Easy Love

by Piper Lawson

“That girl does not order the vegan special,” Rena observes. “She’s salivating for a big Dr. Strange steak. Did you match with her?”

  “I haven’t submitted a sample.” Rena scoffs, and I narrow my eyes at her. “My priority is selling this app. Not some personal mission.”

  “Good marketing is personal.”

  “Then you submit a sample,” I hear myself say.

  “My longest-term relationship is with my electric toothbrush.”

  This girl’s certifiable. “Come on.” I tug her across the hall to an empty lab and swipe my card. “I’m going to blow your mind with science.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  The supplies are in the first cupboard, and I grab a sample kit with the efficiency of having done it a thousand times. “Open your mouth.”

  She raises a brow. “Really? We’ve only been on one date.”

  I roll my eyes and she complies.

  “Was it as good for you as it was for me?” she asks after I swab her cheek.

  I seal the swab in a bag and drop it in the processing box. “It was better.”

  I’m rewarded with a laugh. The real, loud, sudden kind.

  She thinks I’m joking, but I do like showing someone. She doesn’t understand it, but she’s trying to. Unlike most of the undergrads in my labs at school, she’s here and trying. That matters to me.

  I force myself to focus. “So, ah, what happens next is the lab runs it. I’ll have results back to you in a few days. There’s a database for people who opted into other research opportunities. If you were actually part of the sample, you’d find matches and have the option to arrange to meet up with compatible partners through the app.”

  “How many in New York?”

  I shrug. “Ten thousand.”

  Her eyes round as she grabs my arm. “Stop it. You have a research population of ten thousand people in this city who want to hook up? I mean, find lasting love or whatever?”

  I’m distracted by the warmth of her fingers through my sweater. “Yes.”

  She shakes her head hard enough her ponytail flicks a path behind her. “You could be sitting on a gold mine, Wes Robinson.”

  Unease and anticipation fight in my gut. “You’ve done this before, right?”

  Rena’s brows draw together. “For sure. It’s what our company does.”

  “But you personally.” I’m taking a lot on faith based on Jake’s suggestion.

  “Listen, Wes. People are motivated by money, sex, acceptance. If you have a product they think will match them with the right person for life? That’s two for three. You can’t beat that. Unless you’re selling empathetic prostitutes with investment advice.”

  I’m not sure what to make of that, but her words alleviate some of my fears. “Fine. Name your price.”

  “Depends what needs to be done. Website, full campaign can be six figures. You want some brand work, copy, it’s less.”

  I’m choking on incredulity. It’s thicker than oxygen.

  “But first, I told you I’d take a look,” she says as if she can see me struggling. “And I will. I’ll give you my read.”

  “Thanks.” I glance down at her my arm. Her hand’s gone so I shouldn’t feel its warm imprint. “As long as it won’t be awkward for you given how we met.”

  “In a restaurant? Or because I jumped you?” Rena reaches up to tug on her ponytail. I follow the motion, my gaze lingering too long on the spot where her fingertips meet her hair. The way her chin tilts up at the same time.

  “I was referring to the latter.”

  “It’s forgotten. Is it going to be a problem for you?”

  My abs are twitching again, and it’s not from the workout this afternoon with Jake. “Of course not.”

  It can’t be.

  Because working with her while I’m cultivating a mild obsession with what it would be like to tug on that ponytail is a terrible idea.

  5

  Rena

  It’s not until I make my way back to the office to pickup files to work on with Netflix and takeout tonight that I realize I’m not sure what happened.

  I agreed to the meeting out of guilt. But when Wes told me he has ten thousand data points, it was like a marketer’s wet dream. An entire population ready to target doesn’t come along every day. This is the kind of project I could make my career on.

  I might’ve gone a bit overboard stating my experience. But I told him what he needed to hear because I can help him.

  And because he’s a friend of Jake’s.

  Not because looking into those blue-gray eyes affected me.

  It didn’t.

  Nor did seeing him in his natural element, surrounded by technical equipment, revealing more of the competence I’m guessing is as much a part of him as the broad shoulders and firm mouth.

  I pull up pages on my phone as I navigate the streets in my heels, dodging bodies in my peripheral vision.

  According to the internet, there are a handful of companies claiming to do DNA dating. Most have patents pending for their methods, and none operate on the scale of the major dating sites.

  But if it works? If people buy into it and want to try it? It could be the next huge thing.

  I have friends and acquaintances who’ve spent thousands of dollars and hours on online dating, convinced the right person is one swipe away.

  As for me? I’ve done the hookup app thing, but it ended up introducing a layer of technology I never understood.

  Because one, I don’t have a hard time meeting guys. Two, I’m not shy to introduce myself. And three, I like casual hookups.

  The beauty of having someone you barely know is that you get the best of them. Your brain fills in the blanks. Like if he shows up in workout clothes, you assume he just came from the gym.

  (Not that he never wears real pants.)

  Date him long enough and you get the hard truth.

  The more you get to know someone, the more likely you are to find a fatal flaw. It’s like every time you see them, you unwrap another layer. There’s bound to be some nasty stuff under the surface.

