Swipe Right for Murder Read online

  “We’re having an early dinner with my parents,” says Tats. “And tomorrow morning he’s interviewing with Deutsche Bank.”

  “Nice,” I say, staring into my lap. I haven’t been on top of this whole summer-internship thing as much as everyone else has, apparently. Personally, I think they’re bullshit. But maybe they aren’t. One of my uncles is a survivalist hunter-type who lives in Maine. But my other uncle is a Hollywood script doctor, and there were some vague plans for me to go out to LA for a few weeks, be a pseudo research assistant for him, and “meet people.” The movie business sort of interests me (although so does a lot of stuff), my uncle is gay, too, and for five seconds I thought maybe I could be the next Dustin Lance Black. That’s as far as I got with my summer. Now I wonder if that’s lame. “I’ll probably just take a nap,” I say, softly.

  “We were up pretty late,” says Jackson.

  “He made me watch a movie,” I tell Tats. “Forced it on me, really.”

  Maybe I’m the only one in the world who finds Netflix stressful. Granted, I find fairly mundane things to be stressful, but how is it fun to spend hours cycling and arguing through their limited selection of mostly second-tier Elijah Wood projects and then be unable to pick something decent? The good stuff you’ve already seen. So what happens is—I mean what happened last night is—you just give up in the end and wind up streaming a Dutch lesbian movie called Loving Klara. And then it’s ninety-four minutes of two Dutch ladies with strange haircuts running down a rocky beach while one of them keeps shouting: “Klara! Wait! No! Klara!”

  That was the whole goddamn movie.

  “We were up past three,” says Jackson. He explains the plot to Tats. “It kind of sucked. And it was very foreign. But I wanted to see what happened in the end.”

  “And what happened?” she asks.

  “Klara jumps off a cliff,” I say.

  “Why?” Tatiana’s hands hover over her cheeks; she looks so stricken.

  “Because she’s Klara. And that’s what Dutch lesbians named Klara do, I guess,” I say.

  Jackson signals for the check.

  “Poor Klara,” says Tatiana, shaking her head, looking even more stricken. She’s good at looking stricken.

  We pay the ginormous bill. Or Tats does, anyway, saying the tea is on her. Jackson gives me a bro hug—slingshot into the body, sharp slap on the shoulder, and then a quick pivot off. Tats gives me a hug and air kisses me on both cheeks because she’s way cool and that’s what they do in Singapore.

  “I’m so glad we got to see you,” says Tats.

  “Yeah, well, thanks for coming all the way up here,” I say, trying to quell an unexpected surge of anxiety that I’m about to be alone in a hotel in New York City.

  Jackson whispers in my ear. “I might go out later. Friend of my cousin is hosting a warehouse party. Bushwick. Want to come with?”

  “Wait. What about Tats?”

  “What about her? She falls asleep early.”

  “Okay. Maybe?”

  “Don’t be worried about that test. I’m sure your heart is fine.”

  “I’m not that worried.”

  “If I don’t see you, have fun with your folks tomorrow.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “And sorry about your aunt.”

  “She’ll be okay.”

  “I hope my story didn’t freak you out.”

  “What story?”

  “Drew. The avalanche.”

  “I don’t really like skiing, so…”

  “Shit does happen.” He squeezes my shoulder. “But not to you.”

  I smile. “Be good.”

  “No. You be good.” He sticks a gold toothpick in his mouth. Only he could pull that shit off. He points at me. “And you know what I mean.”

  I do know what he means. But I probably won’t behave.

  “Later, gator,” says Jacks.

  Then they bounce. Like beach balls.

  I take the elevator to my room, where I still haven’t unpacked. I throw myself on the bed, wanting to do something productive. So I read a little of this book I like called The Age of Wonder. It’s about all these cool scientific discoveries made in the late eighteenth century leading into the Romantic period.

  I think history is pretty cool. All those different time periods, each characterized by a different tone, different values, and different ways of thinking. Maybe the Romantic period could get exhausting with everyone swooning and being emotional, but I bet the Renaissance was a pretty badass time to be on this planet—maybe a little cliquey, though, if you weren’t sculpting enough.

