Chapter 1 – Grace
“Piper-doll.” I shut off my daughter’s favorite show before Netflix could roll to the next episode and scooped her up from the couch. Her arms were inside her nightgown, so she couldn’t even fight me. I would never tuck my arms inside my shirt for the heck of it. That trait definitely didn’t come from me. “It’s bedtime.”
Piper scrunched up her nose. “Bedtimes should be fixable.”
“Do you mean flexible?”
“I don’t know. Can I have five more minutes?”
“How about I’ll give you five songs after you brush your teeth and you’re tucked in bed?”
She considered this with the seriousness of a business negotiation before sighing. “Okay, fine.”
It wasn’t much of a sacrifice on my part. I loved our nighttime routine, songs and all. With her dad in and out of her life, Piper needed someone steady and reliable, and I would always be that for her. With everything I had.
Piper ended up getting seven songs out of me, since we also had a teeth-brushing song and a potty song we should have long abandoned now that she’d turned seven. But we liked tosing, so I’d probably still be embarrassing her with it as a teen. And she’d probably secretly love it.
By eight-thirty, the couch was mine. I plopped down with my super-secret sketch book and my other guilty pleasure, the GoWithFriends dating app on my phone.
My sister-in-law had talked me into going through all their personality quizzes, and after a vetting process where I’d half hoped they’d weed me out, I was now one of the privileged few who got to pay GoWithFriends money every month.
As a single mom, meeting people in a vetted chat room was actually pretty darn convenient. I could be social without having to go anywhere. And nobody was creepy because the hope was to eventually meet in person. Not that I was ready for that part yet.
Lacey saw my profile check-in and responded immediately. Nobody was allowed to lurk, which I supposed was a good thing.
Lacey: Grace! Hey, sista.
Grace: Hi, Lace.
Lacey: It’s just Jackson, Knead, and me right now, talking about shows likeMarried at First Sight. Knead says it’s the ultimate fantasy. Being able to skip the dating part and just having your soulmate hand-delivered.
Grace: There’s no such thing as a soulmate. Also, that show’s divorce rate is outrageous.
I didn’t even have to look it up to know. But I double-checked, just to make sure. Yep, breakup city. As for the no-soulmates part? My response was automatic. I couldn’t help it any more than I could help scrolling up and reading everything Knead had to say on the matter. A new response from him came in while I was catching up.
Knead: That’s why it’s a fantasy, Grace. In real life, you have to put in the work to get to know a person.
Grace: Like chatting with them in a dating app using a fictitious name, Dough Boy?
Lacey: Oh, here they go.
Knead: No. Preferably in person, and over the course of a couple years.
Then what was he doing on this dating site? And why did I care?
Grace: You sound like you know this from experience.
Knead: Wouldn’t you like to know.
I would like to know. I’d thought about him way too much in the three weeks I’d been on here. Was he a baker? A massage therapist? Or, was his profile name an inside joke? He wouldn’t say. The GoWithFriends policy was that you couldn’t lie about yourself, but you could be vague. Knead was the definition of vague. I knew he was twenty-eight because the app verified ages. I knew he lived in Phoenix. Also verified. But his occupation was listed as Business Owner. Vague. His profile picture was a closeup of his shoulder and neck in a white t-shirt. It wasn’t even a muscle shot, though he did look… substantial and nicely tanned. Not that I’d studied it or anything.
Jackson: Are you guys meeting up with us this Friday then? Neither of you have RSVP’d.
Knead: I will if Grace will.
I stared at my phone, not surprised at all that he called me out. But meeting them this soon was a bad idea. It would change everything I liked about using the app. These wouldn’t be casual chats with friendly strangers anymore. Or casual spats, in my and Knead’s case. But putting it off wouldn’t change the inevitable. Even if I never went out, the rest of them would, and then eventually they’d pair up and leave the app. It had already happened. Yesterday, we had an online farewell party for a couple who were canceling their subscriptions together.
Grace: I’m a firm maybe.
