Page 7 of Swiped
Nat stammered. His combination of a novel way to insult her introversion, mixed with a jab at her whole lack-of-a-dating-life thing, was enough to cross the wires in her brain, even when she was fired up on righteous rage and a handsome target. Rami’s eyes lit up, but she didn’t like their sparkle this time. She didn’t like it at all.
“Oh my God,” he said. “You’ve never used your own app, have you?”
“I beta-tested it for years . . .”
Rami leaned in even closer toward her. He bit his plump bottom lip in thought, and his long lashes fluttered as he searched her face. “But you’ve never actually used it to date?” He watched her squirm as his face hardened into the full realization. “Classic,” he declared.
“Nat Lane! BeTwo!” V bellowed from the front of the line. “You’re our top app, so we need you up here!”
“One minute!” Nat called to them. She turned back to Rami. Her cheeks blazed with heat, and somewhere in her mind, she hoped that the flush was making her look pretty and not deranged. “So what if I haven’t used BeTwo?”
“So, you have no idea the utter swamp of social depravity that you’ve created!”
Nat recoiled. “OK, so like, how many BBC period dramas do you watch on a daily basis to talk like that?” She watched him smirk and nod, clearly used to being called out on his word choices. Good. She was the creator of the top app at Tech-Talk! He should be asking her for advice, not judging her work. It wasn’t something she usually did, but she needed to flex . . . just this once. “And as for the ‘depraved swamp,’” she said, “my two million users and counting would say otherwise!”
“No, they wouldn’t!” His hands were clenched, and now it was his voice that was getting louder. “Everyone hates onlinedating, but we all do it because it’s all there is now that your garbage app has ruined everything!”
V stomped toward her, but Nat kept her eyes locked on Rami. She closed the gap between the two of them with a step toward his steely, crossed-armed stance. Every thrumming cell in her body was determined to play this out. Hergarbageapp?
“Oh, so, you want to wait around for a meet-cute?” she asked. She ran her eyes down him and noted his lean figure despite her boiling anger. “You want to have to walk up to people in bars? Lock eyes on the subway? Fall for the guy who hits you with his car?” She watched him scoff. She’d read the angry comments on Reddit in her dark moments. She’d seen the flare-ups in the discourse. “If only we could do it the old-fashioned way, right?” she said.
Rami nodded, his face as hard as stone. “Yes, exactly,” he said. “By talking. To humans. Like humans.”
“Inefficient,” said Nat, crossing her arms as she made her ultimate argument. She stomped her foot, and her boot made a satisfyingclack.
“The romance overwhelms me!” declared Rami, placing a hand on his heart in a mock swoon and tipping his head closer to hers.
They locked eyes. Rami’s face was so close she caught his woodsy scent — a soft mix of sandalwood and juniper that hit her lizard brain like a shot of tequila. She clocked the shadow of stubble along his angular jaw. The way the swell of his lower lip jutted out just a little in righteous indignation. Nat felt a smile twist into the corners of her lips, even against the currents swirling inside her body. She remembered how people sometimes pointed out the prettiness of her stormy green eyes, and she felt her lashes flutter in response. Rami’s gaze widened, and he bit his lip. He lifted his long fingers from his chest and inched closer.
“Seriously, folks,” said V, an abrupt interruption as they snatched Nat by the arm. “We’re running a dry finger along the razor’s edge of disaster, here. Stand on your designated tape outline!”
“This conversation isn’t over,” Nat hissed as she forced her legs to follow V away from Rami.
“Good luck out there!” he called, waving from the back of the line with a gleaming, politician’s smile. Still, his eyes followed her, even as they flicked down her long legs and back up to her loose curls. Nat never wanted to see his face again, and also, at the same time, she wanted everyone but him to vanish from the room.
V snapped their fingers in front of Nat’s face. “Nat, you good? Deep breaths.”
Nat nodded and fixed her eyes on the spotlit stage ahead of her. “Let’s fucking go.”
Chapter 3
The panel had mostly proceeded without any big surprises. Even Nat had to admit it hadn’t been as terrifying as she’d thought to sit at a table with five other people and read off a prepared slide deck, as long as she’d kept her eyes on the moderator instead of the two hundred or so faces in the crowd and the whirring cameras fixed on her. It was also a nice distraction from the blow-up with Rami, which blared into her mind every time she let her thoughts wander. Everyone had made it through their portion of the presentation in much the same way — explaining the problem that had given them the idea for the app, the arduous development process, the sudden roadblock that had threatened it all, and then the equally as sudden breakthrough that saved the day and led to the app as it was known and loved today.
Being the creator of the top app, Nat had gone first, so it hadn’t struck her as odd to hear the random bursts of applause and sitcom-style whoops as she described BeTwo. But then she noticed the audience was a lot quieter for the other apps, and she’d squirmed uncomfortably as Rami introduced his section for Whither, Weather by saying, “Now I realize predicting the weather may not seem as exciting as finding a date, but even BeTwo’s best match can be thwarted by an unexpected rainstorm . . .” He’d gotten a few polite laughs out of the line. But mostly, Nat hoped that he’d been too distracted by presenting to see how she’d craned her neck to catch every pixel of his slides, or to notice how fascinating she’d found the details of his process. He finished his section with the requisite shout-outs to team members and QR codes for socials as a production assistant snuck back on stage to give each of the panelists mics again.
“Thank you so much for that, Rami!” trilled the moderator, a Hollywood-ready BuzzFill star with real journalism cred named Tracy Goodwin-King. From her wavy black tresses to her flawless brown skin, she radiated the glow of destined success, even while wearing a branded T-shirt under her pink blazer. “Panelists, before we go to questions from the audience, I just want to give it up for you all one more time for these amazing insights!” Tracy paused, and from her perch a few feet away, Nat could see her eyes narrow and flash in her perfect makeup — a look Nat knew all too well from seeing it on the popular middle school girls right before they’d hit her with a devastating jab. Her stomach clenched.
“Special thanks to you, Christine,” Tracy cooed into her mic, turning her now serene gaze to Panelist #4, a twenty-something with half-dyed hair and a manic, toothy smile whose app was a distraction blocker that rewarded productivity streaks with stickers of round, gleaming butt cheeks. “Who knew that a molting snake would make such a robust and detailed analogy? Andso many times?”
As a few snickers rose from the audience, poor Christine flashed her grin and nodded along, unaware or unable to fight the joke at her expense. Sweat prickled on the back of Nat’s neck. Tracy was a stunning, whip-smart alpha with a microphone and a captive audience. Nat hated to make any more animal metaphors, but there was definitely blood in the water.
“All right!” Tracy beamed into the crowd with a toss of her dark hair. “Who has a question for our panel?”
Hands shot up as production assistants scurried between the rows with mics. A young guy in a tech-logo T-shirt stood.
“Yeah, this question is for Nat,” he said.
Feedback whined into the mic as Nat winced at the noise and the instant attention. “Hi,” she said, her mouth suddenly dry.The stage lights flared in her eyes as the spotlights found her. She heard the question-asker clear his throat.
