For Sam ~ fanfictionfriend587
For and for Mol ~ Molly_3011

【In which Lily finally gives in to Marlene and joins Tinder...】

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

Marlene, Lily's best friend and roommate, had just about completed tinder. She had matched, and chatted (and slept with) just about the entirety of the single men and women in the Manchester area before finally finding a girl she liked in the form of her current girlfriend, Dorcas. This left her feeling quite put out by the fact there seemed to be nothing for her to do in her free time anymore because there was only so much flirting material in her reservoir that she could use on Dorcas before she got bored.

She needed a new muse.

Lily had always been adamant she did not want a boyfriend and was perfectly content with her life of the occasional meaningless date every now and again without the intention of taking it anywhere further.

But Marlene had other ideas...

"Lily I've went behind your back..."

"I know, you're in the kitchen, that's behind me isn't it?" Aforementioned Lily dismissed with scrolling deep into the shitposts of Twitter without much of a goal in mind.

"You know what I mean. Or rather you don't. So I'm going to tell you..." she hopped off the kitchen island and joined Lily on the sofa, kicking her legs up onto the coffee table in the way that made Lily furious because it 'damaged the table'.

"Tell me what?"

"I've made you a tinder account."

"You've made me a WHAT?!"

Marlene shrank away, retracing her legs back and crossing them over each other as if it might provide her with a shield from her best friend's wrath.
"A tinder account. You don't have to use it but if you don't I'll set up your dates for you because I've found my recent redundancy and adventure into unemployment quite boring. And as you know I'm very good at flirting."

Lily sneered at her, "you will not craft my dates for me. Show me the account so I can delete it."

Marlene whipped her phone out the back pocket of her combat pants rather dramatically. "Here."

Lily snatched the phone and was confronted with a picture of herself that must have been taken on Marlene's phone and not been forwarded to her because she did not remember having it taken. She was painting on a canvas that currently hung up in the hall, wearing a T-shirt that was slipping off one of her freckled shoulders and a pair of jeans that were splattered with paint. It wasn't the picture Lily would have chosen but oddly enough she did like it. Underneath read the words Lily, 20: Greater Manchester with a small description underneath: a painter with a real job and a university student. Very partial to bad jokes and classic literature:) followed by another line underneath that Lily was most likely recycled from Marlene's old tinder account: roses are red, violets are blue, I'm not a serial killer, I hope you're not too?...

"So? Are you keeping it?"

"The jury's still out."

Lily continued to scroll though the set of pictures Marlene had chosen for her. There was one taken from her Instagram of her 'reading' on a wall that they found a few months back and decided to stop for an hour and take photos. There was another of her wearing Marlene's leather jacket and giggling with Dorcas while she attempted to impersonate her best friend and the last one was a shot of her browsing a record shop, scanning through piles of AC/DC, The Artic Monkeys and Fleetwood Mac just to find something by Queen.

"Has the jury come to order yet?" Marlene probed, poking Lily in the shoulder and she shifted to watch what she was doing.

"I'm keeping it. But only because I'm sick of third wheeling and I actually like the little poem on the end of the bio," Lily said, making sure that Marlene received a curt slap for her little celebration.

"Go on then! I want to see your matches!"

Lily rolled her eyes but began to swipe through a set of boys in her area of a similar age.
"I hate this," she said after a while, "it feels like I'm ordering a bloke on the Internet."

"That's the fun of it!"

"Well it feels unethical."

"It's not."

"It is."

"You're still swiping..."

"Shut up!"

And so Lily continued to swipe, despite her moral disagreements with the whole system she couldn't help but get addicted to the passiveness of swiping left and right on all her potential options. It bored her and it fascinated her at the same time and frankly there wasn't much else to do at that moment so she didn't see any reason to stop.

In her first week of owning tinder she had matched with a grand total of 4 men and all of them were a waste of time. She was watching a movie with Marlene when the profile of James, 20, Manchester appeared on her screen.

