Page 10

“You’re not on some strict diet andconstantly in the weight room in all your spare time, right?” Itwouldn’t be a deal breaker, but I hoped he didn’t expect that we’dbe doing five a.m. runs together.
“Don’t worry. I won’t make you work out.” Hecould already read me way too well.
That ease didn’t surprise me as much as itmight have with someone else. It felt like Matt and I had knowneach other for years, not months.
But wehadonly known each other formonths, and only a few days of that in person. It would be too easyfor either of us to forget to check in on foundational relationshipthings.
“You love me,” I said by way of broachingthe subject.
His eyes widened. “I don’t have to prove itanymore?”
“I’m going to make you prove it every singleday that we’re together.” And I probably would never fully come tobelieve him, but that was my problem, not his. “We’re going reallyfast here. We’ve barely spent time physically in the same room witheach other, and suddenly we think we’re in love.”
“Iamin love,” he corrected me.
“People in love usually have some importantconversations along the way to falling in love, so that they knowif their lives are compatible,” I went on.
His lips quirked. “Yeah, I know. I’ve beenin relationships before. But every one of them was different. I’vedated someone for two years before getting engaged, I’ve moved inwith people after three dates. Relationships happen according totheir own timetable, in my experience.”
“Okay, for example, the fact that you’vebeen engaged would have been something you probably would have toldme before you ever said, ‘I love you,’ right?” No, I wasn’t goingto second-guess myself. Itwassomething I should have heardway before we got as comfortable as we felt right now.
“Okay.” He took a deep breath and set hisempty bowl on the coffee table. “Four times.”
“Four… You’ve been engaged four times?” Wasthat a lot? It seemed like way more than anybody I knew.
“Yeah. Your brother can tell you all aboutwhat a bad habit it is,” he said with a sigh, throwing his armalong the back of the couch.
“You can tell me about it right now. Wedon’t have a plane to catch, yet.” I put my bowl on the tablebeside his and crossed my arms. “How did you get engaged fourtimes, and how did they end?”
“All right. Once, I was proposed to, theother three, I was the proposer. They were all seriousrelationships that had gone on for some time before rings becameinvolved.” He hesitated. “As for how they ended…without gettinginto too much detail? The last one cheated. Numbers one and threewouldn’t sign prenups. Number two and I didn’t agree on somethingvery important. In every case, I didn’t necessarily want therelationship to end, but…”
“They fractured your trust.” That seemed tobe the running theme. “So, not signing a prenup. I assume that’ssuspicious because you couldn’t—”
“Trust that they weren’t after my money.” Henodded 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 gotengaged that we weren’t ready for kids. Not right then, not withinthe next five years. She changed her mind.” He winced. “I don’twant to talk shit about my former partners.”
“You’re not,” I assured him. “you’reexplaining what happened to end that relationship. And now I knowhow important honesty is to you.”
He looked strangely relieved. “That’s a goodway of thinking about it. I want to make sure you understand thatI’m not saying I think she’s an evil bitch who was trying to trapme with a baby. It wasn’t that, at all. We talked about ourfeelings, we talked about a concrete timeline for trying to havekids, but we couldn’t reach a compromise.”
That brought up another important question.“Youwereplanning to have kids, then? I mean, withher.”
I couldn’t imagine anyone thinking I wouldbe a good enough mother to have their kids. Not once they saw thestate of my bathroom, anyway.
“I was. I would still like to have kids. Ifit happens.” He shrugged and sounded way too casual.
“It’s okay to say you want to have kids.You’re not going to send me screaming out of here,” I said with asnort of laughter. “Let me guess, you thought that because I’m asexual deviant, I would never want to be tied down?”
“I think you’d love to be tied down.” Hewiggled his eyebrows. “But not in that sense.”
“I wouldn’t mind having a family one day.Not when I’m twenty-five, but one day.” I did not want that lastpart to be misunderstood. If he planned to have some kind ofmidlife biological clock crisis, I would have to scram.
No, you wouldn’t, my sense of realityscolded me. And it was right. I loved him way too stupid hard.Maybe that’s why I was suddenly in search of a deal breaker.
To avoid my urge to bring up religion in anattempt to nuke our probably fleeting happiness from orbit, I askedhim, “Do you have anything you want to know about me?”