  Now, the Age of Enlightenment I’m not sure about. You couldn’t complain at all. People would be like: Wait, you didn’t love the second season of Westworld? It’s amazing! And you’d be like, eh, too many minor characters, and everyone would go on about you needing to be more enlightened about the character arcs in Westworld. You’d probably have to pretend you thought the Chainsmokers were prophets or something.

  But the freakin’ Dark Ages? People gave zero fucks. And it lasted forever! The Roman Empire was in ruins; you could die in the Crusades, catch the Black Death, get burned alive if you pissed off the wrong guy. And all those medieval torture devices? Holy shit. You probably had no idea if you would survive any given week. And people would be like: What? Your dad is giving you shit about using the car? This is the Dark Ages, dude. I just beheaded my whole family with an ax because I felt like it.

  You could get away with anything.

  CHAPTER 2

  War in Heaven

  I fall asleep, but only for a minute or so. I turn on the TV and take in some of their “digital content on demand.” I love how hotels think phones don’t exist. Sure, Mandarin Oriental, I’ll pay thirty bucks to watch the latest Jason Statham movie.

  I’ve always thought hotels are romantic and disorienting, but vacations in general are weird. Being lost in time as the days tick off in a mad rush to return you home. The weeklong sunburns. Those eerie, empty hours before dinner. The soapy-sweet smell of hotel rooms. The muted sound of television voices through the walls. People whispering as they sift down the carpeted halls. Deep, strange dreaming in stiff alien bedding. And those heavy curtains you’re reluctant to close.

  I take out my phone and open DirtyPaws, the gay hookup app I was checking earlier under our table during tea. But I had a blank profile because I had just re-downloaded it on the train in. Nothing good can come from this, but I cobble together a profile (“on break” says my headline), forgo a screen name, throw a few photos on, and get seven hits right away.

  Two messages from faceless profiles: “Cute,” they both say. I delete these.

  One headless torso (screen name: TDawgPA) on PrEP just gives me a room number. Delete.

  One dude in his late twenties (screen name: YoungLawyer) has a great smile, but he’s into unprotected sex (“bb only”), offers a negative HIV result from over a year ago (“phew!”), and just gives me a Thumbs Up emoticon. This shithead gets blocked.

  One European-looking gentleman (screen name: JetLag) who could be a Bond villain, and whose profile photo is of him in a white tux raising a glass of champagne (celebrating his latest kill?), offers me the honor of performing oral sex on him.

  They keep coming: little buzzing vibrations on my phone from the lonely, horny denizens of Columbus Circle. I scan through my options. Everyone is approximately 205 feet away. So many dudes doing that thing where they hold the phone slightly below the jaw in a full-length mirror, looking aloof, wearing only briefs.

  Whoa, wait.…

  My thumb freezes on a face I recognize, and I actually gasp a little.

  Darren Cohen.

  Well, well, well. Darren freakin’ Cohen: Witloff track star. Blond, blue-eyed all-American Hollister-type headed to Dartmouth next year. Dating Ashley Henderson, a cheerleader on her way to Wesleyan, who looks like Alicia Vikander. The app says he’s 56 feet away. I imagine him lying in bed right over my room, concurrently checkin
g out my profile with a nervously excited expression on his face.

  His screen name is JockNxtDoor. I crack up at that. He doesn’t say much on his profile; just lists his height and weight, which seems accurate. I lay the phone face down on my chest and consider this.

  Now I regret putting my face on my profile. I should have just put a photo of my chest like everyone else. I’m not sure what to do now. Darren is a total rock star at school. We haven’t crossed paths much. He’s someone I might have had a crush on, but he never seemed accessible enough. And I assumed he was straight. But, oh snap, I guess Ashley Henderson did, too. I pick up my phone and just stare at his face. The app says he’s still online. I purse my lips.

  Bond Villain is now offering me money. BLOCK.

  Then Darren freakin’ Cohen freakin’ messages me!

  Okay, Jamison, we’ve both seen each other.

