Page 102 of Enemies with Benefits

"Neither do I."

"Then you must have put something in my drink, because I can clearly see you smoking."

"Cigars don't count as smoking."

"Aren't cigars for celebrating?"

"Sure, I guess."

"What are you celebrating?"

"Being alive and having a good family. Having a nice life, I've set myself up with. The list goes on."

"You've had those things for a while now."

"And?"

"And why celebrate them now?"

"I celebrate them whenever the mood strikes me. Just because you've had something for a while doesn't mean you can't still appreciate it once in a while."

"I think you just look for a reason to celebrate."

"And?"

"And I don't know much about cigars, but these are pretty pricey to be using whenever you feel like celebrating stuff."

"Do you know what happens when you wait to bring out the good stuff for the really big things? The good stuff sits around and goes to waste. Then you don't get to enjoy it."

He rolled his eyes, running a hand through his short-cropped hair. "Alright, then explain this one with this stupid philosophy you have...why spend good money on great cigars, but buy furniture that even my parents would have called cheap shit?"

"Ah," I said, waving my cigar at him in a reproving manner. "No one needs to have expensive patio furniture for their balcony. All you need is a place to sit down and kick your feet up. Anything else is just unnecessary."

"A lot of what you do is unnecessary."

"I find it completely necessary."

"I give up. In no way, shape, or form am I ever going to make sense of you."

I glanced over at him again, smiling. "And who said you needed to make sense of me in the first place? I am who I am, and I'm going to do what I want to do. Anything else is just...unnecessary."

Sighing again, he took one of the cigars from the pack, eyeing it for a moment before cutting it with the tool I'd left next to the package and then grabbing the lighter. He flipped it aroundbefore lighting the cigar. "You know, sometimes I can't figure out if you're insane, irresponsible, both, or neither."

"I can be all of the above," I said with a shrug. "The real question is why you're so fixated on trying to understand everything. Not everything needs to be understood."

"I don't know," he said with a shrug, and I watched the way his shoulders eased rather than their normal unyielding tightness. It was funny how the absence of something could make its normal presence obvious in a way that it wouldn't be if you were looking at it fully. Well, it wasn't like I didn't know that Jace was practically defined by his inability to take a breath and just calm down. It was one of the many things about him that had irritated the shit out of me, and also made him an easy target for my antagonizing. "It just makes things...easier."

"You always come off as perpetually pissed off because something isn't going your way, or because you don't understand it. How the hell is that making anything easier?"

"Easier when you do understand. Not so much when you don't."

"Just say you have control issues."

"Alright, I have control issues."

I glanced at him, a little surprised. “Wow, I wasn't expecting that level of self-awareness."

"Just because I don't like to admit my problems to other people doesn't mean I don't know they're there."