Chapter Fifteen

Now

I shook my head free of the memories of that summer, and pursued him into the apartment. I was surprised to find the new addition of a grand piano in the living room.

“Whoa! When did you get the piano?” It hadn’t been here the last time I was over.

“It was my dad’s.”

“Oh.” That stopped me short. Matt’s dad had died unexpectedly of a heart attack just six weeks earlier. I dropped my oversized bag onto the couch and went closer to inspect the instrument. It was clearly well cared for, although a few of the keys were chipped. A thought struck me, and I wandered toward the kitchen to avoid shouting. “How did you get it up here?”

Matt grinned at me. “Very carefully.”

“I’m serious.”

“We had to have professionals do it,” he said. “My mom wanted it out of the house. She’s selling, did I tell you?”

“No. Where’s she moving to?”

“Arizona.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Her sister is down there. My brother is in Nevada. Apparently, I’m not enough of a draw to stay here.” He smiled to show me he was joking.

“My mom moved to Arizona, and all I got was this lousy piano,” I said.

“Something like that.” He pulled a pot off the stove and dumped its contents into a waiting colander.

“Can I help you?”

“Nope.”

“So, what should I do?”

“Amuse yourself.” He waved me off, eyes focused on his task. It was a familiar gesture, but I’d been thinking so much about the first few years we’d known each other that it struck me how much older he looked now.

I went back to the living room. As always, I was drawn to the bulletin board that hung above his desk in the corner of the room. He’d had it in every apartment he’d lived in since sophomore year. Over the years, the pictures had piled up, to the point that some of the older ones were totally obscured, but he never took them down. It was a miracle that ordinary pushpins could still penetrate to the cork. I peered behind some of the looser photos, seeing a montage of my own life as it intertwined with Matt’s. In one corner, barely visible, I found the unmistakable Caribbean blue of Meghan Lowry’s eye.

Jesus … Meghan …

Three Years Earlier … First Year After Graduating From College

The first date I got after I became a reasonable facsimile of an adult—a college graduate, with a real job, and my own apartment—was thanks to my cat. I’d sort of forgotten what it was like to live with a cat, and I left the door open as I carried a few boxes from the spot where I’d left them by the elevator. When I went out for the last box, I saw Dewey’s feather boa tail disappearing down the stairwell at the end of the hall.

For a moment, I did an unintentional slapstick comedy routine, going for the box, then the stairs, then my door, then the stairs, and back again all without accomplishing anything. Finally, I shoved the box through my front door, slammed it, and ran after the cat. He was only one flight down, pawing and yowling at the door of apartment 207. His objective was clearly the source of the intoxicating smell coming from within. I reached him just as the door opened. A guy with a warm smile and the ugliest pants I’d ever seen was on the other side.

I froze with the marmalade puffball that was Dewey dangling from my arms. “Sorry, my cat—”

“I heard—” he started.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Mmrrrowr!” Dewey did a full body twist, slipped from my grasp, and headed straight for the stranger’s kitchen.

“Dewey!” I rose on my toes, looking for him, but hesitant to follow.

“My chicken,” Ugly Pants murmured, rushing after the cat.

I bobbled on my toes in the doorway. “Do you want me to come get him?” I called in.

“Yeah, please. Come in.” His voice was a soft tenor, incongruous with his buzz cut hair and the tattoo I could see poking out of the sleeve of his T-shirt.

I left the door open and stepped into the full force of the cooking smells. “Oh my God, what is that?” His apartment was basic, but nicely furnished. A stark contrast to the world of student housing I’d just left, and the still-moving-in chaos of my own place. When I turned the corner to the kitchen Ugly Pants was holding a plate aloft like he was considering it for a hat. Meanwhile, Dewey was on the kitchen counter, standing on his back feet and pawing the air below the plate. “Dewey!” I snatched him off the counter. He tried another escape maneuver, but I clamped one elbow tightly to his ribs and wrapped my other hand around his back feet.

He protested with a pitiful mewl.

“Oh hush, you big boor.”

“You got him?” Ugly Pants asked, still levitating the chicken out of the cat’s reach.

“Yes, I’m sorry. Really. He just got away from me.”

“It’s okay. It happens a lot.”

“He’s been down here before?” I asked, eyes wide.

