Page 12 of Fierce-Matt
“I have nothing to do in the office today so can give you the time you need until I show up at Fierce at eleven for my shift.”
She’d taken a double since she had nothing lined up to show tonight. If she had to walk away to get an offer in for her clients, Justin would let her take that break since she was covering on such short notice.
“In that case…” Amber said. “Your father is still sleeping soundly. I don’t suppose you could help me clean out your brother’s room. I think it’s time to de-clutter the house. Might as well start there.”
She laughed. “Can I throw some of his stuff around and trash it like he would have?”
Her mother grinned. “Even if I said yes, you’d never do it. You don’t have it in you.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “But it was a nice thought. A trash bag will be good enough. We’ll get through this, Mom.”
“We will because I’ve got you,” her mother said. “Don’t let anything EJ said bring you down.”
Too late. It always happened and it always would.
3
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.
