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Matt grinned, something she was fairly certain she’d never seen before in her life. It was the first time she’d ever considered him…handsome. He was usually too stern, too serious, his eyes dark, his expression uninviting. But relaxed and smiling? Wow.
Of course, Gage was still way hotter, but the Russos definitely had good genes.
“Because I’m a humorless bastard,” Matt replied easily. “And my brothers don’t usually consider hanging out with me a good time.”
“Yeah. Humor is hard,” Penny agreed. “Hey, you know, I gave my dad a joke-a-day calendar one year for Christmas. Maybe you should look for one of those. Then tell your brothers a joke whenever you see them. Break the pattern, you know?”
“That would certainly be one way to break it.”
“If jokes aren’t your thing, you could go the trivia route. The same year I gave my dad the joke calendar, I gave my mom aJeopardyone. She texted me and my brother the day’s question every night. Although maybe that isn’t a good idea, because it usually ended in warfare. My brother and I are competitive as fuck, and we engaged in more than a few arguments when one of us forgot to phrase the answer as a question or we felt an unfair disadvantage because of bad cell service.”
Aaaaand that was a lot of useless word vomit.
“Shit,” she cursed. “Did I just say fuck? Um…God. Sorry about that.”
This was why she should stay in her head.
“I’m familiar with the word fuck…as well as the word shit.”
Wait. Was Matt Russo making a joke?
“I do like trivia,” he admitted. “Though I’m not sure there would be much of a competition if I started something like that with Gage and Conor. Conor is a walking encyclopedia. I blame it on the fact he’s read every book ever published.”
“Seriously? Wow. What a nerd,” she joked, delighted—and somewhat awed—by Matt’s loud burst of laughter.
“Yes, he is. Gage is too, of course. Just in a different way.”
Penny narrowed her eyes playfully. “If you’re insinuating that playing video games and D&D twenty-four seven, or cosplaying at Comic-Con—I rocked it as Poison Ivy, by the way—makes you a nerd…”
Matt held up his hands in feigned surrender. “I’m not the one who dubbed this department the nerd circle. I believe that was your coworker Toby’s doing?”
Penny sighed. “Yeah. It was. And yet he’s going out tomorrow to some cool restaurant for fancy-ass lunch and drinks, while we’re…”
“I’m probably going to be at work,” Matt said.
“I was thinking of working out this weekend. And by workout, I meanBeat Saber’til I drop.”
“Both very good ways to avoid real life.”
She couldn’t tell if the last part of his statement was a confession or a condemnation. Either way, she couldn’t argue with it. She’d been with Russo Enterprises long enough to know that Matt didn’t have any more of a social life than she did. At least she could say she’d had one briefly with Gage. But now that the lessons were over, she was struggling to follow through on them.
Not because her self-esteem had vanished but because her desire had.
She wanted to be with Gage, not with David, not with some as-of-yet unknown suitor, and all the pep talks in the mirror in the world weren’t going to change that fact for a long time.
Regardless, she felt as if she should at least defend herself.
“I’m not completely avoiding it,” she said. “I’m actually going to a party tomorrow night. My birthday party,” she tacked on to the end, struggling to infuse her tone with any enthusiasm.
“Happy birthday,” Matt said.
“I’d invite you but—” She shut up fast.
Matt chuckled. “I wouldn’t ruin your party that way. I suspect the guest list is rather Moretti heavy?”
She nodded. “Yeah. It is. I wish I understood why… I mean…you’re a nice guy. I just don’t get…”
“Nice is a subjective term.” Matt sighed. “One that I don’t think too many people in the world would use to describe me. And they would be correct,” he added, his expression hardening, halting her from arguing that point.