  ME (playing it all cool): What do you want to do, man?

  DARREN: What is there to do, Jamison. Let’s hang.

  ME: You’re not really my type.

  Why did I just say that? I dance my fingertips nervously across my forehead.

  Darren just responds with his room number, as if he knows he’s everyone’s type and STFU. This simultaneously annoys me and really turns me on. Then Darren sends me more pics. My eyes go wide. Track does amazing things for your arms, abs, and legs, apparently. He’s genetically just a winner in all other categories.

  It takes me a moment to realize what these secondary pictures mean.

  He’s saying: we’re on.

  I swim, I remind myself. I’m not not in his league.

  I hop off the bed. I flick the lights on in the bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror. I look dazed. I squirt out some hair gel and swipe it through my hair, but that just makes everything worse. Boy-band spiky. Ugh. I wash my face, wondering about the world of Witloff, the shells we all hide in, and how once we exit those gates, where we all have these set roles, we emerge as different people. Am I nothing more than a horned-up skeeze who cruises hook-up apps?

  Then I glance at Darren’s abs again.

  Who. The. Fuck. Cares.

  I rummage through my luggage. I try on three different T-shirts and two different pairs of jeans before I decide to go more casual and put on some khaki shorts and a chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

  It’s the longest elevator ride of my life and it’s only ten floors up. I nearly strangle this lady who takes forever with her nine suitcases. Is she staying here for a year?

  Darren has left his door unlocked. “Just come in,” he calls.

  I walk inside. He’s on a higher floor, so his view is impressive, way better than mine. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, facing away from me, as if almost shy, framed by the lush park below. The sun is just beginning to set, rays of crimson and gold streaking through the mass of trees.

  Death rays.

  Now I feel like a total dork for worrying about what to wear. He’s wearing only one of those fluffy white robes they leave in the bathroom. I raise an eyebrow, but he’s used to parading around locker rooms.

  So am I, I have to remind myself. Although I don’t parade. It’s more like a rushed hustle.

  A breeze kicks up outside, and in the distance, over the tree tops, a funnel of white blossoms spirals around in a fury.

  Darren follows my gaze out the window. “That keeps happening. I keep thinking they’re feathers. That it’s a war in heaven. And all the angels are fighting.”

  There are several things I might have expected from Darren as a conversation starter. This was not one of them.

  “Milton,” he says. “Paradise Lost. Have you read it?”

  “Uh, no, have you?”

  “No. But I want to. I hear good things.” He turns to me. “Come in. Close the door.”

  Right. I walk inside. His TV is on mute. Bloomberg News. He stands up. He’s holding a glass. Ice clinks. “Want a drink?”

  “I’m good,” I say.

  “I don’t want to drink alone, man.”

  “Um. I’ll have what you’re having, then.”

  He goes to the desk. He’s unpacked his luggage. Flaps of expensive suitcases lie open like some sort of surgery that got interrupted. He has ice filled to the brim in a bucket. Playa. It was going to be me or somebody else.

  Better the devil you know, I think.

  He grabs a glass, a mini bottle of Absolut from the minibar, scoops ice, and pours me a drink. As he hands it to me, I hear the cubes crack. He clinks my glass with his—a bit too hard, so I sway back a little on my feet. “Cheers,” he says.

  “Yeah, cheers.”

  I take a sip. I don’t really drink. The sheer chemical burn of the Absolut makes me wince, and I’m sure it’s abundantly clear now to Darren that I don’t drink… or go to those parties where people do. For a second we just stand there, really awkwardly, holding our glasses like we’re at some corporate mixer or something, staring at each other. Then Darren turns, and confidently lies down on the king-size bed, patting the space next to him.

  I bite my lip.

  What do I do with my drink? Darren has placed his glass on his stomach, so I lie down next to him and do the same. This is even more awkward. We’re just lying next to each other now, pretending to be engrossed by the soaring price of strawberries on Bloomberg News. Then Darren brushes his bare leg against mine.

  “Take off your shoes at least,” he says.

