“You are two years older than me,” he deadpanned.
“Every day after I took the bus home from school, I’d plop down in front of the TV and watch MTV until my parents came home. I was kind of obsessed withTRL. I wanted to be a VJ when I grew up. ThenTRLwent defunct and my hopes and dreams were obliterated.” She wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of her eye.
“And you were forced to settle for your second passion, business strategy implementation.”
“I think you meancorporatestrategy and strategic management, but it’s easy to mix them up. I’m sure OTP has a whole human resources department that knows the difference for you,” she teased.
“I can see why you have such a deep, abiding passion for what you do. It sounds riveting,” he fired back.
Deep, abiding passion and human resources didn’t exactly go together, at least not in her mind. It wasn’t her calling in life or what got her out of bed in the morning. It was her job. Nothing more, nothing less.
His tongue poked at the inside of his cheek. “So, what you’re telling me is you wanted to grow up to be Carson Daly?”
She buried her face in her hands and peeked through her fingers. “Oh God. I kind of did?”
His laughter trailed off until he was staring at her, a smile playing at the edges of his lips.
Either it was her, or the restaurant had gotten warm. Sheworked the band around her wrist over her hand and threw her hair up in a quick bun. “Jokes aside, how are things with OTP?”
Suddenly sheepish, Brendon ran his hand over the top of his head. “Good, good. Mostly. We’re contending with an overall slowdown in market growth, and the annual I-and-D survey results were... mixed, but good. We’re seeing a bit of an increase in anti–dating app sentiment. Burnout, I guess.” He shrugged. “Dating’s fun, but it has its frustrations.”
Funwas not a word she’d have used to describe dating.
Her brow knit. “I and D?”
“‘Intimacy and dating.’” He tugged at his collar, undoing the top button, revealing the hollow of his throat and a strip of skin beneath. His Adam’s apple bobbed and she swallowed, too. “Once a year, the Dew Research Center publishes their findings on the public’s perception of dating in the digital age. It’s in general, not about OTP, but it’s important to keep abreast of the trends and impressions so we can get ahead of issues before they arise.”
“And the results were mixed?”
He cracked his knuckles and shrugged. “Decent overall, but thirty percent of respondents reported feeling like apps have made dating impersonal and devoid of romance.”
“On the bright side, that means seventy percent don’t feel that way.”
“This is true.”
She reached for her wine and took a long, slow sip. “I feel like an all-or-nothing attribution isn’t fair.”
He cocked his head.
“I mean, I wouldn’t say dating apps are solely to blame.”
His brow furrowed. “Solely? As in you think—sorry, what are you saying?”
Uh-oh. She’d managed to insert her foot into her mouth in English just as well as she could in Italian.
“Nothing,” she said, backpedaling.
“Come on.” This time, he nudged her under the table. “You won’t offend me. I want to hear what you have to say.”
“I don’t even use dating apps anymore. I’m not in your demographic.”
She didn’t use dating apps anymore because she didn’tdateanymore. Period.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
With a resigned sigh, she accepted there’d be no wiggling her way out of this. That would be too easy.
“I wouldn’t say dating apps are responsible for the death of romance, but—”
