Page 66 of No Match Found
“When she broke up with me,” he said, holding my gaze, “she told me she’d fallen out of love with me months before.” His jaw shifted. “Looking back, there’d been signs, of course, but I’d ignored them. I’d believed what I’d wanted to believe.”
There was a tinge of hurt in his eyes, but when he blinked, it was gone.
“So,” he said, turning and continuing our walk, “we both got traumatized by past relationships. I made it my mission to uncover truth, and you…” He glanced over at me. “You started a matchmaking company when you don’t even believe in love.”
“I do believe in love,” I argued. “I’m just…afraid of it.” I rushed on before the vulnerability hangover could hit. “I started Matchify because I believe in data. Data don’t lie.”
We walked the sloped drive down to the eighth floor.
Grant shook his head. “Data—singular noun, by the way—doeslie. It lies all the time. You know why? Because people manipulate it. And it’s all the more sinister when they do because they still claim it’s objective.”
He wasn’t wrong. But he wasn’t right either.
Data weren’t inherently meaningful. We interpreted them and derived meaning from them. But that didn’t mean they weren’t worth pursuing. Good, complete data? They were valuable. They held kernels of truth that were difficult—impossible, even—to find through other methods.
“So, what, then?” I said. “You just throw it all out? You may mistrust data—and not without reason—but I find the argument a little ironic coming from you.”
“Why?”
“You claim you can’t trust data, then you provide unreliable data on your Matchify profile?”
I hadn’t meant to make this about the 12% thing, but here we were. It had risen to the surface like a fish at the first ripple of fish food.
He cocked a brow. “This accusation coming from you? Pot meet kettle.” He put out his hand for me to shake.
I ignored it. “What?”
“Succulents?” he offered.
“I told you—I don’t like flowers.”
“And I still don’t believe you. But unlike you, I didn’t provide unreliable data.”
I let out a disbelieving sigh.
“I did at first,” he granted. “But I went back and filled it out for real a few days later.”
My smile vanished. “You did?”
“Yeah.”
I searched his face for the lie, but there was none. He was too nonchalant about it to be lying.
I shut my eyes for a second as the ramifications began to line up like dominoes.
Grant had filled out his profile with real,genuine answers.
Which meant that the 12%wasn’tbased on faulty data.
Which meant that Grant Wilder and I had the worst compatibility I’d ever seen on Matchify.
NINETEEN
“When?”I blurted. “Why?”
Grant looked at me with perplexed amusement. “I thought you’d be happy I provided you with accurate data.”
“I am,” I said, but I wasn’t convincing anyone with that tone. “I just don’t understand what changed your mind.” The pit of my stomach was filling with some unfamiliar, murky substance I didn’t know what to call. It had to do with that 12%. I knew that, at least.
