Chapter 3
Eve and Danny’s room is on the west end of the hotel. They feel weird allowing someone else to carry their bags, so they bolt to the elevators when no one is looking. When the mirrored doors roll shut, Danny assembles Eve in his arms and kisses her.
The doors roll open again at the next floor. It’s a couple in their seventies, pool towels slung over their shoulders. They look aggrieved.
“It’s just an elevator,” the man says. “What is it about elevators?”
Eve and Danny stand very respectfully side by side for the remainder of the ride. Danny hooks his pinkie around Eve’s.
On the walk to their room, Danny says, “I hate getting in trouble with authority.”
“Do we think they were authority?”
“They looked like hardened DEA agents.”
“They looked like retired accountants.”
“With a thirst for blood and the bright eyes of justice,” Danny says.
“With names like Russell and Pamela and two Pomeranians at a luxury dog hotel back in Boston,” Eve says.
“I may never recover from the judgment in Russell’s eyes.”
“I, however, take pleasure in the unmitigated envy in Pamela’s.”
Danny scans his card and the door opens. The room has been staged precisely for their arrival. The balcony is open, allowing an unobstructed view of the swaying palm fronds and Gatorade-turquoise pool. The sheets are the white of baking soda—too bright to behold.
Eve flops back on the bed and spreads her arms wide. “Uh-oh. This is very comfortable. I may not be able to make it to this wedding now.”
“You said you were ten out of ten excited on the plane.”
“I’m eight out of ten now. I got scared again when I got here. I mean—I just want them to be happy.”
The question of Julian and Gigi’s happiness—or lack thereof—is one of intense speculation between Eve and Danny. They discuss it the way other couples might discuss a favorite sports team, tracking the highs and lows across seasons.
When Julian and Gigi first tested the app’s relationship score feature, they got one hundred.
A perfect score. But clearly—clearly to Danny, clearly to Eve—they aren’t perfect.
Gigi takes hours to respond to texts even though she lives on her phone, and the lack of response makes Julian antsy.
Julian makes and changes plans on a whim, which will make Gigi say things like, “You know, it’s pretty hard to go with the flow when the flow is this unpredictable.
” But they’re also a good couple—Danny believes this fully.
When Gigi started dating Julian, Danny was living with him.
Gigi came over all the time, and Danny loved how naturally she fit—how she loved all the same French restaurants and synthy dance music as Julian.
They spoke to each other in British accents—bad ones.
When Gigi shared gossip from her vast network of friends of friends, Julian would listen with his chin propped on his fists.
“And then?” he would say. “No way. And then?” At the time, Danny was dating Kyra.
Danny has never told Julian, but part of the reason things fell apart with Kyra was because he started comparing them to Julian and Gigi.
He began to think it should be so easy, and that he should be just as sure.
Why Danny ultimately believes Julian and Gigi are going to make it is because Julian and Gigi believe they are going to make it.
This is what has guided Danny’s recent work on the app.
How can you go beyond grading a relationship to help your users optimize?
How can you identify negative patterns and provide the tools to break them?
How can you give your users the certainty that Julian and Gigi have: that you are with the great love of your life?
“They’ll be happy,” Danny says. “They’re Julian and Gigi.”
“Yeah,” Eve says. “Not as good as us. But pretty good.”
“I mean, no one is as happy as us,” Danny says. “Just look at Russell and Pamela.”
“Hanging on by a thread.”
“Moments from inviting Jan from book club to be their third.”
“Watching porn in the bathroom with the door locked and the shower running,” Eve says.
“Poor Russell and Pamela.”
“At least they have Countess and Albie.”
“Are those the Pomeranians?” Danny asks.
“You know them so well.”
Her hair is splayed across the pillow. She has dried drool at the corner of her lip because she took a nap on the plane. She’s a very drooly sleeper, Eve. Danny loves her so much.
They have been dating now for a year. The time has gone both very fast and very slow.
Fast because Danny has been happy. Slow because it feels to Danny that this is the way things have always been.
Last week, while they were out at dinner at a new sushi place Shannon recommended, Eve said, out of nowhere, “There’s so much to say about bad times, but what do you say about being happy that anyone really cares about?
” Though this was ostensibly Eve saying she was happy, Danny’s first thought was that she was saying she wanted to break up with him in pursuit of better writing material.
He told her, at the sushi place, “I think I’m anxious.
” She took his hand and said, “Can I help?”
Now, he sits down beside her, and she clambers over to him to rub the space between his brows that creases with worry. “You’re stressed,” she says.
“I’m always stressed around your parents.”
Eve presses her palms against the sides of Danny’s face, which makes him stick his tongue out at her.
“You have nothing to be worried about,” she says.
“I have literally so much to be worried about.”
“You’re funny and smart and charming and kind.”
“Eve,” he says, “I worry about stepping on sidewalk cracks. I worry about forgetting to say ‘rabbit’ on the first of the month. I worry about not worrying enough. Of course I’m worried.”
“You’ll be perfect,” she says.
She is twenty-seven. He is twenty-nine. They have both dated other people and are pretty sure it has never felt like this, but who can remember? Danny is not religious, but he is fairly certain that whoever made him had Eve in mind from the start.
“Okay,” Danny says. “Can I keep worrying anyway?”
“Julian’s your best friend. My parents love you.”
“My question stands.”
“Yes,” Eve says. “You can keep worrying anyway.”
“Thank god,” he says, and he reaches behind her neck to pull her gently toward him. His lips touch hers and he smiles against her mouth. They have wedding tasks to get to, but what if they just did this instead?
He kisses her forehead and they both stand.
“I love you a stupid amount,” he says.
“Is this how Julian and Gigi feel, do you think?”
“I hope this is how everyone feels.”
What a miraculous thing to imagine: that everyone might be this convinced they have fallen in love with exactly the right person.