Page 70 of New Girl in the City
“What was that?”Claudia asked, looking towards my bag.
“What was what?” I asked. I was sending off a last email, the last email in fact, that I would need to send before my work with Arington Press was over.
“That sound,” she said, walking towards my bag. When the ding came this time I heard it with her. “There it is again.”
I hit send on the email and let out a sigh of relief. It was over and done. I could finally breathe again. “That’s the dating app you got me on. Which is kind of weird, I thought I had deleted it.”
“Must have not,” she murmured and gave my bag a curious look. “Are you going to look at it?”
“I mean, I guess? Do you want to see?” And then because I knew she did, I said, “You just want to see, don’t you?”
“Um, hell yeah. You know how happy I am that you’re with Liam. You two are stupid adorable, but I have been pretty bummed at not being able to live through shitty dates with you. I mean, all I got to hear about was one shitty date with that sorta artist guy before Liam snapped you up.”
“I’m so sorry to disappoint,” I said wryly. She sighed but gestured towards my bag with an impatient shake of her hand.
“You know what won’t disappoint me? Getting to see who that is.” She flung a hand out to my closed office door. “I even closed the door before I came in here, so I really feel like I should be rewarded for that.”
I rolled my eyes at her, but it was true. She had remembered to close the door---a new rule for us when we were going to spill a little. Better safe than sorry when it all came down to it, even in a workplace as relaxed as ours.
“Ugh, fine, toss me my phone.” I held out my hand and made grabby fingers at her. Claudia whooped in excitement and hurried over to fish out the phone and toss it into my hand.
“You live dangerously. No case and wanting me to throw it.”
“That’s who I am, baby. A wild child.” I unlocked the phone and saw that I was right. It was the Dating Diamond League, alright. The app that I had thought I’d deleted was suddenly lit up like the Fourth of July. “Uh, holy shit.” I let out a nervous laugh when I saw the amount of notifications.
“What?” Claudia asked, but she was already hurrying over. I simply held out my phone to her. When I didn’t move she bit her lip and pointed at the phone, “Are you offering me a hands on viewing here, Mel? Don’t tease a woman.”
“Knock yourself out.” I wiggled it at her and she took it gleefully.
“Awesome. Totally awesome, “she breathed when her eyes hit the screen. When she cackled I knew she had seen the number of notifications. “One hundred and six, Mel? Really? Triple digits and you just didn’t know?”
I shrugged at her and shook my head. “Look, I thought I deleted that after Liam and I---after we had our moment in the car.”
“You mean after you banged it out in a car.”
“Yeah, that.”
“Looks like you missed it. Maybe it refreshed with an update glitch or something,” she murmured opening the app, “I mean whatever, because I get to see what’s happening in here. Ohhh, he’s really cute.” She held out the phone to me so that I could see a smiling man with green eyes and ginger curls. She wasn’t wrong. He was extremely cute, but I wasn’t looking. Although….
“Why are you not on the app again? I’m sure there are guys in Colorado,” I asked her. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me that for all her encouragement and eagerness for me to date---to get me on the app, why hadn’t she already done the same for herself.
Her face closed slightly, and I knew I maybe shouldn’t have asked, but the cat was already out of the bag, so I waited for her to continue.
“I don’t think I’m ready,” she said, softly. “Not after Ben.”
“I know he hurt you, sweetie…” I began gently because it was true. He had. I’d met her after it all had happened, but we’d had enough happy hours and heart-to-hearts for me to know he’d put her in a bad place. But that was...in the past, and she had her entire future ahead of her. She was only thirty-five. Plenty of time to get back out there.
“He didn’t just hurt me, Mel. He destroyed me.”
“I know, but you don’t have to stay that way. He doesn’t get to make that your story.”
She looked up at me, eyes watery but she nodded at me all the same. “Yeah, that’s true,” she cleared her throat and looked back down at my phone before she went back to swiping through the app. “One day that’s going to feel more in reach, but right now it’s not. Until then, I’m going to satisfy myself with living vicariously through you, which means this.” She pointed another finger at my phone and grinned at me.
“You’re welcome,” I told her. I knew what she was saying was true, but even so I hated that she felt that way. It was hard to watch your friends hurt. But if all it took was letting her go wild on a dating app, then it was well worth it.
“Oh, this one is very handsome.”
“How handsome?” I asked.