“No, but whenever anybody loses a pet in the building, they almost always end up at my door.” He looked at me, smiling easily for the first time, now that his plate was safe. He was actually quite nice-looking, I realized. Light coloring and faded blue eyes. He was older than me, I could tell. Probably over thirty, if the bare imprints of lines around his eyes were any indication.

Dewey wrenched his body again, and almost got loose, but I shifted him to a cradle hold with all four feet trapped in one fist. I didn’t want to get clawed.

“It’s the smell of the chicken,” I said. “He’s a food whore.”

Ugly Pants laughed. “I’ve never really heard it described that way before.”

I grimaced as I realized I’d probably gone a little crass for a first conversation. “Oh. I … What are you making? It smells incredible.”

“Chicken with shallots, prunes, and Armagnac.”

“Oh!” The hideousness of his pants clicked into place. “Are you a chef?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh wow. That’s—” I stopped before I said “hot.” Because I’d already worked “whore” into our first conversation, I didn’t need to embarrass myself any further.

Dewey made another bid for freedom, this time getting enough momentum to make me take a few steps before I got control again. “I guess I should get him away from here. Sorry, again.”

“It’s all right.”

I was at the open door when he spoke again. “Where do you live? In case … Dewey?… comes back.”

I turned to look at him. “Three-oh-five.”

His lips shaped the words as he repeated my apartment number to himself. He smiled. “It was nice to meet you …”

For some reason, I gave him my full name. “Jocelyn. And you’re …” I found myself caught in his gaze while warmth spread through me from my stomach outward.

“Martin.”

Dewey squirmed once more, pulling me back to reality. This was no time to make goo-goo eyes at the neighbor—even if he was a handsome, tattooed chef who seemed to be smiling at me in just the same way. “I’ll see you around, I guess … Martin.” I made my exit, while the cat redoubled his efforts to stay by the source of the heady scent of chicken with shallots, prunes, and whatever it was he’d said.

A few minutes after I’d given Dewey a stern talking to and poured him some cat kibble, I heard a knock at the door. I opened it to find Martin.

“Hi,” he said.

A flock of butterflies took off from my stomach and filled my chest. “Hi.”

“Would you like to have dinner with me?” he asked. “I always make too much.”

I smiled. “I’d like that.”

“My place?” he offered.

“If that chicken is still there—yes.”

Martin was eleven years older than me. I’d never dated someone younger than me, but the biggest age gap I’d ever dealt with before was two years. Eleven was a whole new ball game. When I was graduating from high school, he was getting ready to celebrate his thirtieth birthday. When he was going to prom, I still had training wheels on my bike.

We spent our first dinner finding all the most extreme examples of our age difference and laughing over it together, but it seemed to be a subject Martin never tired of. The second time he asked me down to his apartment for dinner, he started in again.

“First concert,” he challenged.

I smiled. “I don’t want to tell you.”

“Oh, come on, everyone’s first concert is a little embarrassing,” he said. “Mine was Iron Maiden.”

I laughed. “Then you really don’t want to hear mine.”

“It wasn’t *NSync, was it?” he asked, nose wrinkled.

Cheeks pink with wine and embarrassment, I confessed. “Britney Spears—but it wasn’t my idea.”

He dropped his head onto his arms. “You’re so young.”

I grinned at him. “Oh, come on, you’re not exactly dying of old age here.”

He sighed and stood to clear the table. I gathered up what he couldn’t carry and followed him to the kitchen. He loaded everything into the sink and ran the tap hot.

“I’ll dry if you want,” I offered, sliding next to him. He was taller than me—everyone was—and built strong. If I hadn’t seen the hideous pants, I would have guessed he worked in construction, or ran with a biker gang in his spare time.

“I’ll do it all later,” he said, taking the dish towel from my hands.

We looked at each other for the length of three breaths. The corners of his eyes crinkled, then smoothed as he contemplated me.

“How old were you the first time you had sex?” I asked, because why not just get it all out there?

He licked his lips. “Eighteen.”

I popped one eyebrow at him. “I was—”

“Seven, I know.” He broke his gaze from mine and rubbed one of his earlobes between two fingers for a few seconds.

“Do you want to know how old I was?” I offered.

“Not in the slightest.” He caught me by the waist and crushed his lips to mine.

