The Blind Date by Landish, Lauren (suggested reading .txt) 📕

for his walker. “And what a reason too. See you next week, Sunshine.”

Viktor turns and slowly makes his way toward the outdoor patio and the warm sunshine there while Arielle and I watch him go, chuckling. “Can you believe him?” I ask when he’s out of earshot. “Old enough to be our grandfather, and he’s still trying to hit on us!”

“Men,” Arielle says sagely. “Once puberty kicks in, they’ve got two things on their minds. Food and sex. Both of which you could use some more of. Speaking of, have you checked the app today? Your hook get any fishies?”

She gets up as she asks, putting her finger in her cheek and pulling herself toward the kitchen. I grin and follow her.

“Maybe . . .” I tease out.

“Oh, this I’ve got to hear. But we work while we talk around here, so help me with this rice pudding. I’ll scoop, you top with raisins. Five each. So help me, if you put too many or too few, there will be rioting in the dining room and I’ll have to tranq them.” She’s kidding. I think.

We wash up, put on gloves, and Arielle grabs an ice cream scoop. Plopping a serving of white mush from the big, steaming pot on the stove into a dish, she sets it in front of me and I carefully place five raisins on top.

“Talk and work. Tell me about your DMs,” Arielle demands, never missing a beat with her scooping.

“I had a lot of messages, actually, but the one we looked at last night—the ninety-six percent match that I messaged?” I’m explaining like Arielle forgot overnight despite her near-perfect memory and her nodding like a bobblehead. “He messaged me back.”

“Yeah!” she yells. “That’s good, right? I mean he’s not creepy or anything?” The worry on her face tells me that she really is concerned about that.

“If you thought there might be creeps on there, why did you tell me to do it?” I sputter.

She shrugs. “There are creeps everywhere, Riley. What are you gonna do? Never date because the dude from the produce section might be a serial cheater? Because he might also be a loyal, faithful, monogamous guy who wants to treat you like a queen. Same with the guy from an app. Possibly awful, potentially amazing.”

“Fine,” I agree, knowing she’s right.

“So, which is he? Mark, right?”

“Yeah, Mark. I think he might be amazing. Or at least he seemed like it for the three hours we talked this morning.”

I drop that tidbit, knowing that like a grenade, it’ll detonate in three, two, one . . .

“What?!” Arielle screeches, stopping her multi-tasking to stare at me. “Lead with that next time, bitch. Start with ‘hello, Arielle’ and then follow up with ‘I talked to a man online for three hours and might finally get laid’ next.”

“Arielle! It wasn’t like that,” I argue. “We weren’t sexting. It’s not Tinder, that’s the point! We talked about. . . stuff.”

“What sort of stuff? Give me the play by play so I can make sure you’re not getting catfished.” Arielle’s insistence is written clear as day in the set of her lips and the focus in her eyes. She might’ve gone back to scooping rice pudding, but her full attention is on me, and she’ll go Mama Bear in a heartbeat if she thinks her cub—that’d be me—needs protecting.

Slowly, it all pours out.

I tell her about Mark’s first brush-off, and she scoffs, singing an off-skew version of Ariana Grande’s song, “No, thank you. Next.” The song is complete with a stop-right-there palm, a turned away face, and an aggrieved huff.

“It was okay. He immediately messaged me again, apologizing and asking for a second chance. And when we really started talking, it was like we had this connection.” My explanation seems to soften her by degrees, especially the part where he apologized.

Arielle hums along as I tell her about the rest of our conversation, asking questions here and there.

“He really didn’t ask you for a picture or even what you look like?”

“Nope. I kinda wanted to ask him, but since he didn’t and it’s kind of the point of the app, it just didn’t seem right.” I shrug, though now that Arielle’s brought it up again, I’m massively curious about what Mark looks like. “Do you think I should ask him tonight? But if I ask him, he’s going to ask me, and it’s not like I can send him a picture. It’s too risky. He might know I’m Riley Sunshine.” I talk myself into and out of that idea in a mere split second.

“I think you’re right,” Arielle says. “Talk to him again and see where it leads. Maybe nowhere, and then it won’t matter. And if the next few conversations go well, you can meet in person and explain the fake name and fame.”

Fake name. I’d kinda forgotten that part. Mark started short-handing Rachel for the letter ‘R’, and I’d read it as Riley automatically. There will definitely be some things to discuss if we do meet up, but not yet.

For now, I’m enjoying being Rachel—a regular, everyday nobody who might’ve met someone special. And I don’t want to let that go yet.

"But make sure you let me or Eli know if you decide to meet this guy. We need date, time, and place info in case you go missing. We want the cops to know where to start looking for your body.”

“Arielle! That’s awful. And scary,” I tell her.

She shrugs carelessly, as though police hunting for my missing body is no big deal, just another normal Tuesday. “And safe. You haven’t dated in a while, Riley. The world is different now, especially when you’re someone like you. Be safe with your body and your heart, but that doesn’t mean hiding away. I like that you’re taking risks and getting out there in the game. It’s about time, and you deserve it.”

“What about you?” I question carefully. She and Eli have been weird lately, and I wonder if they’re moving back in to an ‘on’ phase for