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Chapter 3
In an uncharacteristically dark mood, Nate finished his route and drove back to First Sight’s central hub. They had found it more affordable to rent out a room in a coworking space rather than renting out an actual office space. It had a conference table and several desks around the room, free WIFI, and a Keurig in the building’s lobby. When he walked in, Zane and Todd were having an argument about servers. They’d been having one fight or another since college. Normally Nate didn’t mind it, but today he didn’t have the bandwidth.
“Enough about the servers,” Nate said. His voice sounded harsher than he meant to.
Seeing Colby in that home with kids’ photos on the wall and drawings on the fridge and a tricycle on the porch…it felt like someone took a blowtorch to his stomach. That was the life he might have had. With her.
What had he expected? That she would wait for him after he stood her up, especially after he never called or even texted to explain?
If he really loved her, which he had suspected he did, he should be happy. Wasn’t that love—wanting what was best for the other person? He should have felt happy seeing her with that perfect suburban life. It must not be love, because Nate felt utter misery.
Zane and Todd both shut up and looked at him.
“What’s wrong?” Todd asked. Nate didn’t miss the way Todd ran a hand over his dark beard, much longer and more prominent than Nate’s. A millennial hipster beard, as Zane liked to call it, which always led to more arguing.
I just lost the love of my life. Again.
“I think we’ve got a vulnerability with the background bot,” Nate said, dropping heavily into a chair at the conference table. He pulled out his laptop, but he didn’t open it.
Zane snorted. “Impossible. I designed the software.”
Todd gave him a look. “Humble much?”
“What’s the issue? Why do you think something’s wrong?”
Nate rested his head in his hands. He didn’t want to tell them about Colby. Not yet. He wasn’t supposed to be dating through the app. And the guys also knew how broken-hearted he had been about her. It would just make them worry more.
“It’s kind of a long story,” Nate said. “I did a test and dug into the background of one of our betas. It says she’s single. But I just saw her house and it looks like she’s married with kids.”
Images flashed through his mind: the tired swing and tricycle out front, the framed photographs of a little boy and little girl, Colby looked more beautiful than she did in his memory. His stomach cramped.
Zane and Todd stared at him for a moment, then separated to their workstations in work mode. If Nate was right and Colby was married with kids, the software Zane built should have caught it. The background bot was another part that made their app unique. Like the algorithm that Todd and Nate created, Zane’s software was sophisticated. It blended the power of facial recognition and the ability of a crawling bot to red flag any accounts that were created on the app with a fake picture. Mostly it was to keep creepy older guys from pretending to be male models in their 20s. The software had already caught some of those.
In a similar way, it might alert them to someone who was married or trying to mask their appearance in a major way. Most of the people trying to fake an account used stock photos, though some pulled pictures from other people’s social media accounts. The team looked through flagged accounts one at a time, but so far, the bot had been right about every account flagged. But if it missed that Colby was married with kids, they might have a real issue.
To be sure, Nate pulled up the back end of her profile to see the information she entered when she signed up for the beta test. He frowned, noticing that she had listed a P.O. Box for her address. That seemed secretive. Why not use a real address unless you’re hiding something?
He wanted to be wrong.
Seeing her had almost knocked him off his feet. He had just been talking to her through the app, but hadn’t expected to see her in person for a few more weeks. He wanted to be prepared when he saw her. He wanted to have a plan. Instead, it was a jolting shock, especially seeing her in what was clearly a family home, with kids’ toys and photographs on the wall. She probably thought he was acting strangely, but Nate couldn’t seem to get a handle on his emotions.
Seeing her right there had transported Nate to the first day of their Cultural Geography class. He had walked into the small lecture hall and spotted her in the back row. She was looking down, but her hair caught his eyes, long and dark in natural waves. Then she glanced around the room, chewing on her pen. It wasn’t like he hadn’t ever seen a beautiful woman before, but there was something irresistible that drew him to her. He had never felt that kind of magnetic pull toward anyone—before or since. The more he got to know her, the more beautiful she became. She was quirky and funny and had an inner light that washed over him every time he smiled.
Nothing had faded over the years—not her beauty and not the immediate jolt he felt seeing her.
Except she had kids.
That wouldn’t be such a big deal, so long as she wasn’t married. The thought of raising children with Colby sent a thrill of delight through him. When he thought about it today, seeing the photos on the wall, he realized he’d be happy even if they weren’t his biological children.
But the home was in an affluent area. He’d been impressed with her crafts, but a smaller business wouldn’t pay the mortgage on a place like that. Then again, she didn’t wear a ring and only saw pictures of a little boy and a little girl on the walls. Widowed, maybe? Divorced?
Nate could deal with either of those personally. But that would mean the app hadn’t red flagged discrepancies with her profile. It would also mean that she lied.
Not that he could be mad about Colby being dishonest. She certainly seemed furious with him about his lies. Or, rather, lack of truth-telling. Was it lying to hide something? Or not fully communicate? He hadn’t really lied when he stood her up. But withholding the truth felt like a lie.
“Find anything, Zane?”
“My software is fine. Short of going through every profile, I don’t know how we can possibly test this. Do you want us to go through every profile? We’d have to push launch back to next year. Maybe you were wrong about the circumstances. Are you sure this woman has two kids?”
