Chapter 6
GRACE
“Come on,” Grace muttered. Then she quickly closed her mouth and looked around to make sure no one had heard her.
No one had, because she was alone in the MatchupNow offices late on a Sunday evening.
Any reasonable person would be at home spending time with their loved ones or relaxing before a busy week.
Someday, Grace might try to learn to relax.
She’d heard it was good for people. But for now, she was close, so close, to solving a bug that had taken up all her thoughts since going home yesterday.
Alex had told her not to come in, but she hadn’t been able to help herself.
She’d gone into the office, checked out the master laptop, and dived into the code.
If Alex didn’t keep such close control of the work, she could have done this from the comfort of her couch at home, wearing pajamas and holding a cup of tea, but here she was instead, in the office, alone.
She tried not to think about what Alex had said about ghosts. He’d been joking.
Grace tapped a line of code into the screen, then backspaced it all away with a sigh. Just then, she heard something behind her and turned, her heart racing. The door to her office was open, and a figure stood outlined in the hall lights.
“Who…” The question petered out in Grace’s throat as the figure stepped closer. She stood, ready to try to fight back, when the figure revealed itself to be Alex. Grace let out her breath in a whoosh as relief overtook her.
“Hey,” Alex said. He held out a coffee cup. “I brought you some coffee. With vanilla creamer, just like you like it.”
“Thanks.” Grace crossed to him and accepted the coffee with a smile. “I thought you were a ghost.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” Alex winked, and Grace shuddered.
“No, thank you. I would much rather see you than a ghost.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“If you’d like.” Grace smiled and sipped her coffee. It was perfectly balanced, as if she’d made it herself. Alex must have paid attention to the coffee she drank.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Grace asked. “I thought you were at some fancy networking event.”
“I was, but I left,” Alex admitted. “Those guys annoy me.”
“Those guys?”
“The rich, powerful San Valentinos who think they can have anything and everything because of their families,” Alex said. He sighed. “There’s a new guy, Patrick Hale, who just started a dating app, and he’s the worst kind. So entitled. Such a jerk.”
“Aren’t you one of San Valentino’s rich and powerful?” Grace asked.
“Yes, but it’s different,” Alex said. “At least I worked for what I have.” He shook his head. “Anyway, no point in dwelling on it. There will always be people like that in this city. Please, distract me. What are you working on?”
“The ordering algorithm,” Grace said. “You know, the one that determines the order in which new profiles are shown to the user?”
“I’m familiar,” Alex said with a nod. He was all business again. “What’s going wrong?”
“Well, it works for the most part,” Grace explained, returning to her desk and sitting down. “But I’m having trouble ranking which features should get highest priority in determining the order. What do you think I should do?”
Alex didn’t answer. Instead, he took a rubber duck out of his pocket and set it on the desk in front of Grace, who stared at it with narrowed eyes.
“What’s this?” she asked when it became clear that Alex wasn’t going to explain anything.
“Well, I saw you focusing on work and looking frustrated,” Alex said. “So, I went to get this guy. It may seem silly, but sometimes, talking a problem out with an inanimate object that can’t judge or offer feedback helps. Give it a try.”
“Um…” Grace tucked her hair behind her ear. “Okay. Um. Hi, duck.”
She glanced up at Alex, who nodded encouragingly. “Keep trying.”
“I feel silly.”
“Maybe that’s part of it.” He grinned and gestured to the duck. “You’ve got this.”
“Well, okay. So, duck, the problem is that it’s difficult to rank features in order of priority,” Grace explained.
“Should location be most important? Questionnaire compatibility? Age? And then, when I go into the code and try to rank them, I keep getting weird outputs.” She sighed.
“With an app like MatchupNow, it’s so important that the first few profiles are compatible.
Otherwise, people end up swiping a lot, getting disappointed, and giving up.
The questionnaire answers are important, but I’ve heard feedback from beta testers that going through all three layers only to find out that the match lives far away or is an incompatible age is frustrating.
“So, duck, what should I do?”
The duck, unsurprisingly, did not answer.
Grace sighed. “Maybe location… no! Wait. It should be a factor created out of the compatibility of the age, profession, goals, and location of the profile with what the user is looking for. That way, once users get through the first layers, they’ll see someone they wanted to find.
The secondary factor for ordering people with similar compatibility scores can be the questionnaire answers. ”
She started typing, and moments later, she straightened up, letting out a sigh.
“That worked.” She looked up at Alex, beaming. “That was genius.”
“Thanks. I’ve been using this strategy since college. It may seem ridiculous, but it’s effective.”
“It was. And it was the final thing—we can test the update!”
“Excellent!” Alex’s face lit up, and he grabbed Grace’s hand, pulled her to her feet, and spun her around. She laughed as he twirled her then brought her to a stop, stepping back. He looked a little embarrassed.
“Should we test it right now?” she asked.
“No, we should go home and rest,” Alex said. “Or you should go out and celebrate. This is a big achievement. You’ve put so much into the app already.”
“Maybe we should go celebrate,” Grace said on impulse. “After all, you helped me with this last push. And you’re the reason any part of the app works—or even exists. It’s a big win for you even more than me.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” Alex said. Grace’s shoulders slumped, and she took a step back.
“Right. I was just being silly.”
“It’s late, and there’s a lot to do,” Alex added.
“Of course.”
“And we both need our rest.”
“You’re right.”
“Okay, then. Congratulations again.”
“Thanks.” Alex headed for the door, but at the last minute, Grace called out.
“Wait!” Maybe she was being silly again, but she wanted to celebrate with Alex. And though he’d said no, she was almost certain that he wanted that, too. “How about just one quick drink? It’ll take fifteen minutes, tops.”
Alex turned back, hesitation written all over his face. “I’m not sure that would be professional.”
“We’ll go back to professionalism first thing tomorrow,” Grace told him. She crossed the room and took his hand, giving it a little tug. “Come on. It’ll be fun. And you were the one who said we need a break before testing the app tomorrow.”
Alex sighed… but then he nodded. “Okay. But just one drink.”
“I promise,” Grace said. “We’ll start with just one drink.”
Alex raised his eyebrows with a laugh. “One drink total.”
“Yes. Definitely.” Grace winked, and Alex smiled.
“I don’t know if I trust you, but fine. If you’re sure.”
Grace nodded. “I’m sure. It’ll be fun.”
A small voice in the back of her head asked what she thought she was doing. She wasn’t the kind of person to ask out her boss. Not that she’d asked him out. A drink to celebrate a professional win certainly counted as a normal, non-romantic activity.
But Grace hadn’t asked him out because she wanted to celebrate her work achievement. At least, that wasn’t the only reason. She wanted to spend more time with Alex, make him laugh, and just forget about all her careful plans for one night.
Alex headed for the door, and Grace grabbed her bag and followed. She wished she’d dressed a little nicer—she wore jeans and a T-shirt she’d thrown on, not expecting to meet anyone at the office, while Alex was in a suit from his event.
“Oh!” Alex turned back. “Before we go, make sure to sign the laptop back in.”
“Right!” Grace grabbed the laptop, and they took it to his office to return together. “Thanks for the reminder.”
“Now we’re ready.” Alex held out his arm, and Grace smiled as she took it. “Let’s go and get that one drink, and one drink only.”
“Let’s go.”