As far as men on tinder were concerned this guy was a different league. He had sharp, defined features, glittering hazel eyes and a grin that would probably change the world if enough people saw it. In his first photo he was leaning against a graffitied wall on his phone in a candid shot that made Lily question if he actually knew the photo was getting taken or not. The second slide he seemed to be climbing some sort of scaffolding and laughing hysterically, there were two other men in the picture but they weren't as central as James was. His bio was short and sweet, it read: proud owner of one brain cell.
I honestly have no idea how I've lived this long but if you fancy wasting your life with me then let me know ;)

Smiling at the bashfulness of his description she swiped right and got an instant match; feeling optimistic she was about to draft him a message when one popped up at the top of her screen:

Hey Lily, liked your poem and I'm pleased to announce that I'm not a serial killer... at least not directly... 👀

She had to hand it to him. Most guys she'd come across opened with a cheesy and all round horrible pick up line but James had style.

And exactly what circumstances have you been in that would put a grey area over indirect killing?

She replied, deciding to keep up the charade he had opened with.

I once walked under a ladder... just because I'm a bad boy ;) does that answer your question?

She couldn't help it, she laughed aloud.

Ooh I like bad boys 😏 have you ever put an umbrella up indoors too?

His reply was just as quick as the others, which was more than she could say about most of the other men on tinder.

I've done better: one time I put new shoes on the table...

"Whatcha giggling at?"

Lily looked up to see Marlene peering over her shoulder, the movie muted on the screen and Lily hadn't even noticed.

"Texting someone."

"Could this someone be a guy from Tinder?"

Lily shrugged, "maybe."

"I knew it!" Marlene leapt in the air and turned the light on shifting up to join Lily by her phone.
"Who's the guy?" Lily showed her his picture.

"Ooh! He's fit! What did he say?"

The next half an hour of their lives was then wasted on messaging some bloke on tinder. Never in her life had Lily ever imagined she would be doing this. She had spent enough time wasting away on her phone and now Marlene had presented her with another way to procrastinate her university work. She had a degree to get, she didn't need a boyfriend and yet this James character had something that the other people she'd talked to didnt: a personality.

That might have been why she agreed to meet him to hang out a week later (they had progressed past tinder dms and had exchanged phone numbers). Over the short period of time they had become somewhat friends.

"Hello? James?"

He turned around and smiled, beckoning her over to the booth table he had secured them at the cafe they shared a mutual love for.

"Hey, you made it?"

She offered him a sweet smile, he looked even cuter up close.
"Course I did. You said you'd pay: that's free food!"

James laughed, "so you're taking advantage of my chivalry?"

"Absolutely."

"I feel used!" He gasped, clapping a hand to his chest in a display of his offence. "you're willing to let me pay despite telling me you 'didn't want a boyfriend right now'? You're just cashing in on my kindness?!"

Lily winked at him, feeling a little bit errant, "when you put it like that..."

"No it's okay, don't worry about it."

They stayed there for hours, just laughing and giggling like they'd known each other all their lives. They left the cafe arm in arm, feeling lighter than air.

"It looks like it's going to rain," James commented, studying the sky as if he could read its contents. Lily agreed and so they picked up their pace, strolling through the streets of Central Manchester.

"Do you mind if ask why you don't want a boyfriend?"

Lily stopped to look at him for a moment, inwardly letting her conscience ask her the same question.
"I just... I'm busy."

"So am I. Can I ask you one more thing?"

She nodded, her auburn hair flying around her face in a vertigo enducing display in the wind, "yeah?"

"You still swiped right?"

"I'm not following?"

James held out his arm and they continued to stroll, "you still swiped right on my profile, you still replied to my message and you're still here right now. If you didn't want a boyfriend then why?"

Lily thought for a moment. It shouldn't have been a difficult question and yet she felt like he might as well have asked her for her take on religion or something equally as
complicated and philosophical.
"Because I liked you."

"Is it because I'm a bad boy?" James winked at her and she chuckled, shaking her head at him.

"You're not a bad boy."

He smirked, letting go of her arm and striding ahead of her, walking backwards, "watch me."

Lily watched as he jogged up to a ladder stood against a barbers shop and ducked under it. He spun around nonchalantly and raised an eyebrow, "that was pretty dangerous am I right?"

"Not at all. But that's okay because I'll tell you a secret," he pulled him in close and cupped her hand to his ear, "I don't really like bad boys."

"Thank god I'm not a bad boy then. Does that mean you'll reconsider your no boyfriend rule? Technically you still swiped right?

Lily smiled and kissed his cheek, "I suppose I did."

⋆ ⋆ ⋆