Chapter 1
Right now
A Question: Danny
Danny finds himself staring at Eve. Eve!
Eve Olsen! He’s not sure why he’s so surprised to see what she looks like.
He has known her, after all, since he was a freshman in college, for ten years.
When he first saw her, he thought she looked like Julian—the same fair hair and brows, the same ski slope noses, the same posture, an exclusive of the wealthy, simultaneously upright and effortless.
But now Danny does not think Eve looks like Julian at all, because Eve is—well, because Eve is gorgeous, messy, and sunswept.
Julian is none of those things! Eve has this look on her face like Danny has caught her in the middle of a thought.
A moment of inspiration. Oh, he thinks, oh shit.
“Danny!” Eve says. She throws her arms around him and he did not know she was this tall, but she is, they are nearly the same height, and her arms are around his neck. She smells like eucalyptus.
“The one and only Eve Olsen,” he says. Jesus Christ. The one and only? It’s giving circus.
Eve laughs with something like delight and takes a step back. She claps twice, looking at him. “How are you? How have you been?”
“I’m good. Great. But how are you? I heard you were in an accident?”
She waves him away. “Cosmic intervention! How’s app life? Introduced any true loves lately?”
“Unfortunately, our app seems to be about as good as the other apps at finding successful matches, which is to say: not very good. I should know. I am guinea pig number one.”
“Oh, yeah, hey—sorry to hear about Kyra.”
“Oh, it’s totally fine. That was, like, two years ago.”
“That long, huh? Wow.”
“I mean, like a year and a half. Sorry to hear about Fletcher.”
“Really,” she says, “don’t be.”
He hesitates. It’s obvious he’s going to ask her out.
What’s the worst she could say? No? Actually, the worst she could say is yes, and then they’d have the greatest first date ever seen, and then they would have a slow and pastel summer full of park picnics and falling in love, and then in a year’s time they would move in together, and then Danny would take her back to Montana to meet his dad, and they’d make each other laugh and Danny’s dad would say, “Hey, kid—you chose well,” and Danny would look at her and know that she had made him braver and smarter and kinder, had helped him grow into the person he’d always wanted to be, and she would look back at him the same way—and then, three years on, he would get down on one knee and tell her she was the love of his life and would she please make him the happiest man on earth and she would say, “I’m so, so sorry, but no. ”
But fuck it.
“What are you doing Saturday?” Danny asks.