Birthday Love

Martin

My phone buzzes on the glass table that has definitely seen better days. My head snaps up, but I can’t tell which one it was: my work phone or my personal one. No notifications on the work phone. I let out a relieved breath. I really don’t have the mental capacity right now to deal with a client call on top of everything else. Still, my stomach knots, because that means something came through on my personal phone. I unlock the screen. The little Tinder icon is sitting in the top bar. I swipe down.

I’m gonna be late, sorry. You know, public transit— he writes, with an eye-roll emoji.

Great. So I can keep tapping my shoe against the tile for a while longer. I catch myself chewing the skin around my thumb. Disgusting habit. I’d managed to quit months ago, but there are situations where it still comes back. Apparently, this is one of them. I have no idea what he’s going to think. How he’ll react when he sees me. I’m Martin. That is not the name he’s been looking at for days.

For a second, I question whether this whole thing has been one huge fucking mistake.

From the very first moment, really. From the moment I signed up and started swiping left on everyone until I finally saw him. My chest grew heavy when I swiped right. I don’t even know what I expected. That it would be an instant match, maybe. But no. The next guy came up. I was relieved, I’ll admit it. Maybe I wouldn’t have to go through with this after all.

That hope didn’t last long. A few minutes later, the notification popped up: new match. It wasn’t hard to guess who it was. He sent a GIF right away, some cute dog lifting its paw with a simple hello written on it. I swallowed hard and replied, hoping he didn’t know the old friend whose pictures I’d used. Said friend had agreed, by the way, that if I wanted to use his photos anonymously to hook up with some American pussy, he didn’t care. He lived on the other side of the planet anyway. Well, that wasn’t exactly what I’d used them for. But he didn’t need to know that.

The conversation picked up quickly. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Of course, I had to be careful not to say anything suspicious. Though I’m pretty sure he had no idea I was even in the city. New York is huge. I doubt he would’ve run into me on the street.

I told him the truth about being a lawyer, about going to law school, about liking metal music, and about Brussels sprouts being one of my favorite steamed vegetables. He replied with a puking emoji, which made me smile. But then I added that I fucking love döner, and that earned me a little lip-licking emoji. Then he asked where I was from.

That was where I had to lie. How the hell was I supposed to tell him that I’d moved here from Hungary, and that we had gone to the same high school?That I had probably made the kind of stupid mistake only an idiotic teenager would make—except maybe it had felt like more than a mistake to him. So I told him I was American born and raised.

He admitted honestly that he had moved here from that tiny little shithole of a country, hoping for something better. He works as a receptionist at a well-known hotel, sometimes he’s sick to death of certain guests, but overall he likes it and he’s doing okay. He lives alone, has a cat he’s actually allergic to, and sometimes finds cat hair in corners of his apartment he didn’t even know existed.

He told me he loves those egocentric little bitches so much that he didn’t care that, at first, he looked like he was high every day, with red eyes and a runny nose. Eventually he got used to it, and now it doesn’t bother him anymore. He even sent me a picture. It really is a cute animal. A spotted cat, still young. Her name is Muffin. I asked him if he really couldn’t come up with anything more original than that, and he told me he’d adopted her from a shelter back when he was working at a bakery and loved the smell of freshly baked muffins, so that was the name he gave her.

He admitted he’d been single for years and still didn’t really know why he was on the app at all. He gets by perfectly fine on his own, but some small part of him wants someone in the city who loves him besides Muffin. His family still lives in Hungary, he sees them about twice a year, and he doesn’t have many friends. His coworkers have stayed firmly in the coworker category. He hasn’t really gotten close to anyone. To soften the drama, he added a shrugging GIF from some random movie.

I’ll admit it. My heart broke for him. Just like it used to. Only back then, he didn’t know that. I was the one who suggested we meet up. He was happy to.

After way too much searching, I found this coffeehouse. Cozy enough that it doesn’t feel like you’re drinking a cappuccino in the middle of Times Square, but big enough for me to hide at a table behind one of the columns, staring at the back of a golden monkey statue whose ass reflects the lamplight so brightly it practically burns my retinas.

Every time the little bell over the door rings, my head snaps up, even though otherwise I keep my gaze fixed on the floor in front of me. And I’m still chewing the skin around my thumb. Maybe I need a cigarette. But there’s no back exit, and I don’t want him to see me for the first time standing by the front door. Besides, I didn’t spray myself with half a bottle of my favorite, ridiculously expensive cologne just so cigarette smoke could take over instead. I shove my hands into my pockets. Which only makes my other leg start bouncing against the floor too.

Maybe that bastard who’s trying to destroy his wife in a divorce case should call after all. At least it would distract me. But I’m not that lucky, and I’m not calling him either. The guy makes me sick. Still, work is work. I turn my head and spend a long moment staring at one of the items written on the menu board on the wall. It has alcohol in it. Maybe that would loosen me up.

Then the realization hits me like a slap: I never even replied to him. I just left him on read. I grab my phone so fast I knock the work one, and it almost launches itself straight out the window. Which is impressive, considering I’m sitting nowhere near it. I unlock the screen and open the app immediately.

No worries, I’ve got time— I type. Then I sit there wondering what kind of emoji to put with it. A winky face? No. A halo? I don’t believe in angels. A plain smiley? I’m not a serial killer. In the end, I settle on a simple blushing smiley. I hit send quickly and stare at the screen like I’ve been hypnotized, waiting to see if he reads it. One minute passes. Then two. Nothing. I put the phone back down on the table. I pull my right hand out of my pocket and start chewing the skin around my thumb again. Fuck it. The thumb, I mean.