Logan leaned back on his bedroom door and tried to think what he should do. Harriet clearly hadn’t recognized him, and he should have realized if she had been matched to him, then he had been likely shown to her. Switching on his phone, he looked at his app, his thumb hovering over her photograph. He should ignore it, shouldn’t he? Except, Logan couldn’t. In the next heartbeat, he went to swipe left but instead, hit the blue star and sent a super like.
A moment later, he heard Harriet suppress a squeal from the next room, and he couldn’t help wondering if she had seen his response. Quickly, he turned off his phone again. This was a bad idea.
For the rest of the night, Logan was rushed off his feet at the bar, so he didn’t get to even think about Harriet or the Tinder app all evening. But as he finished stacking the stools after closing time, he pulled his phone back out of his pocket and found he had a message.
Opening up Tinder, he smiled a little too much at the message from Harriet.
Beer or wine?
He quickly replied, Both, then sent his own message, Pizza or hotdogs?
“What’s this? You setting up a date?”
Sarah peered over his shoulder. “Ooh, she’s nice.”
Logan blushed. “Yeah, she is.”
“So, are you going to meet her?”
“Probably not.”
“Why not? She is gorgeous.”
He blushed and tried to change the subject. “Huh, so are you on here?”
Sarah shook her head. “I use Grindr.”
“Oh, right, so you, um…”
“Prefer women? Yeah. So, trust me when I say she is gorgeous. You should definitely set something up.”
His phone pinged, and a message came back from Harriet, Pizza. So, cake or pie?
He typed in pie, and added apple, hot, with ice cream.
Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Thought you weren’t interested.”
“Oh, I’m interested, but…” he rubbed his hand across his jaw. “You want to share a beer?”
Sarah laughed at him. “Sure. But just so you know, it’s only women I like.”
“No offense, it’s only her I’m interested in.” He laughed as he said it, then realized the significance of his words. Was that true?
It was well over a month since Logan split with Cassandra and he hadn’t had any interest in dating another woman in all that time, but he had been thinking about Harriet. A lot. He grabbed two beers and carried them over to a corner table. “Okay, so this girl…”
“The one from Tinder?” Sarah popped the top on her beer.
“Yeah. I know her, in real life. Actually, I kind of like her, but… it’s complicated.”
“You do?” Sarah picked up her beer and drank from it. “So, you thought making a fake profile would get you closer to her?”
“It’s not fake.”
“No? Then why L.J.? The picture could be you, I guess, but it seems like you didn’t want her to recognize you.”
“It’s nothing like that. I’ve had this profile for a few years. The picture is an old one and not very clear, I admit. And I know it looks like I haven’t been completely honest with my name, but L.J. are my initials and what my family called me when I was a kid. When I first set up the profile, I was being cautious, a lot of people have heard of this place and know who I am. I didn’t want anyone just turning up and surprising me.”
Sarah nodded. “Okay, so this girl hasn’t recognized you, but she’s messaging you anyway?”
Logan nodded. “We matched, and I foolishly super-liked her. But this can’t go anywhere because we have been friends for a long time.”
“How long?”
“Eight years.”
“Wow. And you guys never crossed that line? Not even a teensy bit?”
“No, it’s strictly just friends. Um, but when she moved in with me, I began to feel differently.”
Sarah’s eyes widened a little further. “Okay, I can see why that might be tricky. So, what are you going to do about it?”
Logan switched off the app after he saw another message come through. “See, that’s the problem. As much as I really like her, there is nothing I can do. I don’t want to wreck our friendship, and if I tried to change our relationship with her living at my place that would put her in a bad position. She recently had a break- up that left her homeless, which is why she’s staying at my place.”
“So that’s a permanent arrangement?”
“No, just a few weeks until she gets on her feet. Except, she’d been here two months now and neither of us has mentioned her leaving.”
“Perhaps she likes you, too? Oh, maybe she knows L.J. is you, and this is her way of telling you she is interested. Logan, if you’ve known her for eight years, she has to have worked this out.”
That was not something Logan had considered, and he contemplated Sarah’s words. “Nope, I don’t think she has, yet. Harriet wouldn’t go along with this without calling me out.” He gulped back some of his beer. “My biggest fear is her meeting someone else. Her girlfriends are all trying to fix her up, and one of these days one of their crazy stunts will work, and I’ll lose her to someone else. I don’t think I could handle her bringing another man home?”
“Then you need to talk to her, tell her how you feel.”
He finished his beer. “Nah, I’m being ridiculous. Honestly, I’m not her type. Forget I said anything.”
Sarah finished her own beer and stood and stretched. “Well, I’m off. But for what it’s worth, you should think this over a little. Maybe, like you, her feelings have changed over the years as well.”
After Sarah left, Logan went for a walk to clear his head. He’d walked a few blocks away when he decided to look at the last message from Harriet. For almost an hour, he sat in the park exchanging questions and answers with her. Finally, feeling tired, he sent her one last message, wishing her good night, then switched off his phone and headed back home.
When Logan