  I know firsthand because I have my own share of fatal flaws.

  As I’m walking, a text pops up from a number I added today.

  * * *

  Wes: Here’s some more info on the research.

  * * *

  I click through, and it’s, like, size-eight font. While the words aren’t in my vocabulary and the acronyms make my eyes cross, it takes me all of ten seconds to figure out he’s into some next-level shit.

  * * *

  Rena: What language is it in?

  * * *

  Wes: I’m not going to respond to that

  * * *

  My mouth twitches.

  I run a search on his name plus the word “research,” and find a LinkedIn profile. Sure enough, he went to those fancy schools and won more awards than I can count.

  Even in whatever grad school picture they had of him, his hair was messy and his eyes were gorgeous. Like some brainiac Tom Hiddleston.

  Still. The look on Wes’s face when I told him how much this would cost was the first strike in the “potential client” department.

  People want our services, they pay.

  A lot.

  There’s another problem.

  Closer works with companies long term. Ones who want to build a customer base, foster them, grow over time. Quick flips and venture capital aren’t our thing.

  But I’ll deal with that problem when I get to it.

  I tuck the phone away as I approach my office building, wiping a bead of sweat from along my hairline.

  In front of the dispensary window, I do a double take. I jerk open the door and stride inside. The man who runs it glances my way, but I pull up next to the woman sitting in the waiting room.

  “Mom? What are you doing here?” I ask.

  She’s the same height as me but with hair a couple shades warmer and dark aviators. She sighs, as though she’s not even surprised to see me,
and lifts the glasses, revealing dark eyes. “I was in the neighborhood for a deposition and thought I’d drop by after.”

  “To see me or buy weed?”

  “For a deposition,” she says primly, turning back to the proprietor. “Is it my turn?”

  “Mom? You’re not buying cannabis,” I say even as she reaches into her briefcase.

  “I need it for my condition.”

  Her condition is delusion, so I doubt this will help. But she produces a medical card, and my jaw drops.

  “Dr. Anderson gave you a prescription?”

  “It’s a recommendation. For my…” She waves a hand toward her stomach.

  “IBS?”

  I get that my mom’s life wasn’t the easiest. She got pregnant with me before college and ended up marrying my dad although they had nothing in common except a desire to make their mark on the world and be seen doing it.

  Through nannies and force of will she got through undergrad and law school. Now my mom has half a law practice, sits on the board of two charities, and still insists on cooking family dinner Sunday night.

  But my mom is extra enough without escalating to recreational or medicinal drug use.

  I grab her wrist and drag her out the front door, dropping onto the bench in front of the dispensary.

  “What’s really going on?” I demand.

  She lifts her chin as if I’m being ridiculous but finally relents. “It’s your brother. He’s acting out. He hasn’t signed up for his usual extracurriculars. He was removed from his economics class. If this doesn’t stop, it will affect his chances of getting into Brown.”

  “The horror,” I say, trying to sound as if I care and half pulling it off.

  She lowers her voice. “It’s not only about admissions. His classmate went to the hospital last week to have his stomach pumped from stolen pills.”

  And there it is.

  It’s not surprising, but it still sucks. Those kinds of stories weren’t unusual when I was in high school. Apparently, not much has changed. Everyone’s parents are concerned with admissions to Ivy schools and who’s hosting the parties on long weekends. No one wants to talk about this part. It’s not pretty or fun.

  My mom’s gaze flicks back to the door. “I reasoned that if I was going to get painkillers, at least I’d get something that wouldn’t hurt him if he found them. I already have these, but they look like they have a lot of calories.”

  She reaches into her black briefcase, unzips an interior pocket, and discreetly lifts a clear bag with what looks like gummy bears in it.

  My brows shoot up, and the burning in my stomach intensifies.

  I’m going back to those antacids when I get upstairs to my office.

  A black car squeaks into a spot by the curb, and something tells me it’s for her.

  “Mom, those are not going to help. Neither is what’s in there.” I nod toward the dispensary. “Trust me.”

  My mother starts to tuck the bag away, and I hold out a hand.

  Living in Philly for the last six years, I got used to not seeing the family drama all the time. It’s amazing how it can all but disappear, but now that I’m home, even though I live thirty blocks away, it’s almost as if I never left.

  I should let them do what they want. I shouldn’t care, but I remember Wes’s question about why Beck’s doing what he is.

  The bottom line is they’re still my family. I didn’t pick them, but I can’t walk away either.

  “I’ll talk to Beck,” I press. “See if I can get to the bottom of this.”

  With a sigh, she hands over the bag and I tuck it away. “Fine. But come for dinner Sunday. Wear a dress. The kind that covers your midriff. And take your hair out of that ridiculous ponytail. You look like a boy.”

  Even though it was my suggestion, I feel as though I’ve been played before she slides the Chanel sunglasses onto her face and disappears into the car, her black briefcase the last thing I see before the door shuts.

