Page 254 of Lovers' Dance: Vol. 2

“What was that?” I leaned over to check. “Excuse me? My thought process isnota con. Scratch that off. Matt, scratch it off now.”

He did while I huffed and muttered about his cheekiness.

“Ok,” Matt was back to being serious. “I’m a difficult person to live with.”

I nodded quickly.

“We both are.” Matt amended then wrote it down. “Our work lives are beyond hectic.”

I nodded again as he wrote it down.

“You continue to be frigidly aloof with some members of my family.” Matt pointed out.

“I’m trying, Matt.” I jumped to my own defence.

He leaned over to give me a quick peck on the mouth. “I know you are, sweetheart. I’m just verbalizing any possible problems.”

“You still treat me like a child sometimes and I resent it.” I reminded him. “That’s not good for a marriage.”

Matt wrote it down and said, “You’re good friends with McGregor, it still winds me up. Why does he have to call you so much? And that new dancer in your corp, what’s his name? The one with the small scar on his neck. I don’t like him. He’s too familiar with you, even Dante mentioned something along those lines.”

The expression on my face was eloquent. “Whose con is that? Because it sure as hell isn’t mine.”

Matt, noting the fire in my eyes, uncomfortably cleared his throat. “Ah, my overprotectivenesscouldbe seen as a problem.”

“Jealousy, not overprotectiveness.” I stated flatly. “Put it down. You get jealous when you have no reason to be.” When I saw his eyes bulge, I hastened to add, “Dougie and I are cool now. It was a misunderstanding. Let’s not drag up all that old drama. He’s got a girlfriend now. Did I tell you that?”

“Hmph.” He snorted before listing his jealous trait as a con.

“I hate the fact you didn’t trust me during our first marriage.” I admitted with unsure eyes. We had promised to be honest with each other when we got back together. Honesty could be hard, but it was necessary. “Sometimes, not often, but sometimes I kind of want to thump you. Yesterday for example. You came home from work and you brought me that special cheesecake I asked for. I wanted to thump you and you hadn’t done anything wrong. It’s probably residual anger.”

“I see.” Matt did well to keep the alarm out of his voice. “Let’s put down your semi-violent tendencies, shall we?”

“Hey, that’s unfair. You have to put it in context.” I argued.

Matt rolled his eyes and made an annotation of the context, then his next words made my heart ache. “I can’t forgive myself for what I put you through, and it makes me angry anytime I think about it.”

It was my turn to lean over and kiss his lips. He managed a smile when I pulled away.

“What about the media intrusion in our lives? The need for bodyguards? The constant scrutiny?” I wanted to change the topic. The bitterness and self-recrimination creeping into his handsome face made me feel guilty. Was his inability to forgive himself stemming from my inability to completely let go of my wronged feelings? Shit. I needed to stop subjecting him to any passive-aggressive emotional punishment in order to win arguments. Damn it. I was not going to become a crazy ass witch. Maybe it was alreadytoo late to avoid that title.

“How big of a con is it?” Matt asked. I raised both eyebrows and he wrote it down.

Twenty minutes later the line dividing the page in half had become useless as Matt had covered the whole page in cons. We managed to fill the whole page with reasons why we shouldn’t get married.

“Well,” Matt eyed my despondent face. “This is slightly depressing.”

“Slightly?” It wasn’t even an attempt of a joke. I was dismayed we had found so many arguments against getting hitched. Then I thought about what really mattered. “Can I have that?” I took the pad and pen out of his hands before he could refuse. I looked over his neat handwriting and sighed. “Ok, on paper it might not be a good idea, but,” My words trailed off and I turned the pad away from his gaze to scribble something.

“But what?” Matt pressed.

“Gimme a sec.” I went over the words a few more times to deepen their outline then passed it over to him.

He started to smile and it was both sweetly angelic and deliciously wicked at the same time. “You love me.”

I nodded.

“Everything about me.” Matt put the pad and pen aside. His piercing grey eyes sparkled with memory and tenderness.I love you. Everything about you.Those were the same words he had written on our first trip to New York together when he had made me do that pros and cons list.

---