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Waiting was probably her least favorite thing. Christen liked to be punctual. Since college she’d always spent her days planned out - she even had a planner, notated and color-coded with blocks of things she needed to get done on a particular day. Even if the list was just: do yoga, get dressed, put gas in car; it was nice to be able to feel like she accomplished something at the end of the day.
Of course, now that she was older the lists got longer and more complicated, but she still had them. Her college roommate called her “a special kind of neurotic”.
Speaking of...
The coffee shop was busy, with plenty of other people on their phones, so Christen didn’t feel bad about pulling hers out and calling Kelley.
It rang twice before she picked up. “Hi! Don’t be mad.” She sounded the littlest bit out of breath.
“Why would I be mad?” Christen asked cautiously. “Are you running late?”
“I...might not have left yet.”
Christen groaned and sank down in her seat a little. The guy sitting two tables down gave her a weird look and she blushed. “Kelley! Come on.”
“I got distracted,” Kelley mumbled back. She sounded like she was still distracted.
“By what? You’re supposed to meet me in five minutes. Your apartment is ten minutes away.”
“Twenty,” Kelley corrected guiltily. “We’re twenty minutes away. Probably.”
“Twenty?!” Christen groaned again and purposefully didn’t look at the guy. “Why are you twenty minutes away?” The realization struck immediately. “Kelley Maureen O’Hara, I am your BEST friend and you’re late meeting me for coffee on my fourth day in this city because you’re getting LAID. You said you’d be on time, you LIAR.”
“I didn’t lie!” Kelley protested in the tone of voice she used when she was 100% lying.
Christen rolled her eyes. “Tell Emily I say hi.”
There was a guilty pause and then she heard Kelley’s voice, farther away now, say, “Babe, Christen says hi.”
“Hi Christen,” came the slightly muffled reply.
She rubbed at her forehead, brushing away some curls that escaped from her bun. “Put some clothes on and get here please.”
“Yeah, okay. We’ll be there right away.”
Christen hummed under her breath, unconvinced.
“I heard that,” Kelley whined. “See you soon. Promise.”
“Goodbye Kelley,” Christen said. She went to go hang up but stopped when she heard a high-pitched ‘wait!’ “Yes?” She asked, bringing it back to her ear.
“Em and I are bringing a friend from our rec league, is that okay? She’s really nice and you said you needed more Portland friends.”
“That’s fine. Is she also going to be late?” Christen snarked.
“I’ll text her and let you know. Okay, we’re leaving now. I promise. Love you! Mean it!” She hung up before Christen could get another word in.
With some unexpected time on her hands, Christen cradled her coffee cup and studied the world outside. Portland was a brand new city with brand new opportunities, but Christen wasn’t quite used to the frequent overcast and rainy days. Today it wasn’t so bad, just a mild drizzle that still managed to frizz her hair.
Of course just as she was thinking that the rain began to come down in sheets.
The bell above the door to the coffee shop clanged as someone darted in to escape the weather. Their awesome brown leather jacket had a hood attached and they left it pulled up as they shuffled their feet on the welcome mat. Christen’s eyes slid right past them eventually, doing a quick survey of the coffee shop before focusing back on her phone.
She answered a text from Tyler and another one from Fran, scrolled through Twitter for exactly two seconds before regretting that decision, and gave some serious thought to texting Kelley every two seconds until her friend got annoyed enough to answer. She closed her eyes to center herself and felt her shoulder lurch forward when someone sat at the table behind her.
“Sorry,” a low, husky voice murmured to her.
Christen let the tension roll out of her and shook it off. When she opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder the other person was turned away from her, long brown hair hiding her face as she hunched over her own table.
It felt like an eternity had passed since she’d hung up with Kelley, but her phone said it had only been about three minutes. She unlocked her phone, determined to scold Kelley again, when her eyes caught sight of the dating app she’d downloaded a couple of months ago. She’d had no luck last time and had eventually given up, but that was in Chicago. New city, new luck, maybe?
On an impulse she opened it. The first couple of profiles were easy rejections - she swiped left on two couples looking for a unicorn, a girl barely into her twenties, and, she was pretty sure, the profile of the guy a couple of tables away.
She swiped right on a cute blonde physical therapist when she paused on the next profile. Honestly, only the name was what made her pause. It was unusual enough to stop her for a moment.
Tobin, 31.
