***
"You sore already?" I moved up behind Matt as he stood at the stove, working on dinner later that night.
"Yeah. Damn, that was a serious workout, Erica. How often do you girls do that?"
I reached up and pressed my fingers into his shoulders, massaging him as he groaned in delight.
"Every Sunday night. I love it. I feel like I got a detox and a workout."
"No wonder you look so damn good. That was far more intense than I thought it would be." He reached up and gripped my hands but kept his back to me. "I'm gonna pass out if you keep that up."
"Then I can do it later for you."
"Sounds good. Go take a load off. Dinner is almost done." He released me and went back to cooking as I walked into the living room. I hadn't checked my e-mails for the last few days, which wasn't me at all. It was funny how quickly my desire to be needed by the office dissipated when I had something else to focus on.
I sat down at the small desk on the far end of my living room and pulled up my laptop, working through several e-mails that I should have already answered. A phone rang in the distance, and I heard Matt answer it before walking out to the patio.
I worked for a few minutes more before getting up and walking into the kitchen to make sure he didn't accidentally leave anything cooking. The fish from earlier was sitting on the side of the stove with a piece of foil over it, and the veggies from my fridge were sautéed and steaming. Everything looked perfect.
"I'm impressed." I smiled and walked back to the living room to work through a few more things before Matt came back in. I knew without a doubt that him leaving the next day would be incredibly hard, but it was what it was. There was nothing I could do about it, other than tell him how much I wanted him to stay. It was too needy and not at all the woman I wanted to be. I'd expressed myself multiple times over the last few days, and he was an idiot if he didn't realize the depths of my feelings from my continuous flirtations over the last two years.
The door opened beside me, pulling me from my thoughts.
"Everything okay?" I turned in my chair to face him.
"Oh yeah. Jonathan said that he made a mistake on the agreement and needs to meet up with me first thing in the morning to get a new copy signed."
"Did you ask him to send it over so we could review it?"
"No, but I can. You want me to?"
"Yeah. I really do." I turned and scribbled down my fax number. "Have him fax it to this number and we can look it over tonight. I just want to make sure you're taken care of."
"I appreciate that." He took the number from me and disappeared back outside.
I wrapped up one more e-mail and got up to fix our plates. I poured drinks and set the table by the time he got back inside.
"Man, that dude loves to talk." He smiled and glanced down at the table. "I was going to do all of this."
"It's all good. I don't mind. You cooked dinner."
"Well, I promised you I would. I'm sorry we skipped lunch, but you see, this beautiful woman was posing half naked for me and... Mmmmm, damn she was fine." He smiled and pulled out my chair.
"Should I be jealous?" I teased and pulled my napkin down into my lap.
"Naw... you'd like her a lot." He sat down and let out a soft sigh. "I'm going to take a week to think through everything and then I'll make some decisions about moving up here and maybe coming to work for you."
"Sounds great." I tried to hide my disappointment. I wanted to hear him say that he would be thinking through us more than his career or moving to Seattle, but he needed to keep things in order. I got it. It just stung a little.
"I'm going to work on my drawing a little more after dinner, but I don't think you'll have to pose for me again. I have loads of pictures and you're pretty much etched in my memory." He tapped the side of his head as his eyes moved across my face slowly.
"Good, well, I'm here if you need me." I took a bite of the fish and let out a sound of appreciation. "This is so good."
"Thanks. We should take a cooking class together when I get up here."
"When or if?" I couldn't help but tease him.
"When. Sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself." His cheeks burned pink.
"I like it." I reached out and gripped his hand lightly. "When you're thinking about what you want to do with your life, make sure that if working at your father's company is the answer, it's the answer you come up with yourself. Don't let me or him or Damon sway your decision. You are going to make a killing on your paintings, and I'll be beside you either way to help make sure Jonathan sticks to his part of the agreement."
"That means a lot to me." He turned his hand over and took mine in his before lifting it to his lips and kissing my knuckles softly. "I'll be thinking about us too. I should have included that."
"No, it's good. I figured it was part of the deal." I pulled my hand from his and stabbed a carrot on my plate. "Now, tell me your favorite part of hot yoga."
"Watching you sweat?" He laughed and I joined him.
I wanted to read a million things into his promise to consider us, but I forced myself not to. If things didn't work out between us, then I was ready to move on with my life and start looking again. Matt was my perfect match, but that didn't mean he would come to the same conclusion.
The question I couldn't seem to swallow was why he hadn't already determined that. I had.