Page 21 of Your Pace Or Mine

She brings a hand up to cover her smile as though she’s a little embarrassed by her good fortune. It’s so endearing that whatever self-centered feelings I have about their new living arrangements are displaced by the look of contentment I see in my friend.

“Aw, Laurel, I’m thrilled for you,” Stevie blubbers. “He’s such a good guy, and I’m glad you two figured your shit out.”

Laurel laughs. “It did take a while. Anyway, since we’re celebrating, I’ll get us some bubbly.”

When she turns to go to the fridge, Stevie elbows me and whispers. “Why do you look weird, Ash?”

“I don’t look weird; this is how I smile,” I hiss. She looks dubiously at me. “It’s nothing. I’m just processing some stuff.”

She squeezes my hand under the table. “You can talk to me, okay?”

“Sure.” I know she means well, but I can’t talk to her about this. I don’t want her to think I’m jealous or stirring up drama.

Laurel is back with the bottle, so I jump up to help with champagne flutes, and we all toast to her and Cal’s happiness.

Sebastian arrives promptly as always for our meeting the next day—it’s one of the things I like about him. We sit at the table, and I pull up a bunch of documents on my laptop. I wasn’t sure how he’d react to all the criticism, and I worried especially about Seth’s response since I don’t know him well. His friendship with Sebastian goes back to our university days, but we never hung out in the same circles.

“I asked a few friends to check their inboxes too, to show that my experience isn’t unique,” I tell Sebastian as I open a folder of screenshots. “Some of these are from Laurel, and she hadn’t opened the app in months. Maybe your algorithms should be adjusted so they don’t match inactive users. Despite not checking it in ages, she had dozens of sex invites and a few obscene photos.”

He leans over and glances at the screen with a grimace but doesn’t scan in detail. “I believed you anyway, but you’re right that we should adjust the algorithm for these cases. It’s not helpful for members to be matched with people who aren’t active.”

“In the interest of fairness,” I add, “I did ask Laurel’s boyfriend to check his inbox. He had a few messages, but nothing like what she received, and no obscene photos. Although one woman did describe what she’d like to do to him in great detail, though I’m not sure it’s anatomically possible.”

Sebastian’s eyes widen in curiosity, as though he’s going to ask to see the message, but he doesn’t. My mind wanders to whether I’m able to bend in that particular way and whether he would enjoy it. But I shouldn’t go there, certainly not after what happened the last time we met.

He clears his throat. “Seth and I have some ideas in terms of how we can block repeat offenders from coming back with new usernames, and also how to filter messages better to remove offending photos so users don’t have to be exposed to that content. I don’t know if you want the technical details or not.”

I shake my head. I love data, but knowing Bash, he could go on about technical stuff for ages.

“No, I’m good. I don’t need the shop talk. What I’d like is to be able to say in my reels and other posts that we are addressing overly aggressive users and protecting customers, especially women and other marginalized groups.”

“I get that,” Sebastian says earnestly. “I thought we could brainstorm what our parameters are, then I’ll loop Seth in. What should the user agreements be? What qualifies as offensive? How can users know when they’re crossing the line?”

My face hardens at this line of conversation. “Haven’t I shown you enough examples? Don’t try to tell me about the poor men who were just trying to be nice.”

He sighs, pushing a curl of his dark hair back from his face. Damn those distracting forearms again. “That’s not my intention. What I want are straightforward rules that don’t leave room for pushback. Obviously it’s our app and we have ultimate authority, but I’d like it to be clear enough that I can point to a line and say that’s where they went wrong.”

I pause, considering. He’s right that sometimes the line is hazy. Finding romantic partners or short-term flings is the point of the app, so we can’t penalize people for being up front about intentions. Still, at least test the waters a little before the booty call.

“What about a rule of no solicitation of a sexual relationship made outside of an actual dialogue. It’s not ideal, because I don’t want to respond to someone’s message with hello and get inundated, but at least the platform can warn people who don’t even wait for a response to fill someone’s inbox with unsolicited sex invites.”

Sebastian nods. I can see him thinking it through in the way his brow furrows. “I like that. We can say that not propositioning anyone who hasn’t responded to an initial message is a hard and fast rule.”

I snicker at his wording. Sebastian raises his eyebrows. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Ashley,” he says, shaking his head.

I can’t help joking, “I’ll give you hard and fast.”

He looks away like he’s trying to pull himself together, but I’m not sure if it’s because it’s funny or because the idea is as distracting to him as it is to me. I should stop going there. We’ve always joked around like this, but after sleeping together, it’s probably a terrible idea.

“Anyway,” he says, avoiding my eyes, “we could stress that messages are intended as a dialogue, and that we reserve the right to caution or remove those who badger users who have stopped responding. It’s hazy, but at least gives us the leeway to block users who view that first reply as an open invitation.”

“I like that,” I say. “And what about the rude responses to rejection? Can we say in the code of conduct that users are free to reject whomever they want, and any harassment or bullying language as a response is not allowed.”

“Good call.” His fingers are flying across the laptop keyboard. “And I’m going to propose that we broaden our list of words that aren’t allowed. I’m not offended by a few F-bombs, but I’d rather block them on the app if it makes moderating easier.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to say he was a real fan of that particular word the other night, but again, we’re not going there. I need to stop thinking about the way it sounded when he whispered it in my ear.

“You with me?” Sebastian asks.