“Thirty-one? Wow, that’s a Silver. Moving up in the world.”

Fizzy opened her mouth to reply when, on the table between them, a phone delivered a telltale chime.

Jess assumed it was another mediocre compatibility score hitting Fizzy’s inbox, and Fizzy seemed to assume the same, reaching for her phone—

So it took them both a second to register that the sound had actually come from Jess’s phone… and it took Jess another to remember she’d sent her “sample” away for analysis.

Betrayal widened every one of Fizzy’s features. “Jessica Davis. I’m over here telling you about dick tattoos and you don’t even tell me you sent your spit!”

Jess barked out an uncomfortable laugh. “I can explain!”

“You’d better!”

She was unable to control her bubbling laughter. Fizzy looked genuinely furious in a mildly cartoonish way. “It was last Thursday, remember? I called you from the toilet. On impulse, I put it in the mail after we hung up, downloaded the app and filled out the basic info, and then totally spaced on it.”

Fizzy picked up Jess’s phone, tapping it awake with a punitive jab of her index finger. Entering the passcode, she stared in confusion down at the screen while Jess stared with similar confusion at her. “I don’t remember giving you my passcode.”

“Juno’s birthday. You should choose a more secure code. Never know what brand of crazy can get into your phone.”

Jess raised a wry eyebrow. “You don’t say.”

Fizzy turned the screen to face her. “It’s red. What does that mean?”

“What’s red?” Jess’s amusement at the situation was fading, quickly replaced by the realization that her DNADuo app had just pinged her with an alert.

She’d excluded matches below seventy percent.

She had a Platinum or higher match.

She suddenly understood Fizzy’s desire to dip a toe in the soulmate waters rather than dive headfirst. Jess wasn’t ready. She wasn’t even sure she was curious.

“The thing,” Fizzy said, pointing aggressively. “The little—circle notification thing over the app icon that means you have a result!”

The prospect of making a decision based on a numerical score made Jess immediately tired. She took her phone back, tempted to delete the app along with whatever impulse had told her to spit in that vial in the first place. “Is red bad?”

“All of mine are green,” Fizzy explained. “Whether it’s a compatibility score of twelve or thirty-one, the match notifications have been green.”

Okay, if the match notifications were green, at least Jess knew a potential soulmate wasn’t just casually hanging out in her inbox. “Might I suggest your intensity about this is now at an eleven?”

Fizzy shot back: “To my romance-loving heart, this app is the most fascinating game ever. Humor me.”

“Most likely it means there was something wrong with my sample,” Jess said, relief expanding in her. “I did it after I brushed my teeth, and it says to wait an hour after eating or drinking anything before spitting.” She put her phone back on the table, screen-side down. “I’ll deal with it later.”