Chapter 16: Aiden

The swiping was fun for a while.

It was kind of like walking through the red light district in Amsterdam except it felt way less shady. Within five minutes, I could see why people got addicted to it, but I couldn’t see that happening to me.

Maybe because I was too picky.

But I liked being able to see what mutual friends the girl and I had in common. It made it easy to weed out anyone that was friends with Chelsea. Before I started, I had this crazy idea that I would veto anyone who looked like a model just to see if I could break that bad habit, but when I saw how many girls didn’t look like models, I vetoed that rule instead.

Unfortunately, after two beers and just as many Simpson’s episodes, I still hadn’t found what I was looking for.

And then there she was. A pretty brunette with a genuine smile that spread all the way up to her eyes. I tapped the screen to look through her pictures.

The first one was a selfie of her smiling next to a big sunflower. The second was of her eating a piece of birthday cake with a pointy party hat on. The third was of her coming down a slide wearing little shorts with her hands in the air, and the last one was of her looking decidedly tipsy with perfect little shamrocks painted on her cheeks.

And suddenly, I realized why I hadn’t gotten excited about any of the other girls.

It was because she was the one I was looking for. And after fifteen years of her being right in front of me, it was like I’d finally found her.

But I didn’t know what the appropriate Tinder etiquette was for coming across someone you knew. My gut reaction was that you should like them because they were your friend. Yet there must’ve been people who took online dating too seriously for that.

Plus, what if you liked someone to be polite and they got the wrong idea? Or worse, what if you wanted them to get the wrong idea and they didn’t?

All I could do was hope that when I popped up on Lucy’s screen, she would know I wasn’t being polite.

After all, I told her I wasn’t sorry that I’d kissed her. I’d even gone so far as to invite her back into my bed which I meant with every muscle in my body. So if she right swiped me back, I might just have a chance.

Besides, there was no way I could humor the idea of going out with another girl when I was preoccupied with getting to the bottom of this Lucy situation, or more specifically, getting into Lucy’s bottoms.

Granted, I didn’t know if she was attracted to me, but she’d kissed me back without laughing, and that was something. At the very least, it gave me enough confidence to tap the little heart and hope for the best.

Which she was.

And I was an idiot for not realizing it sooner.

At the same time, I was a little concerned about how excited I was. I’d had many periods when I was single where I swapped women as often as Lucy swapped hair colors. And in lots of those cases, I’d had no problem walking away once my curiosity had been satisfied.

But I didn’t want to walk away from Lucy. Even if we slept together and the chemistry wasn’t there, I still hoped we could be friends. Yet part of me felt like that was naïve.

Was it worth risking our friendship to find out if we could have more?

I didn’t know. Lucy obviously didn’t think so. But she only had one head.

And I had two.

And two heads were supposed to be better than one.

Plus, there was a stubborn, stupid school boy inside me that was hell bent on getting my best friend to admit I was a great kisser and more. And why shouldn’t I go for it? Making Lucy smile had been my favorite thing to do since I’d gotten my first pair of Velcro shoes.

In fact, I remember the first time I saw her like it was yesterday.

My Mom took my sister and me to the park, and Claire had just stopped being fun. I still wanted to run around and play, but she was more concerned with her sticker collection so I was on my own.

As a result, I set out to do a round of the playground to see who was there just like I used to do rounds at the bar in college.

As I was doing so, I remember coming around the corner and seeing Lucy in the sandbox with a little boy who I later found out was her brother, Alex. She was helping him build a sand castle, and I remember it being the first time I’d ever seen someone wearing a sideways ponytail. I didn’t really know what to think of it besides the fact that my Mom would never have let Claire wear her hair like that.

Anyway, out of nowhere this kid came over and started stomping on their carefully crafted sand towers. Alex covered his face so he wouldn’t get sand in his eyes, but Lucy sprang up like a rocket and didn’t even give the kid a warning. Instead, she pushed his shoulders back with both hands, kicking his feet out from under him at the same time.

It was the coolest shit I’d ever seen. The kid fell down and started crying instantly, but Lucy didn’t even give him a second look.

Instead, she went back over to Alex whose bottom lip was shaking so much he looked like he was a moment away from crying himself.

“It’s okay,” she said, patting his back.

“Ruined!” Alex said, tearing at his hair.

“We can build it back up again,” Lucy said. “It’ll be even better this time.”

When she finally got Alex to calm down, I went over and asked if she wanted any help rebuilding her castle.

She looked up for a second and then said. “I think we’ve got it under control.”

I took a step back.

“But if you want to collect some rocks to decorate it, that would be cool,” she added.

A second later, her Mom appeared and pointed across the park to the mean kid. “Did you hurt that boy over there?”

“I was protecting Alex,” she said, molding some sand between her small hands.

Her Mom squinted. “His Mom told me he just wanted to play with you guys.”

Lucy looked up. “He came over and stomped on our castle.”

Her Mom’s mouth formed a straight line.

“It’s true,” I said. “I saw the whole thing.”

Lucy’s Mom folded her arms and looked back and forth between me and Lucy. “I want both of you to hang your heads for a second and pretend you’re in trouble.”

I watched Lucy hang her head and followed suit.

Then her Mom bent down and put her arm on Lucy’s shoulder.

I tried to look up without lifting my head.

Mrs. Ryan lowered her voice. “I’m proud of you for standing up to the bully. You did the right thing.”

Lucy nodded, keeping her eyes on the ground.

Her Mom straightened back up. “Okay, you guys can raise your heads again now and go back to playing.”

We’d been a team ever since.