Chapter Text
“This is the fourth time in a row that Thomas has blown off our planned video calls,” Trina’s friend Claire said, putting her feet up on the coffee table in Marvin and Trina’s living room. “I’m starting to get really pissed now.”
“What’s his excuse this time?” Trina asked, holding out a supersized bag of miniature chocolate bars.
“He said his dog was hit by a car and he had to cancel because he’s at the animal hospital.”
“Oh, Claire, you shouldn’t be pissed about that. His poor dog!”
Half-listening across the room, Marvin rolled his eyes. “Right, because it’s the perfect excuse. You can’t question it or else you’ll look like an insensitive dick. Have you considered that he’s not who he says he is?”
“Why would you think that?” Claire asked, almost offended.
Marvin, who’d had to listen to Claire complain that this Thomas guy she’d been chatting to on Tinder for a month had canceled their video chat meetups one too many times, said, “Every time you want to do some sort of video call, or whenever you plan one, he always bails. Every time. And he always has the most ridiculous excuses. His sister showed up to visit unexpectedly. His dentist appointment conveniently got rescheduled to the exact time you were going to call. His dad’s boat sprung a leak and sank and he had to go help pull it out. And now his dog has been hit by a car.”
“All of those things could happen!”
“Yes, but not over the span of two weeks,” Marvin said. “You’ve got to admit that it seems really suspicious.”
“He has to be real. He has to be,” Claire insisted. “He’s so smart, and funny, and sweet, and handsome,” she said, a smile creeping onto her face.
Marvin nodded skeptically. “There you go,” he said dryly. “The good-looking ones are never the real thing.”
Claire bristled. “Excuse—”
Trina jumped to his rescue. “I think Marvin was just commenting on how people who set up fake profiles always use photos of good-looking people. Right, Marvin?”
Marvin nodded slowly. “Right.” Claire continued to glare at him with narrowed eyes. “We could make sure he’s the real thing,” he said.
“How?”
“He’s sent you pictures of himself, right?”
“Yeah, and?”
“Put them into Google. See if his social media comes up or someone else’s.”
“Hey, that’s a good idea,” Trina said, beaming at Marvin. “You alright with that?” she asked Claire, who still looked a little put off by Marvin’s bluntness.
Claire shrugged. “I guess so.”
She emailed Marvin several photos Thomas had sent her, and Marvin did a reverse image search and scanned the results. He ended up on the Facebook page of a Whizzer Brown. He glanced at the profile of the guy Claire had been talking to for the last several months. All the pictures “Thomas” had on his profile were all publicly accessible on this guy Whizzer Brown’s Facebook page. There were a lot of public photos of this guy on Facebook, and even Marvin could recognize that he was remarkably handsome, so it was no surprise to him that someone would steal his photos to catfish unsuspecting women online. Unless this, too, was a catfish account. Scrolling through, though, he doubted it. Friends had tagged him in photos of their nights out, and he had posted remarkably ordinary things like “It’s noon and I’ve gotten out of bed a whopping zero times.” His Facebook was linked to an Instagram—also public—and it seemed like this guy was the real guy in the pictures.
The photos of “Thomas” had just been a small sampling. Marvin felt a little captivated by these other photos of Whizzer he could now see. He was handsome. Too handsome. Marvin could hardly look away from the way his shirt was stretching across his chest in each photo.
Marvin tore his eyes away from the photos to poke around his profile. He was an undergraduate student at a nearby university, and… Marvin’s stomach churned. Whizzer Brown had listed his workplace as a coffee shop that was only a fifteen minute drive away, across town. What were the odds of him being in the same place?
“I found him,” Marvin said, pushing aside the feeling that tidbit of knowledge gave him. Wanting to hide that information from Trina and Claire, he clicked on Whizzer’s photos as they approached. “His name’s Whizzer, not Thomas. He’s a student. Not a security consultant, at least as far as I can see. And he’s not Canadian either.”
“He looks like a partier,” Trina said, taking over the mouse and scrolling through his pictures. “Not your type at all, Claire.”
Claire sighed and flopped down on the couch face-first. “I knew it was too good to be true. Hot guys are never actually interested in me.”
She groaned dramatically into the pillow, which turned into a frustrated, muffled scream. Trina went over to sit with her.
“You know what they say. There’s plenty of fish in the sea.”
“Yeah well, maybe I should have tried that app instead of Tinder.”
Marvin was going to say, “Better to break your heart now than three months down the line when you’re much more invested,” but he bit his tongue. Trina would kill him if he said that to her best friend.
He took one more look at Whizzer Brown’s profile, the name of the coffee shop he worked at sticking out more obviously than ever, before he closed the tab. He was intrigued by this guy. He wondered if he knew his photos were being used on a fake Tinder profile. Marvin had a sudden thought. He knew where Whizzer worked, and it was close by, so… Marvin could go see him. Marvin could let him know about the Tinder profile.
He snapped the computer shut, strangely excited by that thought. He had no idea why the thought of meeting this man in person thrilled him so much. He was just a person. He was just a guy who had happened to have his photos stolen by a stranger on the Internet, and Marvin had just happened to see them.
“Marvin? I’m going to drive Claire back to campus. Can I use your car?”
Marvin looked up, having been lost in thought, thinking about this stranger he had happened upon. “Hmm? Oh, yeah.” He dug his car keys out of his pocket and handed them over.
Claire was clearly upset about learning the truth about “Thomas,” and while Trina walked her out, Claire griped, “Why can’t I just find someone nice like Marvin? You’re so lucky, Trina.”
The apartment was quiet for several minutes, but when Marvin heard a couple of the roommates who shared the apartment with them come through the front door and head into the kitchen, talking loudly about a test they were sure they’d just failed that afternoon, Marvin took his computer and went to his and Trina’s bedroom. His mind was otherwise occupied and he didn’t want to have to make conversation. He sat on the bed and reopened Whizzer’s Facebook. He poured through Whizzer’s photos, zooming in on certain ones, studying Whizzer’s face, his clothes, his hair, trying to build a picture in his mind of who he was.
When Trina came back, he pretended he’d been reading the news. Trina liked to go to bed earlier than he did, so for about an hour after they’d gotten in bed and she had fallen asleep, he lay awake, staring at the dark ceiling, thinking about whether he should just let it all go or go see this guy at his workplace. He hadn’t decided by the time he eventually drifted off.
He still hadn’t decided the next morning. Or the morning after. He’d scroll through Whizzer’s Instagram or Facebook photos absentmindedly, not really questioning why this man had captivated him so much, but unsure whether he should just admire him from afar or seek him out. He couldn’t decide. One afternoon, however, he had an appointment to get his hair cut, and afterwards, he realized with a jolt that he was just around the corner from where Whizzer worked. Feeling bold and reckless and just a little excited, instead of walking back to his car, he turned and walked in the opposite direction.
He approached the coffee shop and pretended to study the menu they’d taped to the window. He scanned the shop, wondering if that Facebook account had been real at all, or if someone else was using those photos and had set up a really elaborate scheme to trick people. He hoped it was real, and that Whizzer Brown was a real person who actually did work here. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to see him so badly, but he did.
There were only a couple people in the coffee shop, and no one behind the counter that he could see, until the man standing at the counter moved and Marvin saw him. It was definitely him, alright—tall, lean, incredibly handsome. His stomach churned. He knew now that Whizzer Brown was real. Would he go in? He hovered in front of the door, continuing to pretend to stare at the menu, debating whether to go in or not.
The man who had been at the counter had gotten his food to go and had left through a side door, adjusting his sunglasses on his head as he did. There was one woman left in the shop, sitting at a table near the front windows, and it wasn’t long before she packed up her computer and left as well, and the shop was empty.
Marvin took his chance and, trying to appear confident, walked in. He approached the counter. Whizzer glanced up briefly from arranging muffins in the display case.
“Good afternoon. What can I get you?”
“Hey. Whizzer, right?”
Whizzer’s eyes flicked up to meet his, and Marvin felt a curious tingling sensation in his abdomen that he’d never felt before.
“Yeah, I’m Whizzer,” he said. He closed the display case and focused his attention on Marvin.
“Oh. Good. Well, I don’t know if you—”
A smirk crept across his face. “Let me guess. Me and you hooked up a while back and you’re coming back for seconds.”
Marvin sputtered, false confidence disappearing. “What? I— What? No. I’m not— I have a girlfriend.”
“A lot of ‘em do. I’m not judging. I’m not going to rat you out to your girlfriend or something.”
“I’ve never met you before!” Marvin said, trying desperately to get to the point before Whizzer said anything else. “Someone used your pictures to catfish my friend and I looked you up on Facebook and I’m just here to let you know. That’s all.”
Whizzer just stared at him. “I haven’t had sex with you?”
“What? No!”
“Shame,” Whizzer said, meeting his eyes briefly before moving down the counter to start making a drink, and Marvin felt that curious tingling in his abdomen again.
“Look,” Marvin said when he’d finally figured out how to speak again. “If someone had been using my pictures to catfish people on Tinder, I’d want to know. I figured you didn’t know, so I thought I’d tell you.”
“What’s your name?”
“Marvin.”
“Does Marvin have a last name?”
“Not one you need to know about.” The thought of Whizzer looking him up made him supremely uncomfortable, but at the same time… it was a titillating thought.
For the first time since Marvin had walked in, a natural, genuine smile bloomed across Whizzer’s face. He took a sip of the drink he’d just made. “You’re quicker than you look.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” It was disconcerting how easily Whizzer was able to rattle him, and it was putting him on edge.
Whizzer disappeared beneath the counter for a moment, and when he popped back up, he was smoothing out a crumpled receipt. He grabbed a pen, scribbled a set of numbers, and held out the receipt.
“Just in case—”
“I don’t want your number,” Marvin said, cutting him off. “I— That’s not what I came here for.”
“What did you come here for, then?”
“I just thought you should know about the whole catfishing thing.”
“No, Marvin,” Whizzer said, and leaned across the counter, his face dangerously close to Marvin’s. “You didn’t have to come here to tell me this. You could have just sent me a message on Facebook, but you didn’t. You came to see me. At my workplace too, which…” He swallowed and chewed on his lips a moment before leaning back and shrugging. “Thanks for letting me know,” he said, all expression suddenly wiped from his face. “I appreciate it.”
Whizzer smiled over Marvin’s shoulder and Marvin realized a middle-aged couple had walked in, abruptly cutting off whatever Whizzer had been planning to say. Realizing he’d definitely stayed in the coffee shop too long, Marvin turned and left, the door chiming merrily to announce his exit, not that Whizzer would have noticed, Marvin reasoned. He was busy assisting his customers.