Swipe Left for Love
“Lucky you. Must be nice that Daddy buys you everything you want.”Zac’s gaze shot to hers. “It was a gift from my stepmother.”
“You had a perfectly good iPad.” Macie knew she was whining and on the verge of a toddler-esque tantrum, but she hated that her mother worked her ass off just to survive whereas someone like Zac got everything handed to him.
“Yes, I know. And I gave that to Ford.” Zac leaned over his screen. His eyebrows furrowed in irritation. “Despite what you might think of me, Mace, I’m not a complete jerk.”
“Everyone has their peachy keen moments.” Macie sneered, her blood boiled at his privilege. Giving his old iPad to Ford was a decent thing, but they were best friends. He wouldn’t do that for just anybody. She was certain he had an entire closet at his parents’ house stocked full of laptops, tablets, and computers she could use or donate. There were plenty of students at Lafayette who could use them. She’d even started a campus-wide computer charity her sophomore year to get the tech into the hands of students who needed them.
“They do, Chomper.” Zac’s face remained blank despite her little jab.
“I told you not to call me that.” Macie’s anger burned beneath her skin.
“Then stop using peachy keen.”
“Fine.” The one thing she held over him was something she didn’t really believe happened. Who would stop in the middle of sex to look up a catch phrase? But she never knew the truth. Friends tell each other the truth. And they were pretending to be friends so maybe that was close enough. “Did that really happen?”
“What?” Zac had refocused on his screen.
“The peachy keen thing.”
Zac’s face twisted into ultra-asshole.
“Did you really stop in the middle of screwing Amanda Billard to Google?”
“What?” Zac’s laugh erupted, and several people turned to glare at him. He held up his hand to apologize then faced Macie. “Is that what Lauren told you?”
Macie’s face burned, and she hoped the dim light kept him from seeing her blush. “Yeah.”
“No, that’s not what happened. I had the decency to make sure she was ... satisfied before I Googled. She still wasn’t ... pleased. She expected more, I guess.” Zac shook his head and went back to whatever he was working on.
Macie watched him for a few seconds until she decided that was stalkerish and opened a spreadsheet about the wedding shower. Zac’s presence had sucked the creativity out of her so she figured she might as well focus on something else. Lauren hated white, and the colors for the wedding were light pink and black. She had the guest list, the invitations, and a list of party games for the wedding shower. What she needed were decorations. Crafts didn’t have free Wi-Fi, but she’d cracked their password two weeks ago on the first try. Nine letters, microbeer, and they hadn’t even bothered with numbers or making sure it was case sensitive.
“Macie?” Zac asked quietly. She glanced up, meeting his gaze. “Did you figure out the password?”
“I would never—”
“Liar.” Zac’s eyes brightened with mischief. Macie’s pulse sped up. If this Zac was around more, she probably wouldn’t hate him as much. “My service isn’t working great. Can I get a little help?”
“Despite what you might think, I’m not a hacker.”
“But Lauren taught you her trick on how to figure out Wi-Fi passwords.” Zac raised his eyebrows.
Macie held out her hand and Zac handed over the tablet. She ran her fingers over the small keyboard, envious of the damn thing still. Zac didn’t need such a perfect computer. Top of the line, too. Not just the newest model, but a fully loaded new model. Lauren was the IT geek, but Macie could still appreciate a fine machine. Zac didn’t need it, not with a career in finance. Lauren needed it more. Hell, so did Macie. She shook off the thoughts. Not wanting to get into another argument, she typed in the password and handed it back. Lauren asked her to play nice. She could do that. She wanted to do that.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Macie shook her head and opened the Blind Friends app, instead. Guy, as she called him, had written that morning. With all the wedding planning, job hunting, and her finals she had shot back a brief note, but he hadn’t responded yet. He’d lamented about a fishing spot he enjoyed as a kid and how he longed to get back there. She understood why he hadn’t been there for a while. College was a lot of work. The cabin actually sounded romantic. As she reread his note, she imagined a cool winter night in front of a roaring fire, just the two of them on the floor with a blanket covering their naked bodies.
Problem was she didn’t know what he looked like. Each daydream involving her mystery man conjured up a different look for him. One day he was blond, the next ginger or brunette. Once he was bald, and it was sexy. He was always taller than her, but his build varied between muscular and slightly less muscular. She had a thing for a nice set of pecs. She only hoped her imagination wouldn’t leave her disappointed in the end.
Macie clicked reply to his message and began to type a more detailed response.
Do you ever feel like you’re utterly alone? That there is not one person on this planet who gets you? Or, if there is, they live on the opposite side of the world?
My best friend is fantastic, but sometimes she doesn’t understand where I’m coming from. Her life has been so different from mine. There are times we both forget that and then something reminds us. For fictional example (since we promised no details about our lives), she was given a car for her sixteenth birthday. It was a few years old, but it was an amazing car. I was given a spare key to my mother’s beat up truck.
Macie grimaced at her lie but not-lie. Sure she