Quadruplets Make Six

Joanna and I sat on the couch, swiping through guys as we sipped on our wine. Joanna kept pointing out details she liked. The color of a guy’s eyes or how big his arms were. How kind his smile seemed or how chiseled his stomach was. But I wasn’t looking for that. Not really. I was more concerned about what they enjoyed. The things they liked doing. It didn’t make sense for me to try and talk with a guy who enjoyed sailing and parachuting when I was a homebody who read books, binged television shows, and ate Chinese takeout more than I cooked in.

“What about him?” Joanna asked. “He’s pretty cute.”

I almost spat out my wine once I figured out who I was looking at.

I swiped right immediately and clicked on my messages. His picture was there, with that beautiful smile and those piercing blue eyes. I tapped his picture and his profile popped up, and I started flipping through his pictures. There were more of him. Pictures of him smiling in a bathing suit with his rippling abs. Pictures of him on a luxurious airplane ride in a tailored suit

Pictures of him hunched over a book reading as his arms bulged from his button-down shirt.

“Oh shit. He’s a reader like you, too. Message him, Libby. Message him now.”

It was Graham.

I was staring at Graham.

I flipped back to my messages as a smile crawled across my face. I felt Joanna get off the couch and head towards the kitchen. The glugging of wine could be heard as she filled her glass back up, then she came and sat back down beside me before peering over my shoulder.

“Did you send him something? What did you say?” she asked.

“I asked him what book he was reading in the picture. I can’t tell which one it is.”

“That’s it?” she asked. “No cute little pick up line or something to make you stand out?”

“I don’t think I’ll need it with him,” I said with a grin.

“Have you seen those pictures of his house we just flipped through?”

“What makes you think those are of his house?” I asked.

“Why the hell else would he have them up there? What guy puts random pictures of a house that’s not his on his dating profile?”

“To make women think it’s his house when really he lives in a shack on the side of the road?” I asked.

“But that suit. I know my suits. That’s a tailored Armani suit. This man, whoever he is? He’s loaded. Go back. Let me see his face again.”

“Joanna-”

“Just… go back, Libby.”

I flipped back to the main picture on his profile and Joanna gasped. She ripped my phone from my hand as her wine sloshed around in her glass, threatening to spill over onto her lap.

“What in the world?” I asked. “What is wrong with you?”

“You have no idea who that is, do you?” Joanna asked.

“It says his name is Graham,” I said. “Says here it’s the owner and CEO of his own company.”

“You really need to get out more,” she said breathlessly. “Sweetheart, that’s Graham Alexander.”

“Yeah?” I asked.

Joanna looked at me as if I’d swallowed a bug.

“That name doesn’t ring a bell at all?” she asked.

“Is it supposed to?”

“You pass the damn building every day when you go to the law firm,” she said. “Galex Technologies? That massive black building with the tinted windows and the valet parking?”