  Yes. That was rude of me. “Sorry,” I say, sitting up, kicking off my red Vans.

  “No worries.” Darren sips his drink.

  I suddenly feel like we’re going to make this spectacular connection and we’ll be friends forever and I’ll always remember this moment we had together, this first time, with the blossoms falling outside. But then Darren puts down his drink, presses the side of his hand sharply into my chest so I immediately think of the EKG test and the transducer because I’m kind of sore right there. My drink tumbles onto the carpet.

  And then Darren just leans over me and kisses me.…

  It’s almost as if I hear an authoritative British voice narrating a nature documentary: Do you know what an anglerfish is?

  Holy shit, okay.

  It’s a fish with a huge mouth and tons of needle-like teeth sticking out. They have that lure thing dangling over their heads like a fishing rod that attracts prey. They’re hideous. But Darren is so damn pretty it takes me a full minute to rationalize the soul-crushing fact that kissing him is what kissing an anglerfish might be like—all teeth, no tenderness, total aggression.

  I can’t even begin to understand how someone could kiss so badly. It’s kissing. It’s innate. I reposition myself a little so his mouth will come at me from a slightly different angle, but that just makes it worse. I feel like I’m being… chewed.

  I begin to realize, slowly, sadly, that his mouth can never go near any other part of my body. I push him off. “Sorry,” I say. And I mean that in so many ways.

  He lies back, makes this ahhhh noise like that was the most satisfying moment of his life. We don’t say anything for a little while. I can’t unwiden my eyes. His robe has partially peeled away from his chest and I can’t help staring at his rigidly defined pecs. He’s way more ripped than me. I’m really just a skinny kid with some definition. My body hasn’t yet decided how hunky I can actually become. Darren must work out regularly, or have a trainer. I don’t have that. I don’t do that.

  “I always thought you were kind of cute,” he says, staring at the ceiling.

  I pull at a thread on my shirt. “Really?”

  “I mean since I saw your photo on DirtyPaws.”

  “That was ten minutes ago.”

  “Well, before, too. I realized it for sure when I saw your photo, though.”

  What?

  “I’m not really sure about anything,” he says.

  This sudden nonsensical vulnerability makes me like him a little more—but only a little, and not enough to kiss him again. My
stomach feels sour.

  I tend to physicalize sadness, I think.

  “I just never thought about you much,” he says. I can sense him trying to articulate more, but his voice has become distant. “I mean I’d see you around. But. You know… I guess that’s what I’m saying?”

  “What’s your deal?” I ask him, a little more sharply than I intended. I don’t really want this to end, oddly enough. I want to rewind five minutes before the terrible kissing and start over and have it be something else, something so much better than what it is.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you like dudes?”

  “Well, yeah,” he says, like it was so obvious all this time. “But not, like, at school. I can’t there. I have… you know. Because. No offense. I…”

  “Yeah. I get it. You’re someone else at school?” He’s in the closet. I’m trying so hard. I’m piloting a wounded plane into the sea.

  “I think I’m bi,” he offers, with a firm nod. “And this is all NSA, by the way.”

  I blink exactly three times. “National Security Agency?”

  Darren laughs, but it’s forced, polite laughter.

  There’s a button undone on my shirt. I button it back up.

  “Can I, like…” He’s reaching for me now, all wiggling fingers like he wants to tickle me. I recoil a little bit. I think of a crawfish or a lobster.

  I have no idea why all this ocean life keeps popping into my head right now.

  “What.”

  “I don’t know,” he says, still reaching. “I gotta get to bed early. Interview in the morning.”

  He’s saying one thing, but his body is doing the opposite. I start to get a tension headache in my neck.

  “I’m meeting with Condé Nast,” he adds.

  I roll my eyes. Jesus.

  Darren curls up and holds on to me—more like grips me, like I’m dangling off a cliff. I feel the hard muscles of his body pressed up against me, which is really the only pleasure I get out of this whole thing, to be honest, and it isn’t much, and it’s all sort of vague. He starts patting my arm. He says something, but it’s muffled into my shoulder.