The Officer's Beauty

DING

After batting off my friends’ questioning stares for the rest of the evening, I finally managed to herd them out the door. I practically collapse onto the floor the moment the lock clicks. Tossing my phone next to me on the carpet, I gently double-tap the screen. A crisp ‘12:04’ glares back at me.

After midnight, already? Where did the time go? I shake my head and start to lean it back against the door just before noticing something else on the screen. Suddenly, I throw my body forward, lunging toward the phone. Scooping it into my hands, I tap again just as the screen darkens. There, staring back at me, is one new notification.

“So, which is it?” The message was right there. A name I didn’t recognize. A question I didn’t understand. Which is it? Which is what?

I scrunch my mouth to the side in confusion and unlock my phone. Immediately, I open the dating app that houses the source of all my anxiety and confusion. Nothing is cleared up when I open the message. ‘Which is it?’ Those three words stabbed into my retina. My brain flies through idea after idea, memory after memory. Finally, I go to my own profile in hopes of finding a clue.

Right there, the answer was plastered across the screen. It might as well have been dripping in red paint. ‘I either swiped because I’m bored or because you made me drool. There’s no in between.’

I scoff and roll my eyes at my own cringy way of introducing myself. What, I had nothing better to say? Still burning with frustration, I swipe back to the message and properly look at the person I allowed my best friend to tie me to completely. He has a strong jaw and dark hair that’s trimmed close to the scalp on the sides and fluffier up top. His eyebrows cover half his face, but they draw my eyes to his. The deep brown staring at me has me casually melting into my own pool of hot chocolate. Well, more like a white mocha.

The contrast of his dark hair and warm eyes with his caramel skin works against me. I didn’t want to like this man. I definitely was not meant to find him attractive. There’s no way I could respond to him now. I mean, what if he is actually nice? Funny? Smart? That would do me in entirely. I would never survive this man.

No. I won’t respond. Tossing my phone to the side, I let my head fall back on the wood panel door. My neck crackles like bubble wrap as I let out a low sigh. Fluttering shut, my eyes start to feel the burn of a long night. Just as relaxation begins to set in, I pop back up. Back rigid, eyes wide open, jaw set in a determined grimace, I pick my phone back up.

‘Well, wouldn’t you like to know?’ I finish it off with a cute winking emoji and send the response before I can even think to question myself.

I stare at the blue bubble and gnaw lightly on my bottom lip. There’s no way I just did that. Tell me I did not just do that. God, I sound like such an i***t. Who do I think I am –

Bubbles. Three bubbles. Moving in a fluid wave straight into my throat. They hit the lump lodged there. Holy s**t. He’s responding. He already saw it. He already saw it, and he is responding to my idiocy.

Then, they’re gone, vanished, as though they never existed.

“Great, he thinks I’m a vapid freak. Just like me, I ruined it already,” I sigh and throw myself back against the door with a groan. My eyes flutter shut, and I ignore the aching in my skull. Something feels like it’s buzzing through me, like a horde of angry hornets crackling against my skin. They’re moving through my wrist into my fingers, trying to burst out. I flex my fingers and realize it isn’t a reign of ravaging hornets but my phone. A new notification has my phone vibrating through my fingertips. My stomach twists when I finally lift the phone to my face.

Cracking one eye open just a little and then the other until I have somehow managed to craft a clear enough picture of my screen, I allow my nerves to simmer just enough to check the notification.

‘I really, really would. How about you let me take you to dinner so we can really get down to the bottom of this.’

The words make my eyes bulge from their sockets. Totally Mr. Magoo-ing it, I shove my face closer to the screen, wondering if I read that correctly. Then I read it over and over and over again. ‘Take you to dinner’ rings through my head in varying male voices. Some are deep, some are mopey, one even sounded a bit like . . . Johnny Depp as that one pirate? Odd.

Subconsciously, I suck my lower lip between my top and bottom teeth. I can feel it slowly inflating, but I continue to suck while anxiously staring at the text. Dinner. With this man? I click into the app again and go back to his profile. There’s nothing too interesting. It all seems like the basic male things. He is a self-proclaimed workaholic, addicted to gaming with “his boys” when he has free time, enjoys a nice Jack and Coke on the weekends, and admits to having a college degree, though he doesn’t say from where. I casually swipe through the pictures. The first one, he’s in a Carhartt hoodie, standing somewhere in downtown Las Vegas. It hits me as a typical full-body picture, more likely that a female friend or sister told him that it was necessary. Still, his eyes are captivating, like they’re finding a way to cement themselves in my frontal lobe. Staring straight into my soul.

I swipe to the next picture and am hit by the overwhelming urge to kiss this man. My lower lip pulls from the top, slightly sticking to it before yanking away to show a sliver of my front teeth. The air feels a little hotter and harder to draw in. My lungs are laboriously trying to suck in oxygen as my mind spins around the fictional scene behind my eyes. His face lights up my whole screen, his strong arms prominent in the mirror. I keep staring, completely glazed over, until another notification brings me back to reality.

“Not to be too forward, but what are you doing right now?”