Martin had stories, furniture that he’d bought himself, and patience in bed that made me feel like a kindergartner. He never made me feel that way, but there was just no avoiding the contrast.

There were times he seemed to love the gap—he went on about my relaxed attitude and willingness to try almost anything. Luckily, as a chef, he didn’t cook any blue food. He loved and contributed to my lingerie collection. He had great taste in underwear. Yet, other times, like when I didn’t know a movie or song he referred to or when he found out that I’d been in grade school during September 11, he would just close his eyes and rub his temples in a my-head-is-going-to-explode way.

We both knew we were doomed as a couple from the start—we even talked about it on our first date. Still, two days before New Year’s Eve, I was surprised when the age gap made another appearance. I wanted him to come to Madison with me, where I had invitations to three parties. He didn’t want to go.

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” I waggled my nearly invisible eyebrows and nodded.

“Sweetie, I know you’re going to have a great time, but I’m too old for that crowd.” He was cleaning up after cooking me yet another to-die-for dinner. He was very particular about his pans, so I was sitting on a stool in the doorway to keep out of his way.

“No one will care.” I crossed my heart. “They’re all really nice. You’ll love it.”

“I’ll care.” He crossed the small kitchen to wrap his arms around me and rest his chin on my head. “Just call me at midnight.”

“No, it’s okay. We don’t have to go.”

“Just go, Joss. These are your friends.”

“You’re my friend, too.”

“I see you a lot more than they do.” He released me from the bear hug and smiled. “Please go.”

I frowned, but I really wanted to go. I missed my college friends horribly.

Martin could see my hesitation. “I thought you were all gung ho to meet Matt’s new girlfriend.”

I was. “Well, yeah, but …”

“Go.” His soft smile took the sting out of the implication that he might not want to be with me on New Year’s Eve. “Meet the girl. Drink champagne. Have fun.”

I tried a final enticement. “Geena’s party is a James Bond theme.”

“You said.” He went back to his soapy sink.

I took a sip from my wineglass while my thoughts formed two distinct factions: those in favor of staying home with Martin and those who wanted to go back to my old stomping grounds and have a blast. The only thought on Martin’s side with any real merit was a sense of guilt. Ironic, since he was all but forcing me to go.

“I really want to meet Meghan,” I said, knowing how much I sounded like I was making excuses. “Matt says I’m going to like her, but he has the worst taste in women.”

“Not the worst.” Martin tilted his head to one side and gave me the once-over. “Not by a long shot.” In a moment of wine-induced honesty, I’d told him about my strange arrangement with Matt. He found the whole thing amusing.

“Thank you.” I flushed. “I like to think I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to him.” Nothing like a little false bravado to deflect a compliment.

“I’m pretty sure you are.” He stopped sudsing for a moment to kiss my forehead. “And I think we need to talk.”

We need to talk. Four words that are as informative as any of the words that follow them. I knew I had to stop him, save him the trouble. But, there’s always that flicker of curiosity: What would his reason be? What would the real, unspoken reason be? In Martin’s rare case, those would the same—the age gap. We were at completely different stages of our lives, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam.

“I know.” I curled my hands into his shirt and forced him to look at me. “You don’t have to say it.”

He smiled sadly. “If it was even five years …”

I shook my head. “Please don’t.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie.” He kissed me. “It was never going to work.”

He was right, but that didn’t stop me from feeling like a cup of spilled milk. I wasn’t heartbroken, nor did I have the overwhelming feeling of ickiness that some of my ex-boyfriends had left behind. I was … empty. It was like entering a contest, knowing in your head you’re never going to win, but hoping in your heart that you might. There is no cure for disappointment that comes from false expectations.

Geena greeted me at the door with a Hello My Name Is tag in one hand. Without asking, she slapped it on my hip. I glanced down.

“Solitaire?”

“Live and Let Die,” Geena said. “Jane Seymour played her. You got a good one.”

“And this isn’t some kind of dig about me showing up dateless?”

Her eyes widened. “No! I’m sorry, I’ll get you another one!” She reached for my tag, but I put my hand over it.

“It was a joke, Geena-Beana. I’ll be Solitaire.”

“Yay!” She grinned and thrust one finger in the air. “To the champagne!”

I mimicked her gesture. “To the champagne!”