The profile itself was bland and bare. The bio just had a quote: “Just looking for the Pam to my Jim 🤙🏻”. There were only two pictures to see. One was a group of women at the beach, all of them attractive in some way but with no indication of which one the profile belonged to. The second picture was an action shot of someone playing soccer. It was at an angle with no face visible, but the body was a work of art as it was. The woman was all long limbs, defined muscles, and tan skin. The picture was taken mid-strike on a ball, the muscles of her calves and thigh flexing. It was an impeccable shot. Perfect.
Too perfect.
Stock photo perfect.
The bareness of the profile made sense now. Christen scoffed under her breath. Of course. A catfish.
“Ouch,” the low voice of the woman sitting behind her said. “Hard no on that one?”
Christen turned sharply, ready to scold her for spying on her, and all the breath rushed out like she’d been punched in the chest, met with big brown eyes and a jawline that could cut glass. Full, pouty lips were pulled into a sideways smile. She was STUPIDLY hot and also the woman in the middle of the beach photo on the profile that Christen had just swiped left on.
“I thought you were fake,” Christen blurted out.
The woman’s eyebrows shot up in surprise and her head tilted, a little like a confused puppy, adorable in a way that made Christen’s stomach flip even as she flushed hot with embarrassment.
“Not the last time I checked,” the woman said. “I’m sorry for spying on you. I was going to ask if I could buy you a coffee to apologize for bumping into you and saw my profile up.”
“It’s okay,” Christen breathed out. “The bumping and the spying. It’s fine.”
Christen swore at one point she was good with women. She couldn’t seem to remember any examples at this exact moment, but she was sure she was.
“If you’re sure.” The woman started to turn away, and Christen only had a second to feel disappointed before she twisted to look at Christen again. “Can I buy you another coffee anyway?”
“Yes. Sure.” She rattled off her order and the woman gave her the widest, most gorgeous smile Christen had ever seen before she stood up to go order it.
Her absence gave Christen a moment to breathe and reorder her thoughts. It wasn’t the first time she’d ever talked to a beautiful woman, so why were her palms clammy like she was a teenager on a first date. The rain outside continued to whip against the window in a way that was almost soothing, and Christen’s heart rate was back to normal by the time the woman was back with her coffee. She sat down in the empty chair at Christen’s table, the one Christen had been saving for Kelley.
Kelley could find her own chair when she decided to show up.
“I’m Tobin, by the way,” the woman - Tobin - said as she sat down. She offered up another one of those gorgeous smiles and her eyes crinkled at the corners. She waved to Christen’s phone. “I mean. Obviously.”
Christen bit her lip to contain a smile. “I’m Christen. Thank you for my coffee.”
“Do you want to know a secret?” Tobin leaned forward conspiratorially and Christen played along, laughter bubbling up in her chest at the amused little twinkle in Tobin’s eyes. “It’s a bribe. I really want to know what was in my profile that made you think I was a fake.”
Her laughter explored, unexpectedly loud, and she ducked her head towards her chest in embarrassment when a couple of people looked over at her. But Tobin grinned at her. It was a smile that crinkled her eyes at the corners and invited Christen to smile along. It was a smile that waved aside her embarrassment without trying.
“Well, first of all, what kind of name is Tobin?”
It was a joke, and thankfully Tobin took it as one. She pressed a hand to her chest in playful offense and Christen giggled again, this time quieter.
“It’s a family name, thanks,” Tobin said. “I can’t change that part of my profile!”
“Then add some more pictures,” Christen suggested. Tobin leaned forward, her forearms pressed against the table in a way that flexed the muscles in them, and Christen suddenly wondered why she was helping this woman make her profile more attractive.
“What’s wrong with my pictures?” Tobin asked, a line of genuine confusion furrowing her forehead.
“First of all, you don’t know who you are in them,” Christen told her. “One of them is a group picture -”
“My friend told me to use that one to show off my abs,” Tobin interrupted.
Christen was only human. Her eyes flicked up and down Tobin’s torso, taking in the lean lines of her body and her broad shoulders, and when she met Tobin’s eyes again she couldn’t stop the blush because she’d been thoroughly caught. Tobin didn’t seem to mind, thankfully. Her full lips ticked up a smirk that just made Christen flush hotter.
“Well,” Christen coughed a little, “I mean, that’s maybe true, but the other picture doesn’t show your face. Also it looks like a stock photo.”
“That’s a real picture!” Tobin protested. “A friend in my rec league took it.”
“It’s a great picture,” Christen admitted. “It was actually so great I thought it wasn’t you. But you can’t see your face in it, Tobin!”
