“I love brilliant ideas. Lay it on me.”
“Do you want to hang at Fitz’s wedding this weekend?”
“Obviously,” I say, and I bet he means as friends, but the invitation feels a little bit like a date too.
Or maybe it feels a lot like one.
And I like it.
12
Teagan
I take a half-day on Friday, powering through the morning with a flurry of scheduled posts of articles, lists, and tips we’ve run this past week and want to highlight again.
That includes a popular column on Made Connections, a relatively new dating app that’s been taking the scene by storm, since it lets strangers post about someone interesting they’ve seen in passing, or perhaps met briefly but never exchanged numbers with, like Bryn and Logan, who got together exactly that way.
Our site runs a weekly story about couples who’ve met through the app. A guy and a gal who spotted each other on the Whole Foods escalator, one going up, the other going down. A man who chatted with a woman in yoga class, exchanging tips on meditation and wine, only to be interrupted by a fire drill. A painfully shy UPS driver who crushed so hard on a regular customer but couldn’t bring himself to ask her out till he got on the app.
He’s still shy, but that’s okay. He found his person—and he said falling in love taught him he didn’t have to be shy about expressing his heart to her.
Talk about swooning.
Their story is the sweetest, and they’re getting married in a few weeks.
I schedule all the social media posts for those pieces, and then a few more links to scientific articles—since science is awesome. Studies on things like the chemistry of love and keeping the spark alive when you’ve been with someone for a while are vital to the site’s reputation as both a fun and intelligent resource for dating tips.
As my half-day nears its end, I check in with Summer, shooting her a text to see how her piece on dates for married couples is going.
* * *
Summer: This is a dream come true—plotting dates for my sexy-as-sin husband. I love it.
* * *
Teagan: All righty, then. Carry on.
* * *
Summer: We will! And I promise the piece will be epic. Want a hint?
* * *
Teagan: Do I? Hmm. Wait, of course I do!
* * *
Summer: Remember how my misadventures started with The Dating Pool?
* * *
Teagan: With your ill-fated letter. Yes, of course.
* * *
Summer: Yes. But in retrospect, was it so ill-fated?
* * *
Teagan: Considering you’re grotesquely, disgustingly, obscenely happy to be married, I’d say no, it wasn’t ill-fated at all.
* * *
Summer: Exactly! So that’s your hint. And I’ll be raining down likes, clicks, and shares with my plans.
* * *
Teagan: Oh, baby! You’re talking my language. See you tomorrow!
* * *
I close the text app, say goodbye to Matthew, Rosario, and the rest of the team, then head out of the office to meet up with Bryn at a nearby cruelty-free nail salon that smells like a garden.
It also serves wine—another reason I like Daisy Nails.
Bryn arrives at the same time and gives me a hug.
“Does the boss know you’re skipping out early?” she asks me clandestinely, only after whipping her head from side to side to check who might be listening.
“No. Please don’t tell Logan when you see him tonight, okay?”
She narrows her eyes, then gives me an I’ve got you nod. “It’ll be our secret.”
Bryn’s boyfriend bought The Dating Pool a year ago as part of his media firm, and he oversees it as the CEO. Technically, he’s my boss, even though I’m not his direct report. But since he signs all our paychecks, he’s yet another way we’re all tangled up together. We’re like a pile of puppies on top of each other, and I don’t want to disturb the pack’s slumber.
Bryn and I settle into the cushy leather pedicure chairs, dipping our feet into the warm foot tubs and catching up on our week as Daisy brings us glasses of chardonnay.
“Next week, Logan and I leave for our train trip across Canada,” Bryn says between sips.
“I want pics and souvenirs. I bet it’ll be amazing.”
“I can’t wait. I do love a road trip of sorts.”
“Even better since no one has to drive,” I add, then swallow some of the white wine.
“Exactly,” she says, and then she shares the latest on some of the new clients at her consulting firm, including her work with the sex-toy company Joy Delivered. That’s her flagship client, and I know her work with them well, since Joy Delivered and The Dating Pool share content—we provide dating tips for their site and Joy Delivered offers suggestions on battery-operated friends for the spicy side of our site.
“And how is everything going with the foundation and your fundraising goals?”
“Great,” I tell her as the petite blonde who runs the shop asks me to take my right foot out of the water. “Ransom’s event was perfect timing. It helped me hit some of my benchmarks for the year, and the board already approved additional funds to give away for the second half of the year, so that makes me very happy.”
