“Hey, Ethan!” Jess excitedly shouted outside her friend’s dorm room, clutching a box from the campus café in one hand while pounding on the door with the other. “You haven’t fallen asleep studying again, have you!?”
“Mmph!” Ethan’s head jolted up from his desk inside his room. The mountain of notes from his organic chemistry class was stained with a puddle of saliva he must have drooled out while napping. He carefully wiped it off, trying his best not to smudge the ink before standing up to let his visitor in.
“N-no. Wide awake.” he said groggily, managing a smile at Jess.
“Happy birthday!” the girl beamed, “Twenty cookies for the twenty-year-old!”
“Oh, God!” Ethan chuckled, “I almost forgot about that! Having your birthday in the middle of exam week sucks more than anything!”
The birthday boy reached out for the box of cookies before Jess sway him away with her other hand and nimbly slipping past him into his room. “Hey, hold on!” She giggled, setting the box on over the papers on Ethan’s desk. “Are you really twenty yet? What time were you born?”
“What are you talking about… like at… um… 11:00pm. Why does it matter?”
“It matters!” Jess asserts, moving herself between Ethan and the treats. “Your twentieth birthday is reeeaaallllly important, you know! I’m gonna make you wait!”
Ethan groans, “Oh, come on. I still have a of studying to do, you know. I hate to say this, but I don’t really have time for a birthday today. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have even thought about it!”
“Really?” Jess looked at him with genuine surprise. “No party? No presents? No one else even told you ‘Happy Birthday’?”
Ethan picked his hand up and rubbed the side of his head, “Nah. Just been too busy. Maybe I can try to do something with someone over the weeken-”
“Your girlfriend didn’t even come to see you?” Jess interrupted suddenly, an awkward silence drooping over the room for a few seconds before Ethan managed to respond.
“You know I don’t have a girlfriend… right? I mean… pre-med’s a hard path and I’ve been focusing on doing well in college. I mean…” Ethan mumbled, “I’ve never really had a girlfriend…”
Jess looked at Ethan dumbfounded. “Never?”
“N-no…”
“So… you’re still a virgin?”
“Look, I’m not here be made fun of!” Ethan blurted out, clearly exasperated. “I’ve been too busy to… to take care of that. Now if you’d just leave, I still have work to do!”
“No!” Jess fired back, taking an assertive step forward, almost toppling the boy backwards, “It's reeeaaalllly important! You’re about to leave your teens a virgin! That’s awful!”
Ethan staggered back like she’d just stabbed him with a dagger. He’d never thought it was so bad until she said it. “No! It’s not bad! Loads of guys don’t to it until their twenties!” Ethan tried to convince her, “I mean… it’s too late to do anything about it anyway… unless…” Ethan’s voice muffled to a whisper, “You… wanna help me fix that...”
The room froze again as the two stood in starring at each other. Ethan squirmed, biting his tongue, hoping to God she didn’t hear that last part. He’s always had a thing for Jess ever since he met her. She had long, beautiful blonde hair and a gorgeous figure – athletic, and tanned from long day’s running on the school’s cross-country team. He on the other hand, didn’t look ugly by any means, but a few too many hours sitting under a dim light studying left him somewhat scraggily and pale. She was beyond his league. If it hadn’t been for him tutoring her for a Gen. Ed. Math course she took in Freshman year, the two would have never met. Ever since, she’s always been nice to him: waving ‘hi’ to him, sitting with him while eating lunch. Ethan figured she was just acting nice to him in case she needed help in a class again, but another part of him just wished, just hoped…
“Yes! I’d love to help!” Jess jumped forward, wrapping her hands around his torso, embracing him in a bear hug.
Ethan didn’t dare so a word, panicking even more than before as he felt her hand glid down the contours of his hip, her hand slipping into the front pocket of his jeans. What was she going to do? Was she really going grab his…
“Got it!” Jess giggled, pulling out Ethan’s phone, instantly navigating to the Appstore. “There’s an app that can help us called Yiffr! It can get you some super quick hookups before you hit the big Two-Oh!”
“Oh. Okay.” Ethan said shortly, shivering in a mental fog as he tried to figure out whether he was disappointed or relieved. “Never heard of it.”
“It’s awesome!” Jess shouted gleefully, opening the app to a page with a big button reading, ‘Go Wild!’. “Aaahhh!! We can even make it a double date! I’ll change with you too! Here. Just press this with your thumb so it can scan your fingerprint, then it’ll give you an automatic match! It'll tell us where to go after that!”
Ethan looked down at the unassuming app, still frazzled from the sudden near-sex experience. He hadn’t the faintest clue what that app did but he wanted to make Jess happy, so he planted his thumb down on the button without a word and pressed it.
“Analyzing…” Read a loading that flicked into existence on the screen above his thumb. It took a few seconds to complete, until…
“Mate found: …”