Page 14 of Offensive Plays

I shake my head, "Landry, what the hell are you talking about?"

We all slide into our usual seats. I'm in the back alone, Hicks is in the passenger seat, and Landry is driving.

"I get what he's saying," Hicks adds. "It was like a team-building thing, right Cap?"

Landry pulls the vehicle around the circular driveway and onto the road that leads out of this gated community for the rich and entitled.

"Yeah, it's like our roommate thing. You know, like my 'my house, my rules, roommate dinner' or BBQ game nights with the team." He shrugs again. "It's our thing."

I shake my head again. "Unbelievable. You all complain every single time I ask you to pay up, but you secretly enjoy it? I live with masochists."

"I don't enjoy it one fucking bit," Hicks admits. "I'd like to keep my loose change, thank you very much."

“And that was a lot of loose change. You collected enough from us all to fill that jar fifty times over. What did you even do with all that money?" Landry asks me, watching me through the rearview mirror as he drives toward the downtown hotel where we're meeting up with the rest of the team.

I laugh. "You guys would think it's stupid."

"Then you definitely have to tell us. Technically we were your angel investors in this stupid thing you did," Hicks says, rolling down his window and letting his arm hang out.

I run a hand through my hair. It's not like Keelan Landry's, nice and slicked back, looking like a debonair secret agent man. Nor like Joshua Hicks, who clearly spent the last hour perfectly coaxing his locks into place with hair spray.

My brown hair reflects exactly how I feel—unruly, especially after secretly launching my own dating app over the last few months. Late nights, lots of Zoom meetings with team members worldwide, and keeping it all a secret from my nosy teammates will do that.

I open the app on my phone and slide it to them on the center console. Landry eyes the phone as Hicks picks it up to get a better look.

"You paid for a membership for a hookup app?" Hicks laughs as he says it. "That's nothing new, preacher boy. We all know your luck on these things."

"He what?" Landry tries to examine the app. "Is that BlindBang?"

I groan before admitting to them, "I didn't pay for a membership...I made it."

Hicks turns in his seat to look me in the eye, my phone still in his hand. "You made...what exactly?"

"The app. I developed the app."

Landry stays quiet for a second as Hicks just stares at me blankly.

"I told you it was stupid," I say, reaching for my phone.

"Wait, you made a hookup app? H-how the fuck did you do that?" he asks, holding the phone away from me as he scrolls through the app.

"Well...you said it yourself. You were my angel investors."

Landry chuckles, low at first, but it grows into a full-on laugh. "You made a hookup app using the money from our swear jar? Fergie! Dude, who even are you?"

"Michael Ferguson, you dirty, dirty dog, you." Hicks finally hands me my phone, and I snatch it back.

"I figured if I controlled the outcome, it might actually work out for me."

Landry is still laughing, hitting the steering wheel as he maneuvers through downtown traffic. "So, does it? Does it work?"

I shrug, opening my conversation with KeepHerWild and scrolling through the photos she sent me over the last week.

I still don't know what the girl looks like. But that's the point. I made an app that connects people based on their interests in a very thorough questionnaire that they get to answer privately. The algorithm matches them up based on what they're looking for. Kinks. Fantasies. Fetishes. All of them are kept a secret from the users. But the algorithm knows. Therefore, you get to date people who automatically fit your most secretly held fantasies.

There are safety features to ensure that only serious people use the app. I'd never want to put people in compromising situations so users don't see the facial features of a person they match with until they meet up for an agreed-upon date. Our soft launch was a few weeks ago, and we already have over two million users.

"So?" Hicks presses.