Being at the party, surrounded by my old life, was a welcome distraction from my breakup with Martin. It was as though my life back in Milwaukee was a dream, and I’d awakened on New Year’s Eve. The illusion would have been perfect if everyone hadn’t greeted me like the prodigal daughter. Hugs, kisses, and the traditional UW-Madison greeting of “Let’s do a shot!” I was out of practice—and probably healthier for it—and had to start declining offers early in the night. Still, I was more than a little blurry-eyed and hot-cheeked when Matt showed up with the new girl in tow.

I was shocked when I saw her. Not at all his usual, too-pretty-for-her-own-good type. She was more cute than pretty, something I could relate to. If I were a chipmunk, Meghan might have been a puppy. Dirty blond hair and freckles, a smile that was just a few teeth too wide for classic beauty, and the most shocking blue eyes I’d ever seen. An electric blue like a postcard from a tropical island. But it was the warmth in them that made her so different from all the Courtneys, Shelbys, and Pep Squad Wannabes he’d dated before.

“Joss, Meghan; Meghan, Joss.”

“Joss!” She threw her arms around me. “I’ve heard so much about you! I was starting to think Matty made you up!”

I gave Matt a look over her shoulder, all wide eyes and the unspoken question: Does she know about us? He shook his head just slightly. Meghan released me.

“Okay, sorry.” She stuck her hand out. “I’m Meghan.”

I grinned and knocked her hand away. “Forget that. We’re not going backward now.”

By midnight, Meghan and I were like old friends. She was smart, funny, and one of the most fun people I ever met. She had me standing on Geena’s coffee table with a long string of beads around both of our necks, belting out the chorus to a song she’d requested when someone cut the power to the stereo and shouted, “Five minutes to midnight!”

Everyone scrambled to get a glass of champagne—a bottle in some cases—and to get close to whoever they wanted to kiss at the first moment of the New Year. That slapped me back to my freshly single status. My old life felt a little less comfortable when the room paired off in preparation for midnight. There were new couples everywhere I looked. Old friends with new flames, and me on my own. I watched Meghan and Matt find each other, and cheat the New Year by a good thirty seconds.

I pressed my lips into a thin line, unable to prevent myself from remembering the feel of Matt’s mouth on mine. He was a good kisser anytime; alone and lonely on New Year’s Eve, he might as well have been a glass of water just out of reach while I died of thirst. I pulled my eyes from the scene and received Geena’s friendly kiss on the cheek.

Moving through the room, and away from Matt and Meghan, I collected hugs and kisses that ranged from dry and on the cheek to wet and a little too friendly. Ultimately, it was Meghan who grabbed me from behind and pulled me into a hug.

“Happy New Year!” she shouted, before planting a noisy kiss on my temple. Then, she shoved me at Matt who caught me by the waist.

“Happy New Year, Joss.”

“Happy New Year.” I put one hand on his chest to regain my balance and stared at his mouth.

He smiled a little, then leaned in to kiss the corner of my lips.

I scrounged up a smile for him. “I like her.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“Your taste is improving.”

“You’re just saying that because she’s almost as little as you.”

I eased back from him and twisted to look at Meghan. We weren’t twins by any means, but she was close to my height and also built light and small. “Like I said—improving.”

The night wore on, as New Year’s Eve so often does, until the inevitable bad idea happened. So, at five in the morning, I found myself in the backyard of Geena’s boyfriend’s house, huddled around a charcoal grill with a marshmallow on a stick. January in Wisconsin is cold. Especially in the predawn morning. But we’d all been drinking long enough to think the unseasonably warm temperature of forty-two degrees was obvious s’more weather. Within five minutes, it was obvious what a horrible idea this was, but we had the kind of dedication that only the drunk and exhausted can give to a bad plan.

“I need some kind of rotisserie.” Meghan put her back to the fire, then immediately shifted to face the tiny pyre. “I’m burning up in front, and literally freezing my ass off in the back.”

Matt leaned over to check her out. “Nope, still there.”

She twisted to check for herself. “Huh, look at that.”

I laughed and dropped my marshmallow into the flames. I groaned.

“There’re more inside,” one of the guys who lived there offered.