  6

  Wes

  “What are these doing here?” I stare at the box of National Geographic magazines sitting on the hall floor of the three-bedroom Jersey bungalow.

  “I was going to recycle them,” my mom calls, appearing in the kitchen doorway wearing jeans and a yellow sweater.

  I close the front door behind me and take off my shoes. I left my jacket and tie at school, and rolled up the sleeves of my dress shirt before getting on the subway.

  I lift one of the magazines, which has a man scaling a 1500-year-old redwood tree on the cover. My dad used to read those magazines to me.

  Eventually, I read them to him. By the end he was so out of it from painkillers he barely knew I was there, but that didn’t dissuade me.

  “You could keep them,” I tell her. “They don’t take that much space.”

  “No. My living room looked like the waiting room at a dentist’s office for thirty years. No more.”

  I ignore her and lift the box, starting toward the kitchen. My mom doesn’t move, and we stare each other down.

  Technically, I’m the one looking down—because she’s a head shorter—but what she lacks in size she makes up for in stubbornness.

  At least she didn’t pass that down to me.

  “Fine. I’ll take them.” I set the box by the door, though I’m not looking forward to navigating transit with it. I’m also not sure where it’ll go in the apartment I’m renting from an NYU professor on sabbatical.

  “You have any idea how many of my friends’ sons never visit?” she says after I return to the kitchen. “You come once a week.”

  I play along. “I bet their moms don’t order sushi for dinner.”

  It’s a skill you get good at, moving from blowup to civility. I used to think it was a weakness, but when my dad got sick, I learned it’s easy to pick fights. It’s harder to let go when each disagreement dredges up everything you did and didn’t do from the past, like a thousand cuts that never heal.

  She takes me in, smiling. “How was your week?”

  “It’s not over yet,” I say under my breath, leaning a hip against the counter.

  No matter what went down in this house, I feel as if I can be me here. At school, I need to put on a front. Here, like when I’m working out with Jake, I don’t have to pretend I care when I don’t.

  I teach four biology classes a day.

  The freshmen aren’t too bad.

  The seniors have realized they need to at least make an effort to get into school.

  The juniors are the worst. It’s like they know better.

  “They’re teenagers,” my mother advises. “They’ve got shiny new parts and are taking them for a spin.”

  “The problem isn’t their… parts. It’s that they know the world’s at their fingertips. And they have no respect for it.”

  I survived growing up lower middle class, working my way up as an academic, in an industry that prides itself on putting prospects through a medieval gauntlet of tests of mental strength and stamina, only to emerge on the other side and have to opt out before claiming my prize when my father’s cancer returned.

  When my dad got the stage four diagnosis, his longtime friend helped to arrange the teaching position so I could pay the bills and be close to home. I’ve only met Terry Crawford a couple of times, but he’s the foremost cardiologist on the East Coast. Plus, he’s published his share of academic papers. I respect him professionally in a way that’s different from respecting my father’s work ethic.

  If I want the chance to win back the tenure-track faculty position I turned down in Seattle in April on account of my dad’s illness, I’m going to need some strong people in my corner. People with influence, like Terry Crawford.

  “I know how much Dad loved Baden,” I say, half to myself. “I just can’t for the life of me understand why.”

  I walk past her into the living room. My chest contracts every time I’m here. As if I’m waiting for him to walk in.

  “He loved you too.” She
squeezes my arms from behind.

  And there’s a subject I want to get into as much as I want to drag my intestines out of my abdominal cavity inch by inch.

  Subject change.

  “How’s the clinic?”

  “Lots of cats this week. We’re overrun with neuters and spays. Frisky fall.”

  I think back to Jake’s words about getting a dog but dismiss them again. My mother needs support, not something to take up her time and shed all over the furniture.

  My phone rings with the lab’s number. I turn away for some semblance of privacy as I answer. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Dr. Robinson. It’s Carly.”

  I feel my mom’s gaze on me. “Hi. Your shift’s supposed to end at six.”

  “Yeah, well, we got caught up on your samples. Including the new one.” She sounds a little out of breath, as if she took the stairs.

  “That’s great.” I frown because it feels as if I’m missing the punch line. “And you’re calling because…?”

  “I wanted to let you know.”

  “Right. Thanks.” She’s still on the line. I can hear her breathing. “So did you send me the results?”

  “Just doing it. Well… have a good night.”

  “Who was that?” my mom asks after I hang up, feigning innocence.

  “A woman who works in the lab on a project I got drawn into.”

  I don’t tell her about the app, because she’s always been proud of my principles and what I’ve accomplished for the sake of science. I don’t want to tell her the financial hole I’m in. If she knew the extent of it, she wouldn’t have let me cover my dad’s funeral expenses and half his medical bills.

  I pull out another box of magazines, which I assume are also on the chopping block.

  “You shouldn’t be at your mother’s house on a Thursday night.”

  “Where should I be?” I ask, mostly for something to say.

  “I don’t know. Where men in their late twenties are. In a nightclub or something.”

  I blink up at her. “In a nightclub. You think I’m 50 Cent?”