to the opening bars of a song coming through the speakers. Kaia, still sidling up to the bar with our nearly empty bottle of cheap champagne, starts talking shit as soon as she sees me.
I ignore her I literally almost left as I bing-bop-boom-boom-boom-bop-BAM along with Kendrick Lamar. Flipping my now-unlocked phone on the BAM, so only Kaia can see the pending and life-altering deposit that just hit my business account.
And together, we yell, “The type a shit I’m on you wouldn’t understand ayyyye!”
—
Kaia’s been too drunk since our second celebratory tequila shot to notice that I’ve switched to water. And right back into work mode. Multitasking is more than just my secret weapon—as a single mom, it’s a necessity.
As Kaia regales a group of fintech bros with our elevator pitch for XO by Zo, the matchmaking company she helped me launch when I was pregnant, I open the email that hit my inbox earlier.
The official welcome note from my new boss at The Playbook—New York’s premier dating app for young creatives of color.
Technically, the deal happened months ago, but we couldn’t really get started until contracts were signed and checks cleared.
Which, by my foggy new-mom-alcohol-tolerance math was a whole two hours ago. Yvette is as hungry for this as I am.
From: YvetteMorris@
To: Zola.Harper@
Today at 10:58 p.m.
Subject: Welcome to The Playbook!
Zola,
You don’t know how eager I’ve been to send this email. When I started this company a decade ago, it was already a “risky investment” for a Black woman to enter the “saturated market” of dating apps. But I had a feeling about The Playbook. I have that same feeling now—about you and XO by Zo.
What you’ve managed to do in just three years without any major capital is astounding.
You’ve built a space of authenticity and connection that tens of thousands of people have already discovered through your grassroots efforts and word-of-mouth success rates.
But with The Playbook’s data-driven expertise and financial backing, your usership and impact will scale from tens of thousands to millions. Overnight.
This acquisition, though, is about more than your company. It’s about you. Your instincts, your North Star. You’ve followed them this far and The Playbook won’t reroute you. We’ll stand behind you and beside you as we all continue to march toward the future of romance in this digital age together.
An invite will follow for first thing Monday morning. Protected time to plan your introduction to our board and existing platform. But as you can probably tell from the timestamp on this email, I’m available any time you want to ideate.
More soon! Welcome aboard.
Y.
The phone vibrates in my hands as I read, but this time, the buzzing doesn’t indicate another incoming message. It’s coming from my fingertips. From the adrenaline coursing through my veins—excitement and nerves, in equal measure, buzzing just beneath the skin’s surface.
I hadn’t intended to start brainstorming here, but Yvette’s note is a subliminal starter pistol, signaling the race is on.
As I look around the bar, my head snaps the scene into jagged bits and pieces like a puzzle.
The windows, fogged by the heat of too many well-dressed bodies pressed together, though nobody’s actually dancing.
The heady bass bumping through the speakers as liquor and mocktails flow freely through the crowd.
Once my brain chops and screws a thing, it never comes back together the same way, and I smile at the new image taking shape now.
Because for all the things that are right about this Friday-night scene, I also see what’s wrong.
My fingers start tapping out a reply to Yvette before I’ve even consciously decided to do it.
To: Yvette
From: Zola
Today at 11:18 p.m.
Subject: Re: Welcome to The Playbook!
Yvette,
Thank you for your note. And apologies for diving right in, but I don’t want to lose the spark I feel right now.
There’s no doubt that online dating has changed the contemporary landscape—both for good and bad.
But the thing I love most about matchmaking is that it’s part of a person’s real life.
Their whole life. Not just the performative fraction of a “self” they can curate online.
Not something that’s separate from who they are and how they move through their actual world.
You spoke of the future of romance in our digital age, but it’s exactly those concepts that so often seem to be in conflict. Romance is not digital. It’s tactile. It’s multidimensional.
Yet, right now, I’m sitting in a bar, watching groups of beautiful young people speaking only to the friends they came with. No mixing. No mingling. And most of them will likely return home alone tonight, swiping right and left until they fall asleep.