I knew there was a distinct possibility I wouldn’t return if I got a taste of the warm interior, but a s’more sounded good. I went back to the house then grabbed the whole bag of marshmallows and a fuzzy blanket from the back of the couch. When I came back, Meghan was in the middle of a story about her halfhearted attempt to rush the sororities first semester. She’d been talked into it by a group of girls who lived in her dorm, who convinced her that it was the way to make lifelong friends and do something important on campus.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said.

“No shit, Meghan,” someone else agreed. “You’re not the sorority type at all.”

“Well, I know that now,” she agreed with a theatrical eye roll. “I quit on day three.”

“Thank God,” I said.

She turned to smile at me and noticed the blanket. “No fair!”

“I’ll share, but I’m not giving it up,” I said.

“Yay!” She wobbled through the trampled area of snow around the grill and grabbed one end of the blanket. We squeezed together and succeeded in cutting off the wind.

“Ahhh …” Meghan sighed and wiggled fractionally closer.

“Speaking of Greeks … did I ever tell you about the time I almost sexually assaulted a frat guy?” That got the laugh I was expecting, and I launched into the story of my pathetic attempt to seduce the useless Jeff. I skimmed over the rationale for the attempt, feeling remote from the heartbreak of Ben’s cheating.

“So, did you ever find a more helpful volunteer?” Meghan asked.

I found Matt’s eyes on the other side of the fire and he gave me a pleading look. It was what I’d expected, and I dropped a wink at him. “Not for a while. It’s just as well … I think Jeff would have made me feel dirtier than Ben.”

I stayed in Madison for the weekend, sleeping on couches and borrowed beds wherever I could. I’d dropped Dewey off with my fellow vet tech, Nellie, so I didn’t have anything pressing me to get back to Milwaukee. Avoiding home seemed like a better plan anyway. Geena tolerated my dissection of the Martin breakup better than I expected. I guessed not seeing me for a while made her more willing to listen to my dating drama.

Matt was the last person I saw. We had a breakfast on Sunday that by all rights should have been called lunch. Meghan always worked in the call center for the university hospital on Sunday mornings, so it was just the two of us. It reminded me of dozens of times when I’d sat across from him in the four years we’d known each other. Even the setting was familiar—Mickie’s Dairy Bar, a Madison institution in the field of breakfast. The place was noisy, crowded, and usually required a long wait, but we got a seat after only twenty minutes. The city still seemed to be nursing its collective hangover. I always liked sitting on the red stools near the windows at Mickie’s. It made me feel almost normal height, though I kicked my feet like a kid the whole time.

We talked about my job, about his decision not to walk in the December graduation ceremony, about my cat, where Matt should live when he moved to Milwaukee for law school, about Martin and Meghan. There was a lot of talk about Meghan.

“What made you stray so far from the Barbie aisle?” I asked, and poked at my half of the scrambler we were sharing. I had pressed a butter knife through the center of the obscene mountain of breakfast food and wiggled it until there was a moat between our halves. Matt’s half had ketchup on top of it. Demonstrating enormous personal growth and maturity, I hadn’t thrown up at the sight, and even managed to eat a good portion of my half. The food was going to emerge victorious, I knew, but I intended to give it a good fight.

He narrowed his eyes. “Cute. You’ve been saving that one up, haven’t you?”

I didn’t answer, but grinned at him.

“Honestly? You.”

My insides whirled and I had to reach for my coffee for distraction. “Why me?”

“You were dating a thirty-three-year-old.” He shook his head. “I figured I should try something new.”

“It’s not a contest,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s just …” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just saw her at the Nat, and she was cute and funny, and I thought, why wouldn’t I ask her out?”

“Do you hear that?” I cupped my hand behind one ear. “I think that’s the sound of Matt Lehrer maturing.”

“Bite me.”

“Oh, no. I was wrong.” I grinned at him.

“Just do me a favor and don’t go rambling on about all the girls I’ve dated when you see her, okay?”

“I would never—” I started to say.

“Not even if you’ve had too much wine?” he interrupted.

“So, she doesn’t know you’re a man slut?”

“I really hate that you came up with that.”

“What? It’s not my fault you can’t keep it in your pants.” I was smiling, because I was teasing, but there was a strange feeling of nervousness in my stomach. Like I was at the top of a slippery slope and one false step would send me down the path of saying mean things just to make him feel bad. Apparently, I was taking the breakup harder than I was willing to let on. Harder than I even realized. I tossed out a belated, “You know I’m teasing.”

