Page 43 of Swiped
“Not enough,” she said, memories of the tiny tapas plates taunting her mind.
“Pizza?”
Nat threw her head back. “Yes,” she practically moaned.
Her stomach flipped as he raised his left eyebrow with an approving smile. Nat saw his eyes flicker down her body, and she silently thanked herself for wearing a mini skirt as she shifted her long legs and pretended not to notice his gaze.
“I know a place,” he said.
* * *
Nat and Rami perched on cracked leather stools at a crooked silver table. They held their huge slices of pizza in front of their faces and took big, unembarrassed, cheese-oozing bites.
“Oh my God,” said Nat, mouth full of pepperoni. “There’s nothing called a ‘pizza fallacy’ is there?”
Rami shook some more crushed pepper onto his mushroom and spinach slice. “Not that I know of.”
“Right, and you know why?” she said, taking his offered pepper jar and adding more to her slice. “Because it’s always delicious. Pizza is my rock.”
Rami laughed. “Put that in your BeTwo profile.”
“Well, I’ve definitely seen worse.” She pulled more napkins out of the dispenser for the grease puddles forming in the corners of her mouth.
“My favorite profiles are the ones that have thousand-word screeds all about who the person doesn’t want,” said Rami, taking some of Nat’s offered napkins.
Nat quoted a medley of profiles from recent memory. “No smokers, no kids, no games, no stupid small talk. I just want someone real and hot.” She paused. “And again, you really have to be hot.”
“Gotta be looking for something real, not just shallow hookups!” He dropped his voice. “And don’t message me if you’re under six foot, thanks.”
They chewed in happy silence as aggressive punk music blared from the speakers. Nat let her gaze wander to Rami. He was watching the late-night crowd teeter into the pizza shop in a constant, overdressed stream. He looked, as always, deep in thought.
“What kind of thing did you put in your profile?” she asked.
He hit her with a doubtful look. “Oh, come on. You must have it cached somewhere. You can just look it up.”
“Absolutely I can,” she said. “But I haven’t.”
He reeled back with genuine surprise. “Wait, really? Why not? Opposition research, Nat!”
She gave him an amused nod as she mulled the question and a gooey bite of cheese. It truly hadn’t occurred to her to look up Rami’s old profile, which now seemed like an egregious oversight. It wasn’t like her to make oversights. Was she afraid of what she might find in his profile? But why? She glanced at Rami, his boyish face looking as relaxed as she’d ever seen it. Contentment looked damn good on him, even in the fluorescent lights of a pizza dive.
“I don’t know, but tell me what your profile said, anyway.”
He sat up a little straighter and a small smile warmed his face. “Fine. It was dumb.” He wiped his shiny fingers on anapkin. “I wrote about how I was just out of a relationship, and wanting to take things slow but not looking for hookups, either.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
He kept his eyes fixed on his hands and shrugged. “Well, I may have actually used the words, ‘My heart is a little tender.’”
“Aww!” cried Nat, feeling something deep inside her melt like a chocolate drop. “But it was!”
“Yes,” he said, meeting her gaze with his signature look of quiet mischief. “Which is exactly the timenotto be on the internet.”
Nat had to concede that point. She bit her lip in thought as he stood and gathered their empty plates and balled up napkins. The force of habit to rifle through her knowledge of profile search terms and metrics kicked in, but her mind seemed to be somewhere else. She was too distracted to think about data and sharpening her algorithm. It felt unfamiliar, but it also felt a lot like having fun.
“Ready?” he asked, gesturing to the door.
* * *