You’ve made The Playbook a leader in the online dating space, but we’ve got to get people offline again too.
They need more integrated experiences. Something that feels more real.
But in order to do that, we have to teach them how to look up again.
How to flirt, how to banter, how to have fun.
In the real world. We’ve got to give them a new “playbook” so to speak. The X’s and O’s. By Zo.
“Okay, period,” Kaia says when she gives the email her obligatory read before I send.
And she says it with so much confidence that I ignore the fact that I’m trusting her with my next business plan when I wouldn’t even trust her to operate a City Bike at her current level of sobriety.
“And will you also be rejoining the real world or naw?”
I snatch my phone back, already exhausted by the conversation she’s trying to have. It’s the same one she’s been initiating since Zane stopped nursing a year ago and started doing overnights with his dad. “I’m in the real world now, aren’t I?”
“You’re working,” she says, unimpressed.
“In a bar!” I yell, genuinely offended that she’s doing this.
I know Kaia means well. She’s seen me through some dark days since we moved to the city together.
Two sisters and a baby living in a one-bedroom Greenpoint walk-up is not for the faint of heart.
But we’ve come so far these last two years here—like a three-bedroom Manhattan walk-up far.
And for all the things we’ve accomplished, yes, we’ve also had to sacrifice a lot.
My social life included. But I refuse to defend any of that right now.
Not when I’m finally fucking winning for once.
“In forty-eight hours I’ll be back on mom duty, so apologies if I’m distracted by—ya know—trying to create a legacy for my son.
My job is to help other people and I do it well.
The day I start getting paid to go outside myself is the day I’ll start prioritizing it.
For now, though, just be grateful I squeezed my MILF ass into these pre-baby jeans to buy you alcohol you can’t afford. ”
Kaia, who’s also now switched to water, raises her glass to her lips, muttering into it as she speaks. “And that zero to a hundred transition is why no one should go four years without getting laid.”
“Zane was only born three years ago.”
She tilts her head, resting her chin on a fist in mock contemplation and genuine challenge. “And how long before that had it been since Jason fucked you?”
Damn. But also fair. My relationship with Jason, my ex–high school sweetheart and baby daddy, was over long before our son came.
What we had ended slowly and took way longer than it should’ve for all the good stuff to seep out, little by little, through a hole we couldn’t patch.
Like a two-week-old helium balloon. We hadn’t been whole for a long time, and when he finally admitted that starting a family with me wasn’t what he “signed up for,” there was nothing left holding us up at all. And exactly zero fucking.
Kaia knows all this and more. She knows how hard it was for me to admit that while I’d loved Jason in a familial way, I’d never loved him loved him.
Not like I needed to for us to last. She knows all the ways I broke and had to be put back together once he left—once I realized I’d be living the single-mom life of my literal nightmares.
And she knows how wrong I was about all of it, because nothing about life after Jason was a nightmare at all. It’s been the opposite, really.
I signal the bartender for our check and steal another glance at my inbox to see if Yvette’s tunnel vision is as bad as mine.
Kaia’s voice and her words demand my full attention as she says, “You’re an incredible mom.”
I’d be happy for her to leave it at that, but she continues.
“And your bank account is a testimony to what happens when you throw your back into something. But you did it. You’re doing it—the deal is done, your baby’s happy, and Jason’s finally stepping up.
I’m not suggesting you take your foot all the way off the gas, but look around.
You’re not treading water anymore. Maybe now’s the right time to catch your breath a little.
Even if breathing doesn’t come with a paycheck. ”
The low buzz on my lap briefly pulls my attention back to my phone as the bartender returns with the bill.
I skim Yvette’s response that simply says, “I LOVE everything about this. Give me tangibles Monday and we’ll get the campaign into action immediately.
” And just like that I’m shaking again. Because I can do this. Kaia’s right—I’m already doing it.
And suddenly I don’t feel like closing out anymore. Not yet. I want one more bottle of champagne. I want one more hour to be the girl I saw in the mirror earlier. One more hour to be Zo.