Missed Connections

The drive back to Piper’s off-campus apartment had been smooth and quick. The afternoon traffic had seemingly given Piper a break. Piper practically jumped from her car, locking it with the car remote and heading for the front entrance of the building.

She made a quick stop at their mailbox, which was just about overflowing. Clearly, she and Kim had forgotten to check the mail the past couple of days. She tucked the bundle of mail under her arm and shut the small mailbox door before heading to the double elevators.

Piper stepped out of the elevator as soon as the doors opened on the fourth floor. She walked down the east wing hallway and stopped at apartment 4J. She twisted the doorknob and pushed the door in, the delicious scent of pastries filling her nose. Piper and Kim both shared a love for baking.

The apartment wasn’t much, but it wasn’t too shabby either. It was a simple two bedroom, two bathroom apartment. From the front door were the living room and the dining table. Just behind the living room was the small kitchen with all white and stainless steel appliances. The hallway wasn’t longer than a few feet. The door on the left was Kim’s bedroom and the door on the right was the bathroom. Straight ahead was Piper’s bedroom, complete with a tiny en suite bathroom.

“Did you meet him?” Kim asked, looking over at Piper from the kitchen’s open counter.

“Yeah,” Piper couldn’t help but smile. She dropped the bundle of envelopes and magazines onto the dining table before stepping into the kitchen.

“How’d it go?” Kim asked before gesturing to the baking pan on the counter. “I made chocolate chip cookies with that new recipe. They’re awesome.”

Kim and Piper had been best friends since the eighth grade. They grew up in Tempe, Arizona and together, they ventured off to California. Kim’s tattoos, sultry blue-gray eyes, and her dark hair made her look the opposite of Piper. Kim wasn’t really the party girl people thought she was. She and Piper were one and the same.

“It went well,” Piper said vaguely. She picked a warm cookie from the baking sheet, taking a small bite. It was soft and the bittersweet dark chocolate chips melted on her tongue. “He’s cute. He’s in a rock band, too. He said they were well-known.”

“If he’s in a famous band, there’s gotta be pictures of him,” Kim said. She’d been waiting to see what Matt looked like since the day Piper mentioned him. She switched on her iPad, going to the Google homepage. “What’s the band’s name?”

“Uh,” Piper tried to remember the name of his band, finishing her cookie. It came to her after a moment. “Avenged Sevenfold.”

The name came up as a suggestion before Kim could type the first five letters. She pressed on the suggestion with her thumb, looking at the search results. The first two results was the band’s website and a Wikipedia page.

“Avenged Sevenfold is an American rock band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999…” Kim read the Wikipedia short. She turned to Piper. “How old is Matt?”

“He’s thirty-two,” Piper answered.

“Not too much older than you,” Kim shrugged as Piper was twenty-eight years old.

“Kim, I’m not going to date him,” Piper asserted firmly.

“Yeah, yeah.” Kim waved her hand, ignoring Piper as she clicked on ‘images’.

“That’s him,” Piper pointed to Matt in a recent group shot. Her heart sped up just from looking at the picture. He looked just as intimidating in the picture as he looked when she bumped into him. Of course, she now knew that, that wasn’t really Matt.

“He looks…” Kim tried to find the words to describe him. “A little rough.”

“It’s all for show, Kim,” Piper explained.

“M. Shadows… right,” Kim nodded, clicking on another picture. “He looks different there.”

In the picture, Matt’s shades were off and his dimples showed. It was a much more natural shot than the former picture from a photo shoot.

“He’s cute,” Kim shrugged a shoulder in approval. She pressed the back button, going back to the search results. “Did he seem really into you? Are you into him?”

“He told me I was beautiful, so that means something, right?” Piper asked, recalling their conversation from less than two hours ago. “He’s really nice. He paid for lunch, too.”

“Do you like him?”

“I guess, as a friend,” Piper said unsurely. She grabbed another cookie, nibbling on it. “He said he wanted to go out again, so we’ll see what happens then.”

“Alright,” Kim said, stretching the words. She scrolled through articles about the band’s recent music videos and tours. “Just know that you’re going to end up with him. I can feel it.”