Last Girl Ghosted(19)

Then, enter the internet and the rise of dating websites, and that pool grew to essentially everyone else in the world looking for—whatever. Sex. Love. The fulfillment of whatever other appetite, need, desire.

Some might view this is as a positive thing—this new era of choice, of plenty. But the truth is that these loose tie connections are almost never lasting. There’s no social obligation to treat people well. You’re not going to find yourself sitting in the church pew next your Torch date’s grandmother on Sunday. So, when you’re done with someone, you can potentially discard him, and realistically expect to never see him or anyone he knows again.

Now, I suppose I can add myself to the ranks of Dear Birdie’s lonely hearts, badly burned by a soul-crushing online-dating encounter.

Of course, I knew all this before. We all do, don’t we? But when Jax started pushing for me to get on Torch, it had been an embarrassingly long time since I dated anyone, touched anyone. I guess you could say I was lonely. Does it make me seem desperate to admit that? Lots of people are lonely.

“Just a good time maybe,” I answer finally. It doesn’t ring true, and the corners of his mouth tick up in the slightest shadow of a smile, something kind, knowing.

I have my phone in my hand, keep refreshing my email, wondering if I’ll hear back from Joe the superhost. I don’t know what the regulations are. Maybe he won’t reply to my query. Or he’ll say he can’t share that information. But probably it’s just up to him, right? The internet is like the Wild West. Anything goes. The rules change all the time.

“So how does Torch work?” he asks, though he must know. Doesn’t everyone?

“You make a profile, answer a questionnaire, post a picture,” I tell him. “Then you get on the app and you scroll through. Double click if you like what you see. Move on if you don’t. If it’s a match, meaning if the person you like likes you too, you can connect with that person via the app.”

He takes a sip of his coffee, glances around the room.

“How many people have you met this way?”

“Not many. Three.”

“Three,” he repeats. It’s neutral. I don’t feel judged.

Another shrug, a sip of my latte. It’s the perfect temperature. “I’m picky.” I don’t really like that word; it sounds superior, arrogant, so I correct myself. “Or I guess I have a type.”

“What was it about it this guy?”

His body language tells me that he’s relaxed but alert, those eyes scanning the room, resting a moment, then moving on to the next thing. Analyzing, evaluating.

“He was different,” I say. My conversation with Jax rings back. She said he looked too serious. But that’s what I liked about him. What she didn’t say, and what I know she was thinking, was that he looked just a little like my father. Not so much physically, just something in the eyes, his aura.

“Different how?” Now Bailey’s gaze comes to rest on me.

“Everyone on there was posing and posturing. Most of them seemed shallow and just looking to get laid. There are a lot of really stupid people on Torch—all abs, no substance. He was like the opposite of the typical Torch guy.”

“All substance, no abs.”

I smile. His tone is flat, but I pick up the teasing energy. It’s gentle, looking for humor in a bad situation.

“Something like that.”

He takes a drink from his cup; I do the same. He has an interesting face, those fine lines adding character, a thoughtfulness to his gaze, a full mouth. He smiles, but his eyes are serious, watchful. I try to guess his age. Early forties maybe? No wedding ring. I see some ink peeking out from the cuff of his jacket, wonder what kind of tattoo he has under there.

“What did he tell you his name was?”

I almost don’t want to tell him, still clinging to you, to the idea of us that I thought was the truth. Was that not your name? If you lied about that, then—what? You’re a stranger. A stranger in my bed, in my heart. How many different ways have I said a name that wasn’t yours? In query, in laughter, in pleasure.

“Adam Harper.”

He nods, eyes still scanning the room. He’s not writing anything down, which seems weird. That’s kind of what you would expect a PI to do, right? Have a little notebook or something.

“When did you see him last?” he asks.

“Look,” I say. “What is this about?”

He sighs, leans forward a little. I see a little more of that tattoo, but I still can’t make it out. “My client’s daughter, Mia Thorpe, has been missing for nine months. She was a troubled girl, vulnerable, when she met this man on an online dating app.”

He pulls up another photo on his phone and lays it on the table between us.

There you are again, Adam Harper. Looking like someone else. Someone lighter, happier, younger. Your skin glows, warm and golden. I ache to reach out and touch you.

“My client thinks that this man—who Mia knew as Raife Mannes—has something to do with what happened to her.”

“Thinks.”

“Mannes, too, has disappeared.”

A man walks through the door of the coffee shop wearing a surgical mask. I’ve seen this before, more and more in fact, especially on the subway. I heard on the news that some people believe the virus from China is heading this way. The sight of people wearing masks makes me uncomfortable. Do they know something I don’t? About the air, about a sickness in the air? Or is it that they’re sick, trying to protect others? My father would surely have a rant about this. The end-time wouldn’t come with a bang, he promised, it would sneak in subtly, curling and silent, a poisonous gas.