Page 85 of Swiped
Thom looked up from tapping on his phone with a casual glance. “Oh, just tweeting some viral content.”
“Thom, I’m sorry.” She summoned her most sympathetic tone. “But please don’t post that pic.”
“It’s done,” he said, slipping his phone back into his suit jacket. “And so are we.” He smoothed his blond waves and lifted his chin, his gaze grazing the top of her head.
An audible wave of shock and amusement rippled through the crowd in “oooh’s” and laughter at what, Nat could only assume, was Thom’s post of her kiss with Rami. Several of the people around them whirled to look at the trio and immediately raised their phones, camera lenses out.
Rami covered his face with his hands and moaned in genuine frustration. “No, please, I can’t be viral content anymore—”
Thom held up an index finger and cut him off. “Rami, don’t. I’ve heard enough of your miserable whining for three lifetimes.”
Rami’s jaw clenched and his entire face hardened into an eerie stillness. His eyes welled with tears and fixed on the ground. “I can’t do this.”
Thom flashed a wolfish grin at the camera phones. “Are you crying, mate?”
Rami shook his head as he raised his gaze to Nat. His eyes were swimming with sorrow and panic as he took a step back. “I’m sorry. This is too much.”
Nat reached for him. “Wait!”
Rami flinched and took another step into the crowd. He raised his hands in surrender and mouthed, “I’m sorry,” before he turned and walked away.
Thom gave a slow clap as the circle of spectators tightened around them.
Nat swallowed back the panic flooding into her chest. The party lights glared off the ring of raised phones around her and Thom. She could imagine how unhinged she would look in all the videos, and how gleefully people would tear her apart in their hot takes. The truth was that she was doomed in the eyes of the internet, no matter what she was going to say next, so she figured that it might as well be sincere. “Thom, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” Thom recoiled with a bitter laugh. He hugged her close but whispered like a snake in her ear. “Darling, we both got exactly what we wanted. You needed a date to win your little bet, and I got free placement on the homepage ofBuzzFillplus a scandal where I look like the poor, mistreated victim.” He released her with a performative frown, but she could see that his sapphire eyes were hard. “I just hope that love will manage to find me, too.” He gave her a quick two-finger salute, then stepped away into the crowd. Several women in tight dresses watched him walk by and began to trail him.
“Ugh,” Nat muttered to herself as she elbowed away from the camera phones. “Ninety-nine percent my ass.”
Microphone feedback squawked into her ears as Tracy took the party stage.
“BuzzFillNation, are we ready to party?”
An exuberant roar sounded all around her as Nat zeroed in on her next move. She started toward the stage. “Yes, it’s me, yay, BeTwo,” she muttered as she squished through the crowd. She could sense yet more camera flashes and lenses held aloft in her periphery all pointed at her. “I did it, you’re welcome, yay.”
Finally, she reached the stage and clambered up. A few whoops went up as she hoisted her ass over the ledge like a gangly squirrel.
“Um . . . Nat?” Tracy’s cat-lined eyes were murderous as Nat reached for the mic. “This is not a good look—”
Nat snatched the mic away and faced the crowd. “Hey, Buzz-people, whatever, internet. Guess what?” She heard the click of Tracy’s heels running offstage. “My app, BeTwo, is a steaming pile of dog shit. Yep! Wanna know why? It’s not because of my algorithm!”
The crowd hushed. She continued.
“You see, my algorithm truly does process bananas-high amounts of criteria to generate matches based on even the most minute factors. Chocolate or vanilla? Morning person or night owl? It can handle every single data point you throw at it! But you know what?”
She pointed to her chest, then wagged her finger in the air.
“Your heart doesn’t care if someone likes the same bands as you, or is within your height range, or has a job we’ve categorically aligned with yours. That’s not what we should be searching for. That’s not what matters!”
She made eye contact with a few people in the front of the crowd. They weren’t ignoring her or laughing or cringing. Yes, afew of them were obviously filming her. But a lot of the people she could see were simply listening.
“It’s not a numbers game! Fuck the numbers! Maybe I match with someone ninety-nine percent, but maybe it’s because of stuff I don’t even care about or maybe it’s stuff that I don’t really even like about myself. Like, whydon’tI ever go hiking? Wouldn’t it be great to find someone to introduce me to something new?”
A few people nodded.
“And maybe I match with someone just thirteen percent, but it’s on all the things that actually make up who I am. Like someone who knows when I really need a laugh. Or will call me out on my bullshit because they’re taking a totally different path . . . but we’re heading in the same direction . . . And I really want to keep heading that way.” She took a breath. “One hundred percent.”
She held up her phone. The dev mode BeTwo app glowed into the crowd.
