Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96600 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96600 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“I can get you more of that,” Matt said, scrunching his nose in disgust. “Or a flavor that isn’t so gross.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sorry, I enjoy a higher ratio of ice cream to random junk.”
“Walnuts and marshmallows are not random junk.” He patted the top of the rocky road in his bowl with his spoon and told it, “Don’t listen to her.”
“Nerd.”
“We can’t have ice cream for lunch every day,” he went on, taking another bite. “Because my trainer would slap me full across my face.”
“You’re working out again?” He hadn’t mentioned that in any of our phone chats. He’d mentioned his frustration at not being able to hit the gym, though.
“Not yet, but I will,” he said, carving out another bite with his spoon.
“You’re not on some strict diet and constantly in the weight room in all your spare time, right?” It wouldn’t be a deal breaker, but I hoped he didn’t expect that we’d be doing five a.m. runs together.
“Don’t worry. I won’t make you work out.” He could already read me way too well.
That ease didn’t surprise me as much as it might have with someone else. It felt like Matt and I had known each other for years, not months.
But we had only known each other for months, and only a few days of that in person. It would be too easy for either of us to forget to check in on foundational relationship things.
“You love me,” I said by way of broaching the subject.
His eyes widened. “I don’t have to prove it anymore?”
“I’m going to make you prove it every single day that we’re together.” And I probably would never fully come to believe him, but that was my problem, not his. “We’re going really fast here. We’ve barely spent time physically in the same room with each other, and suddenly we think we’re in love.”
“I am in love,” he corrected me.
“People in love usually have some important conversations along the way to falling in love, so that they know if their lives are compatible,” I went on.
His lips quirked. “Yeah, I know. I’ve been in relationships before. But every one of them was different. I’ve dated someone for two years before getting engaged, I’ve moved in with people after three dates. Relationships happen according to their own timetable, in my experience.”
“Okay, for example, the fact that you’ve been engaged would have been something you probably would have told me before you ever said, ‘I love you,’ right?” No, I wasn’t going to second-guess myself. It was something I should have heard way before we got as comfortable as we felt right now.
“Okay.” He took a deep breath and set his empty bowl on the coffee table. “Four times.”
“Four… You’ve been engaged four times?” Was that a lot? It seemed like way more than anybody I knew.
“Yeah. Your brother can tell you all about what a bad habit it is,” he said with a sigh, throwing his arm along the back of the couch.
“You can tell me about it right now. We don’t have a plane to catch, yet.” I put my bowl on the table beside his and crossed my arms. “How did you get engaged four times, and how did they end?”
“All right. Once, I was proposed to, the other three, I was the proposer. They were all serious relationships that had gone on for some time before rings became involved.” He hesitated. “As for how they ended…without getting into too much detail? The last one cheated. Numbers one and three wouldn’t sign prenups. Number two and I didn’t agree on something very important. In every case, I didn’t necessarily want the relationship to end, but…”
“They fractured your trust.” That seemed to be the running theme. “So, not signing a prenup. I assume that’s suspicious because you couldn’t—”
“Trust that they weren’t after my money.” He nodded in confirmation.
“Let’s circle back to the disagreement one.” I twirled my finger in the air.
“We had agreed about a year before we got engaged that we weren’t ready for kids. Not right then, not within the next five years. She changed her mind.” He winced. “I don’t want to talk shit about my former partners.”
“You’re not,” I assured him. “you’re explaining what happened to end that relationship. And now I know how important honesty is to you.”
He looked strangely relieved. “That’s a good way of thinking about it. I want to make sure you understand that I’m not saying I think she’s an evil bitch who was trying to trap me with a baby. It wasn’t that, at all. We talked about our feelings, we talked about a concrete timeline for trying to have kids, but we couldn’t reach a compromise.”
That brought up another important question. “You were planning to have kids, then? I mean, with her.”