Page 72 of No Match Found
“I had something I wanted to run past the two of you,” Russ said.
My gaze swung to Grant, who was frowning, his eyes on the phone.
“Let’s hear it,” Grant said.
“Vivian, Grant mentioned you had an incident where one of your employees ran your profiles against each other.”
“Former employee,” I clarified. If Alex’s dumb choice ended up being a focus of Threadline’s article about Matchify, I’d never forgive him.
“Right,” Russ said. “Grant also mentioned that the generated compatibility score was extremely low.”
I stared Grant down likethanks for that. Maybe we should just rent a billboard to make sure everyone knew about the 12%.
Grant tapped the mute button. “He’s my boss, Vivian. He asks for daily updates.”
“It got me thinking,” Russ said, “about a new angle to explore. Grant says you’re a statistics woman.”
“That’s right,” I replied, wishing I’d heardhowGrant said it. Like it was a good or a bad thing?
“I’m a bit rusty,” Russ continued. “I’m just a lowly stats minor here, so correct me if I’m wrong, but your null hypothesis at Matchify is that compatibility correlates with relationship success, right?”
“Correct,” I said. This man was speaking my language.
“Well, you’ve tested the high-scoring matches. Why not test the inverse?”
I frowned. “You want me to go out with people I’m statistically repelled by?”
“Ouch,” Grant said.
I shot him a flat look and rearranged the pens in my pencil cup. “He’s not talking aboutyou.”
“Actually, I am.”
The pencil cup tipped, and pens went clattering over my desk.
“Everything okay?” Russ asked.
“Yep,” I said as I hurried to gather them up with Grant’s help.
Grant was watching me carefully while he did it. “Aren’t there some ethical considerations there, Russ?”
I simultaneously loved and hated him for bringing up issues with the plan. Loved because this plan was insane; hated becausehearing him argue against a date with me wasn’t particularly flattering. Maybe he needed to run it by Jill first. Or Jenna.
Maybe he wanted to ask out Jackie while he was at it—round out his fetish for women with J names.
“Not necessarily,” Russ argued. “It shifts the tone a bit, sure. But it’s also good scienceandgood story. I don’t want to put pressure on you if it’s uncomfortable—I just figure you’re both professionals, and it could be really compelling. Worth trying, definitely, even if we don’t use it in the final article.”
My heart slammed against my ribs as Grant watched me.
He tapped the mute button. “You don’t have to do this, Vivian. It’s a lot of pressure on you.”
“Onme?”
He shrugged. “It’s in the interests of Matchify for the date to go poorly.”
I scoffed, following the thread of implication he’d tossed toward me. “And you’re confident itwon’t?”
He looked amused. “I mean, Leo set a pretty low bar for me to clear.”