Matt picked up the ketchup bottle and tilted it over my half of the plate, cap on. “You sure about that?”

I wrinkled my nose and sat back fast enough to almost slip off my stool. “You wouldn’t.”

He grinned and set the bottle back on the table. “So, what were you saying?”

“I take it she hasn’t been enlightened to the concept of Sorbet …” I said.

“Um … no.”

“I get why you’re not telling her, but at the same time, I have to ask: What are you worried about? You hadn’t even met her the last time we …” I crossed my legs and pressed my knees tight together. We were experts at compartmentalizing the two parts of our relationship, but nothing could stop liquid heat from dripping through me when we spoke about our intermittent sex life in the light of day.

“I know.” He nodded. “But, I’m not sure she’d be thrilled that we’re still friends.”

“It’s in the rules,” I reminded him.

“True.”

“Maybe you should just show her the contract.” I nudged his foot with mine.

“Do you still have that? The rules, I mean.”

In a box in my front hall closet. “Probably somewhere.”

“That’s good.”

I considered all the possible meanings of his uninterpretable tone while I busied myself with a forkful of hash browns and eggs—sans ketchup. Of course, the right words came to me when I was still chewing. “Planning to invoke them anytime soon?”

He looked down at his coffee, smiling a little. “I hope not.”

“Ooo-ooh!” I smirked. “Matty’s in loo-ooove.” Ah, sarcasm … balm for any unmentionable wounds to the soul, I thought. There was just too much irony in Matt Lehrer finding a long-term girlfriend while I was breaking up with yet another inappropriate man. Ugh.

He laughed. “Screw you, Joss.”

“Apparently not.”

“Oh, right.”

I drummed my fingers against my thigh. It would be so much easier if I could just have been with Matt one more time. If he could have met Meghan next week, or just stayed my Sorbet Guy forever. Taking risks was easier with a safety net. Without Matt around, I might have to stop careening through the dating world like a toddler on a sugar high. Unless … “So, anyone else you’d recommend since you’re bowing out as my Sorbet Guy?” Not that I could imagine having a contract with anyone but Matt.

“I think Jay would be more than happy to step in.”

“Okay, I like Jay, but gross.” Jay was an acquaintance who had asked me out once. I was seeing … someone at the time, and had been grateful for the excuse to say no. He was fine enough to have a chat with if I ran into him, but he was self-important for no good reason, and frankly, a bit lacking in personal hygiene.

“Gross?”

“Oh, come on, Matt.”

He let out the smirk he’d been trying to hold back. “Yeah … gross.”

“Thank you.” I sighed.

“Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you out with the Martin thing …” Matt started.

I laughed. It wasn’t funny, but there was just something so absurd about an apology for failing to provide sex. “No, it’s okay. I don’t really need it.” Partially true. I wasn’t distraught over Martin, but I definitely wouldn’t have turned down the offer if he’d been able to make it.

“Really?” He raised his eyebrows. “I thought you liked this guy.”

“I do. Did.” I shook my head. “It was doomed from the start. I’m just being stupid.”

“Well, anyway, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” I looked out the window at the light traffic on Regent Street. “You don’t belong to me.”

“I know. I just—” He shrugged and reached for his coffee cup.

I looked back at him and smiled. “End of an era, right? We’re big important college graduates now.” Maybe it was time to grow up and stop playing our silly game. If we left Sorbet Sex in Madison, it could be just a part of my college years.

Matt tapped one knuckle against my hand. “Still friends, right?”

“Sure. It’s in the contract.”

He laughed. “Seriously, though. We’re cool, right?”

I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Matty, you’re not that good in bed.” Liar, liar, liar.

He tossed a wadded up napkin at me. “Gone for one semester, and I already forgot what a complete pain in the ass you are.”

“I’ll have to teach Meghan all of my tricks before I go home.”

“She knows plenty without your help, trust me.”

“I knew I liked her.”

“She likes you, too. God help me.”

“Good, then I want a good seat at the wedding.”

He blanched. “Not funny.”

“I guess little Matty’s not all grown up after all.” I laughed. “Fine, then just try not to screw this up, okay?”

He laid one hand over his heart. “Believe me, I have no intention of screwing anything up.”