Page 14 of With Love, Alex

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” He asked with a low chuckle. I hadn’t noticed it the night we met, but in the subsequent times we had talked, I realized that Matt had a Boston accent. I loved accents, and it made me more attracted to him then I would have been otherwise.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know where my mind was. I guess I’m too used to driving and knowing where I’m going. Do you want me to give you directions or do you want to put it into your GPS?” I asked because I knew men could be weird about driving and taking directions.

His eyes sparkled with amusement as he replied. “You can give me the directions if you don’t mind.”

“Do you like Italian?”

“Love it,” he moaned in the back of his throat. “My grandmother’s Italian, and it’s been too long since I’ve had one of her home-cooked meals.”

“Well, now I’m not so sure about my choice of restaurants. You obviously know your Italian food. I hope you’re not too disappointed with the restaurants in Fairlane, we have some pretty good food, but I’m sure they’re nothing like the restaurants you’re used to.”

My hands twisted together in my lap as we made our way to eat. I hadn’t thought out my choices of where we’d eat very well. I probably should have asked what he liked to eat. I’d made a trip to the grocery store to make something fancy I saw on a cooking show that looked amazing, but now I wasn’t confident in my choice.

“Don’t worry about it. I promise I’m not a food critic and I don’t want you to be stressed about what we eat all weekend. I came to see you, not eat the best culinary food in the country.” Matt tried to reassure me, but I was nervous about the entire weekend. If I couldn’t get what we were going to eat right, I was going to be a disaster. Maybe if I would’ve Googled him, I would’ve known Matt had an Italian background. Going by his light brown hair and blue eyes, you would never guess that his grandmother was Italian.

Once we were seated and Matt had looked over the menu, I caught him peeking over it as I took a bite of their delicious freshly baked bread.

He placed his menu down and sliced off a piece of bread for himself. “They’ve got a good selection. I can see why you chose this place. Do you know what you’re going to get?”

“Each time I come I try something different, but every time I order the zucchini frittes. They’re so good and almost a meal in themselves. I normally take the rest home and heat them up later for a snack either that night or the next day.”

“We’ll definitely have to order the zucchini then. Do you have a favorite?” He pointed to the menu.

“Not yet.” Shaking my head, I looked over the menu to see if anything stood out to me. “Everything is excellent as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think you can go wrong with anything you order. If it was evening, I’d say you have to try the dessert because their cheesecake is out of this world.”

“Maybe we’ll have to come back one night this weekend and try their cheesecake.” Matt winked at me as his foot found mine underneath the table.

Unsure how to act, I blushed and felt silly for being so inexperienced at the age of thirty. The last time I could really remember Decker showing any public display of affection had been in high school and after almost a decade of marriage with him, I was unused to flirting. Instead of getting mad about my past, I decided to give Matt the best me I could be and enjoy my time with him.

6

Time to Have Fun

“I’m assumingyour weekend with Matt went well if you’re packing to visit him in LA,” Ryan said through the phone.

It’d been three weeks since Matt had come to visit. When he first asked me to come out to visit him and go to a Halloween party with him, I wasn’t sure I should go. Then Taylor pointed out that Mason would be with his father that weekend and it would be good for me to get out of the house and have some fun.

I was so used to being a parent twenty-four, seven that when Mason was gone I didn’t know what to do with myself even after over a year of him going to his father’s every other weekend. Binge reading, or working had become my way of life while he was away. I needed to remember to have fun and live my life and that’s what I was going to do.

“It went well. I was so nervous for the first couple of days, but I finally relaxed and had some fun.”

I finished packing my clothes and went into the bathroom to gather everything that I would need to look my best at a Hollywood Halloween party. That meant I’d gone toSephoraand bought all new makeup, moisturizer, and hair stuff. Enough to put a dent in my bank account. It wasn’t every day that a girl from Fairlane went to a Hollywood party, and I wanted to look my best. I’d tried to nonchalantly ask who would be there only for him to answer that anyone who was anyone would be there. I couldn’t wrap my head around who all that would entail. At least I didn’t have to worry about a costume since Matt said he had it covered, but he wouldn’t tell me what we were going as.

“Did you cry this morning dropping Mason off?”

“Of course, I did, but only after he was in his classroom. Are you still on call in case I need you?” I was worried that something would happen while I was in California and wouldn’t be able to get to Mason quickly.

“You betcha. I won’t let you down. I’ll have my phone by my side all weekend long until I hear that you’re both safe at home.”

“Thank you,” I sniffed trying to not cry while on the phone with him. “It means a lot to me knowing that you’ll be there for Mason.”

“Always,” he vowed. “I’ve got to get back to this job but call me if you need anything. And remember to have fun!”

“I will. Thanks.”

* * *

“You want me to wear that?” I asked in a half-shriek, half-panicked voice. Being dressed in Shelli’s skimpy dress when I’d met Matt and Colton was coming to bite me in the ass. When Matt had come for the weekend, I’d dressed nicer than I normally did, but nothing was skimpy. In Hollywood terms I was sure I looked like a conservative prude since I wasn’t comfortable flashing skin while out in public.

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