Rower Lad sat alone in his room.
There was a knock at the door. Hastily, he pulled on a pair of joggers, primarily to prevent his sturdy knees from knocking together at 20,000 hertz. “Coming!” he called in the confident, booming tones of a 4-year-old schoolgirl.
As he shuffled to the door, visions flashed through his head of his previous encounters with Houmous Girl. Glimpsed from afar in the library, elaborately miming a botched vasectomy to illustrate a point about female reproductive rights to Obnoxiously Opinionated Guy. Haloed with light in the freezer section at Tesco, tucking her hair behind her ear. Turning away in sorrow from their abortive date. With a last ember of hope burning in his heart he reached out and opened the door.
“Rugby Lad.” He said. “What a pleasant surprise.” His tone dripped with sarcasm, but Rugby Lad was still mastering the finer nuances of joined-up-writing, and in no position to notice.
“You left your phone at mine last night,” said Rugby Lad, proffering a greasy Samsung to his lovelorn friend. Rower Lad took the phone with a grunt of thanks and shut the door on the date-wrecking prop forward. As he trudged back to the solace of his bed he glanced through his notifications, deleting shrill parental texts and wondering if anyone would ever favourite any of his tweets. With a broad thumb he flicked open a Tinder notification he had no interest in pursuing- and stopped.
The message was from a girl he had matched with in the hazy bygone aeons of fresher’s week. At the time, high on the lethal fumes of a UV paint party, he had given his 8th match of the week no more thought. But as he looked, he recognised those actually from-Primark vintage shorts, that seemingly-from-paradise smile, that look-how-wacky-I-am-as-well-as-basically-just-being-quite-hot fourth photo where the girl in question was pretending to dive into a bumper-size tub of…Houmous.
So how about that drink?
Rower Lad grinned as he typed out a joyous response, and his heart swiped right and right and right again.
