“You’re such a bitch,” I jokingly whisper to Jana.
“And you’re so screwed,” she says through her giggles.
“Is he still watching me?”
“You do realize that if I turn my entire body around to see if he is, it will make it that much more obvious that you just acted that way because of him, right?”
“Ugh! You can’t just pretend to turn around and check for me?”
She laughs out loud. “Um, no. Considering he sits directly behind me and there is nothing else there but him and the wall, I can’t pretend to be searching for something else.”
She’s having a hard time keeping her laughter in check, so I sigh and sit up straight, thankfully seeing he’s gone and I’m in the clear. That is, until I see her staring at me with her head down and her eyebrows up.
“Stop giving me that look,” I say under my breath.
“God, how I wish I could join you guys on this trip. I’d give up my precious vacation days just to be a fly on the wall and watch you squirm the way you just did all day long.”
I stick my tongue out at her, then get back to what I was doing before Christina asked me to join her in her office.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
David
I text Donny, asking him if he wants to go for a run even though it’s Tuesday night and we normally run on Saturday mornings, but I need to get some frustration out and pick his brain about this app.
When I arrive to Central Park, he’s already there, warming up his legs.
“Thanks for coming.” I slap his hand as our hello.
“Thanks for asking. After the launch of this app, I need to let off some steam,” he replies.
I do a few stretches, feeling like the walk here warmed up my legs enough, and then we head down our normal path together.
“So, tell me about the app,” I say, trying to like I’m just making small talk about the app even though that’s the only reason I’m here right now.
“It’s going well. We get more and more sign-ups daily, so the word is spreading.”
“Glad to hear. Any hiccups reported yet?”
“Nothing major. Just minor little things on the back end, but lately I’ve just been chillin’, like I’m waiting for something big to go wrong.”
I laugh out loud at his words, feeling like my situation is a huge problem in my mind, but not the same kind of problem he’s talking about. “I can see that. So, are people upgrading their app to any of the paid options?”
Though the app is free, they hope to make money on optional features, like deleting a match a friend had set you up with or boosting your picture in the algorithm.
“Yeah, they are. You were right. Making pay for options only a dollar or two seems to make people spend more. We have people boosting their profile every day.”
“That means they think this idea could work. I really hope you’re able to make some connections.”
“What about you? How is it going with the girl you were matched with?” he finally asks.
There was no way I was going to bring it up, so I’ve been waiting for him to remember I was talking to someone through his app.
I shrug, trying to play off that I’m not affected emotionally by the way she ghosted me. “I thought it was going really well, but I haven’t heard from her in the past two days.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, we texted back and forth for hours, and then … she’s gone.”
