Page 22 of Best I Never Had

“You think my eyes are pretty?”

“Youknowyour eyes are pretty, Hayden.” She nudges me with her elbow. “So how does it work? You ever-so-slyly slide into the DMs of every eligible hottie?”

“If only it were that simple,” I say a little too wistfully.

“Oh, so they play hard to get.” Her grin holds a devilish edge, her eyebrows bouncing up and down as she continues her tease. “I heard some men like the chase. Helps them to feel masculine, like they’re feeding their caveman instincts.” Her fist rises in the air, stamping her point.

“What I meant was,” I say, poking her side as she flinches away, “it’s hard to get past the initial talking stage. It usually just ends up being a long string of one-night stands.”

She slightly cringes. “So? Are you going to check that?” she says, eyeing my phone in my back pocket. “Maybe this might be ‘the one.’”

I shake my head, ignoring her and chugging my beer instead.

“Come on, Marshall,” she urges. “I want to know what these women are saying to you.” Her hands lift up between us. Her palms face upward, with her lower lip jutted out in a small pout.

I give, looking down at her as her smile teases through her fake frown, and I can’t help but let out a small laugh. As if her making that face, pleading in that playful way, will always get her what she wants out of me. I reach into my pocket and unlock my phone before placing it gently into her open hands.

Her eyes light up against the lit screen as her lips pull between her teeth and the corners of her mouth lift with amusement. Her eyes search the screen, looking like she’s solving some sexy crossword puzzle in a jumbleof words like “spank” or “foreplay” meshed together in black and white blocks.

Her fingers finally stop scrolling through the long list of messages. “This one’s good. She’s got a nice smile,” she states, clearing her throat to read the message out loud. “‘Hey there, cutie.’”

Unoriginal and bland. Natalia must agree because her mouth scrunches in disapproval before she looks at me.

“Maybe not,” she says, continuing her search. “So they just message you and you message them back?”

“Well, there’s a little more to it than that,” I explain. “The app itself sends you potential matches through an algorithm. And I just tap on the little cupid’s bow if I like them, and if she likes me back, we message each other.”

“Ah,” she says through a smile. “The gods doing what they’re born to do: manage an online dating app.” Her eyes continue to roam, lighting up as her fingers tap on the screen. And then she gasps.

“What?”

She holds the phone a little higher, and her smile spreads wider as she reads the text. “‘You have a cute face. It would look even better if I sat on it.’” Her mouth gapes open in shock. “That’s not real.”

I peek down at the screen to see who the message is from. “Oh, Sara is very real.”

“You responded to her?”

“I went on a date with her two weeks ago,” I answer.

“Did…she sit on your face?”

She did. In fact, she did a little more than that, but I don’t want to share that bit of information to Natalia. So instead, I give the most generalized answer as close to pleading the fifth.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that, ma’am.”

“Maybe it’s better you don’t answer that question.”

We both simultaneously take a sip of our drinks. When Natalia sets her drink back down, she taps the back of my hand with her index finger. “You really are living a lively single life there, Marshall.”

I chuckle, taking my phone and securing it back in my pocket. “Are you seeing anyone?” I ask, curious, as we’ve rather deeply broached the topic of my own glaring singleness.

Her shoulders slouch forward, much like they used to in high school when she sat on the hard stool that tucked perfectly under our lab table in bio class. And when she doesn’t answer, I get the hint that maybe she doesn’t want to talk about it.

“No, I’m not,” she finally says. Her voice sounds low, a tightness seeping through as if she’s trying to hold back tears.

“Okay,” I respond, not really knowing how or if I should ask further.

Then she turns her face toward me with her eyes downturned and brows pinched together in what looks like agony. Her forced smile falters into a sad little frown before her hands move to her face, covering her eyes as she sighs deeply.

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