Page 4 of Fierce-Matt (Fierce Matchmaking #19)

WITNESS HER REACTION

“Hot damn, they don’t call me Mighty Matt for nothing.”

Well, maybe he was the only one who called himself that, but it still counted in his mind.

At two, he’d left the courthouse and, rather than return to his office, went to see his brother.

No reason to not call it a week and start his weekend off getting out early.

He’d never gotten Anya out of his mind, and now that he saw her again, it was in his frontal lobe and not ready to be shoved out.

He took a risk that she might be working. Luck was on his side when he stepped into the Fierce Brewery store and glanced through the crowd of people in the bar. If the bar wasn’t set up on a higher platform he would have never gotten a glimpse at her.

He pulled his phone out and shot his brother a text. It’d be the only way he could get back there for a closer look at Anya.

Five minutes went by with no reply, so he made his way to the register. He was in line with nothing in his hand.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked when it was his turn.

“I’m Matt Kelly, Ben’s brother. He’s not answering my text but didn’t know I was stopping. Could you have him paged?”

“Of course,” the young woman said. Her eyes looked him over closely. “You look nothing like him.”

“I’m sure it has nothing to do with our matching attire,” he said, winking.

He was in a suit. His brother wore jeans, T-shirts, and work boots daily.

“I guess you do have the same eyes. Hang on.”

Matt kept from rolling those eyes that he shared with his brother.

He might not be as muscular as Ben, but no one had ever not been able to point them out as brothers.

He heard his brother’s name paged in the back to come to the store. He hadn’t expected he would hear it and looked over to see if Anya would look this way.

She hadn’t. Either she was used to that happening or couldn’t hear it over the noise in the bar.

Could be she had her hands busy filling glasses. The bar was always this packed.

He should have gotten a tour pass to go in and get a drink, but he’d stand out like a sore thumb and he had no intention of going on a tour.

“What are you doing here?” Ben asked him a few minutes later.

“I came in for some beer,” he said, “and thought I’d say hi to my older brother. Problem with that?”

“Nope,” Ben said. “Want to come back? Too many people up here.”

“Yep,” he said. It was exactly as he’d hoped for.

He followed his brother out of the store, past the hostess who was taking money for the tours, then into the tasting room, through security doors, and to the back.

The hum of workers was much quieter back here than the loud, excited chatter of guests receiving their favorite brews.

“What brings you by in the middle of the afternoon dressed like you should be in court slinging fancy words at jurors?”

Matt snorted. “Some of us don’t have a problem wearing a suit.”

“Your tie is missing, so you must not have been trying to impress a judge.”

One side of his lip curled up in a smirk. “It’s in the car. I took it off when I was done. I’m ditching the rest of the day and wanted to pick up some beer for the weekend.”

“You came to the right place,” Ben said. “The question is what do you want?”

“I’m always open to suggestions,” he said. He was looking through the glass to the bar as they walked down the hall.

Ben laughed. “I don’t think you came to see me.”

“What?” he asked.

“Do you really want to get your nuts shoved down your throat again?” Ben asked.

His shoulders dropped. His brother had busted his ass over the way Anya had left him standing on the dance floor a month ago with his jaw open.

So much for hoping no one witnessed it.

He’d brushed it off and laughed, then made a joke about it.

Ben wasn’t buying it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You can play it that way,” Ben said. “Or better yet, we can go get a beer for you to try. Got a new one on tap. Then I can witness her reaction to you firsthand.”

No one ever said he shied away from a bet.

“Why don’t we do that?”

“You really are a glutton for punishment,” Ben said, shaking his head. “But I could use a good laugh.”

They turned and went back to another door. Ben swiped his badge, then the two of them butted in front of everyone else to go around the back of the bar.

“You’re going to serve me,” he said. “Sweet. I might have to mark my calendar.”

“It will be the last time I serve you,” Ben said over his shoulder. His brother grabbed a glass, filled it halfway and handed it over, then got another glass and did it for a second. “You can decide which one you like better.”

Matt took a sip of the first and pursed his lips. A little sweet for his liking. Before he sipped the second, Anya turned and made eye contact with him.

He grinned and winked at her.

She actually flushed and returned his smile, then went back to her customer with a full glass.

Wow, that wasn’t anything like he expected.

He would have liked to stay longer, but Ben said, “Let’s get out of the way. That was anticlimactic.”

He looked over his shoulder back at Anya, but she wasn’t paying attention to him.

Talk about an ego crusher. You’d think that even if she was angry with him, she would still watch to make sure he left.

“I like this second one better.”

“Me too,” Ben said. “The first is a fruity summer IPA.”

“A chick drink in my eyes,” he said.

His brother laughed. “I think the same, but don’t say that too much in the back. A lot of the guys love it and it’s a big seller right out of the gate.”

“To each their own,” he said.

“That’s what I always say. Got any plans this weekend?” Ben asked.

“Nah. I’ve got a few cases I’ve got to get shit done on.”

He could’ve gone into the office now, but it was better this way, coming here.

He’d thought he’d gotten Anya out of his system years ago when he lost track of her.

Seeing her again brought it all back.

The women he compared her to, the ones who reacted the same as she did.

Shit. He should dial it back and knew that, but he was so serious with his job all the time, that when he wasn’t working, he wanted to cut loose.

Not everyone enjoyed it or had the same sense of humor as he did. It took him a long time to realize that.

“The life you chose,” Ben said. “I never complain about working on the weekends.”

“Who the hell would if they spend it brewing and drinking beer?”

Ben slapped him on the back. “Exactly. Now who is the smart one?”

“We all have to do what we were meant for,” he said.

“Were you really meant for this or you let pressure push you in that direction?”

“Unlike you, I didn’t give two shits about what Grandpa said or thought about me,” he said.

“Because you were going to follow in the family footsteps anyway,” Ben said. “I was never meant to.”

“You weren’t,” he said. “Everyone recognized it but you.”

“I recognized it with the help of Eve,” Ben said.

Their grandfather had started Kelly Law and was a mean chauvinistic son of a bitch who wanted things his way.

Thankfully their father didn’t feel that way and Matt wanted to be like that man, not the one before him.

“Guess a good woman would do that to you,” he said, sipping the amber liquid he liked.

Ben took the other out of his hand to finish. “You’d know that if you didn’t joke about everything in life.”

“Come on,” he said. “You were the class clown, not me. Who do you think I learned it all from?”

Matt had idolized his older brother. Sure, there were times he took jokes a bit too far. Or didn’t gauge his audience properly, but it was all in good fun.

At least in his eyes.

“Seriously?” Ben asked.

“Yeah. Don’t tell me this is your light bulb moment.”

Ben laughed. “Guess it is.”

“I learned from the best,” he said.

Ben shook his head. “Don’t put that on my shoulders. I knew where to draw the line. Most times I got people to laugh at my expense, not theirs.”

His brother was right. “We approach things differently.”

“We do,” Ben said. “Which is why you’re standing here hoping to get the woman who can’t stand you to give you another forced smile. Want to go out and get a snack now?”

“It wasn’t forced,” he argued.

Ben lifted an eyebrow at him. “You keep telling yourself that.”