She shows me his profile; he’s certainly attractive. Dark, curly hair with olive skin and a well-maintained beard.
“OK fine, he seems nice. Yes, to him.”
Alice swipes right and my phone immediately pings:
Grace and Jack, it’s a match!
“Finally!” Alice lets out a sigh of relief and triumphantly digs into the next profile. “OK, with this one, hear me out...Student by day, DJ by night—”
“Aaaaaaabsolutely not!”
“He’s hot!”
“No offence, but in hindsight, I don’t think you’re the most equipped to be swiping onmen.”
She gasps in feigned outrage. “Who told you?”
We cackle in unison as she starts speed-swiping through more profiles. “Listen, just because I date women doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a good-looking man... like this one...”
She tries to hide a fiendish smile as she reveals the phone screen.
“Oh my God, I can’t escape you,” I say to a picture of Eric Bancroft’s face.
I have to admit it’s a good photo, one I’ve not seen before. He’s dressed in a sharp black blazer with an undone white shirt underneath, sitting at a table covered in dinner candles and half-full wine glasses. He’s laughing and looking at someone across the table justout of frame; his genuine smile gives me a low ache in my stomach, which I quickly suppress, distracted by the fingers wrapped around one of his arms. The person is cut out of the picture, but the slender digits and pointed red nails are enough. Is that Margeaux Bardin, or someone else?
Alice notices my fixation on the image and starts reading from his profile. “Eric Bancroft, thirty years old, Marketing Manager at Ignite. Please don’t ask me to rate your profile.”
I flop back against the cushions. “Urgh... see? He doesn’t have to try at all yet still has a constant stream of women lined up to date him. This app is nothing but a parade of beautiful people trying to shag each other.”
“Are you saying you think he’s beautiful? I think that deserves a swipe to the... right!” Alice flamboyantly drags her finger across the screen before my wine-blurred mind can process what she’s doing.
“No no no no no no no!” I yank the phone out of her hand and stare down with wide eyes at the screen. “Fuuuuuck!”
“Why was he even on there? You live on opposite sides of the city!” Alice laughs in disbelief.
I shake my head. “I created my profile in the office this morning so it must have picked up our proximity earlier and—” My panicked explanation is cut short by a pinging sound; I watch open-mouthed as an animation appears on the screen.
Grace and Eric, it’s a match!
Bancroft’s and my smiling faces gaze up at me, surrounded by fire emojis. Shit shit shit. My whole body floods with sweat, as though the flames from the phone are real.
“Wait, it’s a match? So, he already swiped right on you too?” Alice doesn’t even try to hide her excitement.
I beg the app to reverse the decision, but I know it’s pointless. He will have received the fiery notification too. A second, different pinging sound emerges from my phone.
Message from William:
I know my text probably seemed out of the blue, but could we meet up to chat about us? I can’t stop thinking about you. I want to talk about giving things another try x
I launch my phone to the other side of the sofa as if it’s actually on fire.
15
It’s been four days, ninety-six excruciating hours of waiting for a message, a taunt, a plane leaving writing in the sweltering sky above my flat acknowledging that Bancroft and I swiped right on each other. Well, technicallyAliceswiped right on him but I seriously doubt he also has a lesbian flatmate slash dating surrogate looking for potential matches on his behalf.
In his defence, Bancroft’s communication with everyone has been limited since he said he was going away. I heard that he hasn’t been in the office for a couple of days. Apart from the Google Calendar confirmation of another trial date tonight he’s been completely MIA. And after that weird moment in the merchandise cupboard followed by an Ignite match I certainly was not going to be the first one to reach out. I just hope he doesn’t stand me up on a dateheplanned.
Twiddling my thumbs across my phone screen, I wait for him next to a lush green public park and listen to the birds singing at the oncoming orange sunset. After enjoying nature for about thirty seconds, I flick to my notes app and run through my “long-term tasks” to-do list:
