26

“You’re capable of more,” I say, sipping the juice they brought me and smiling slightly, looking at him mockingly. It was hard to hide the disappointment in my voice. But instead of showing any outrage or even the slightest sign of displeasure at me not speaking highly enough of his creation, Nazar just snorted in a way that sounded… confirming, as if he even partially agreed with me.

“Maybe,” my brother sighs heavily, as if giving up. “It’s only recently started running, it brings in very good profit, but there are screwups. One of those happened today. And it’s very convenient that you ended up here today of all days. Because only you can help me.”

I saw that cunning look in his green eyes, but I was still curious. No matter how we treat each other or where we are, it’s our habit to cover each other’s asses in tough situations. Brothers, after all. And he knows that perfectly well.

“So how exactly can I help?” I ask.

“Well, basically…” Nazar begins awkwardly. “In the beginning, it went like this. To increase traffic on the site, I needed to fill it with real profiles of real people. So that incoming visitors had options to choose from. That was only at the start, just to get the site going, and now there’s no such necessity, but…” My brother looked away and continued, embarrassed. “Anyway, I posted my own profile too. And it just so happened that today two girls messaged me wanting to meet at the same time. I can’t split myself in two, and I don’t want to lose the site’s rating by standing someone up. And one of the girls will be upset… You know how chicks are.”

“So, you want me to go to one of the meetings?” I understood right away. “But I’m not you.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he waves it off, relieved, smiling. “In my profile, the only real thing is the name, everything else I made up. So she won’t notice the difference. You’ll sit, talk, and then we’ll see how it ends. Who knows, maybe you’ll fall in love,” my brother finishes, laughing, and I really don’t like that reaction of his. He’s always treated girls lightly. Well, I’m not that far from him myself, but still, I don’t dump them rudely — I set the boundaries from the start, so there’s way less resentment toward me.

“So? What do you say?” two green eyes look at me curiously, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Will you cover for me, brother to brother?”

“All right,” I agree — it’s not a big favor anyway. “Where else am I supposed to put you? But you’ll owe me.”

“As always,” the little bastard laughs, handing me a sticky note with some address on it, looking very pleased. “This is the address where your meeting will take place.”

“A hotel room number?” I lift my gaze questioningly. “You couldn’t come up with another place for a first meeting? A restaurant, for example, or something along those lines?”

“Well, the specifics of my site are such that the people meeting can, if they want, go straight to the point,” it seemed to me that Nazar was hiding something or playing some angle. “Besides, I have an agreement with this hotel, and the staff will prepare everything for your meeting in advance.”

“So you set people up on sex dates?” the realization hits my mind sharply.

“Listen, what’s wrong with me helping people meet for a good time?” quite a logical question. “Only adults are allowed on the site, and it’s far from necessary that everyone ends up in bed! I give people a push, and then, by mutual consent, they spend their time however they want. You just need to be there, it’s not necessary for it to go as far as the bed. That’s for the two of you to decide.”

His words seemed surprisingly reasonable to me, because I definitely won’t pressure anyone into intimacy. And I’m pretty picky when it comes to girls in my bed. And judging by the fact that this girl chose such a site to meet someone, there’s clearly something off about her. Most likely she’s kind of plain or something like that.

I agreed, not even suspecting how hard this meeting would hit my pride and turn my whole life upside down.