“Okay, okay,” Tobin lifted her hands in the universal sign of surrender. “So...more pictures, anything else?”
“Don’t let your face be the selling point,” Christen said. Even though she could totally see a hoard of people who wouldn’t mind letting Tobin’s face sell them on her profile. “Write something in your bio! It doesn’t have to be a novel but only bots leave it blank. Or people looking to just hook up.”
Now it was Tobin’s turn to blush. Christen watched in fascination at the way the color crawled into the tips of her ears. She found it adorable.
“Hmm,” Tobin hummed under her breath and fished her phone out of her pocket. “Will you help?” She asked. She wiggled the phone at Christen in such an adorable way that even though Christen wasn’t sure she wanted to help Tobin get a date with someone on the app she would anyway.
They spent about ten minutes going through the pictures on Tobin’s phone and in her instagram (and Tobin laughed when Christen followed her in the middle of them doing that). They settled on one with her nephew on the beach, and a couple with smaller groups of friends.
“I don’t see how these are different than the other beach one,” Tobin grumbled when Christen chose them for her.
Christen, feeling light and cheerful, poked Tobin in the shoulder. “Because now you have at least one picture that’s just you, so they know which one you are, dummy.”
Tobin mock-scowled at her and rubbed at her arm. “You’re mean,” she said, but the little grin she said it with took out the sting.
However, Tobin refused to let her help with the bio part. “I got this,” she insisted, and spent the next few minutes typing on her phone, looking up at Christen every once in a while, biting her lip and looking entirely too mischievous. Christen just sat and sipped at her coffee, which was now lukewarm.
“There!” Tobin set her phone down with a triumphant little noise. “All set. It’s perfect now.”
“What? I don’t get to see it?” Christen asked, smiling at the way Tobin shook her head.
“Nope.” Tobin smiled softly, in a way that sent tingles down Christen’s spine. “Guess you’ll have to find some other way to see what I wrote.”
That was it. Christen knew an opening when she saw one. All she had to do was open her mouth and say that she wasn’t sure she wanted the new profile to work, since it meant Tobin wouldn’t go out for coffee with her again. She had her mouth open to say that when Kelley crashed into her side.
“Hey!” Kelley pressed a kiss to the side of her head and squeezed her just a bit too tightly to be comfortable. “Sorry we’re so late. ‘Sup Tobito!”
Christen blinked when Tobin waved at her, an adorable little waggle of her fingers. “You guys know each other?” She asked.
“Yeah.” Kelley pulled back and frowned at them. “Wait, did you not already know that? Isn’t that why you’re sitting together? Tobin’s the rec league friend I invited.”
“Oh. No.” Christen shook her head. “We just struck up a conversation.”
Sonny leaned forward to whisper something in Kelley’s ear, and Christen wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it was by the face of pure mischief that followed it. “We’re gonna get coffee, you two sit tight.”
Tobin laughed when they walked away. “So, you’re Kelley’s college friend?” She asked.
Christen nodded. “So you’re the rec league friend.” The prospect of seeing Tobin regularly was not an unpleasant one. Kelley said her friend was ‘really nice’, not ‘really nice looking’, and that was an oversight she was going to scold her for later.
“I guess we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other,” Tobin said, a crooked, hopeful smiling lighting up her face.
Christen smiled around the lid of her coffee. Kelley and Sonny were back before she could say anything though. Instead, as Tobin and Sonny got into a playful argument about the latest league game that they’d won, Christen pulled out her phone. She opened her app and used her one free Reverse, and the profile she’d swiped left on popped up.
Everything looked just like Christen had advised her, and in the profile it said “the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen told me my profile looked like a catfish, so hopefully she likes the updated version enough to give it a second chance”.
Her heart fluttered, her stomach swooped, Kelley smirked at her as if she knew exactly what had happened. She swiped right without a second thought.
Tobin’s phone buzzed. Kelley, who at this point was well on her way to earning herself the best Christmas present of all time this year, jumped into the conversation and took over so Tobin could flip her phone on the table. Her eyes shot up to Christen’s and the biggest smile Christen had seen so far crawled across her face in a way that made the fluttering in her stomach worse. She messed around with her phone for a moment, and Christen glanced down when her phone buzzed with an incoming message.
It’s A Match!
She opened the chat notification that popped up the moment Tobin swiped right. All it said was, ‘told you we were going to be seeing more of each other’.
Christen grinned, Tobin nudged her foot under the table, and Kelley looked smug as hell.
Yeah, Kelley had been right. She was going to really like Portland.