Page 105 of Fierce-Matt

He saw her shoulders stiffen. “Easier said than done.”

“That’s right,” he said. “But we are both mature adults that can communicate. We can talk it out. Your mother told me not to let you do this to us and I’m choosing to believe her.”

“She shouldn’t have said that either,” she said.

Matt sighed. “But she did. She’s rooting for us. That’s the best part of this night. Can’t you look at that and take it as a win?”

Anya lifted her head, a runaway tear escaping down her cheek.

“I’m trying,” she said.

“Try harder,” he said. “I know you can do it.”

He squeezed her tighter and let her cry. Something he’d never seen or heard from her before.

If she’d done this once when they were younger, he would have never continued picking on her, but she let no one see this side of her.

29

KNOWS HIS LIMITS

“Thank you for doing this,” Anya said three weeks later.

“Thank my mother,” he said. “She’s the one making brunch.”

She closed one eye at him. “I meant the trip for the two of us. I’m not sure how you managed this last minute.”

He puffed his chest a little as he brushed his knuckles across his chest. “Mighty Matt at your service.”

She shoved him off the sidewalk they were walking on toward his parents’ house. Just like she had when they were kids and he tried to be funny.

“You’re so full of yourself.”

“You love it,” he said.

She loved him.

She hadn’t said it and it was eating her up like a beast clawing its way out of her chest.

She’d been so mad at him when they were at her parents’ house weeks ago and her mother and father wanted to talk about Shelly and their lawsuit.

Her heart rate was rising that day, her palms were sweating, her head was swimming and she’d wanted to go running to her room and lock herself in.

It was an irrational reaction from her fear that her father was going to have one of his episodes in front of her boyfriend. Matt would witness what she’d lived with growing up.

She didn’t need him to feel like crap again that he might have compounded more drama in her life. She’d thought they’d gotten past everything, but it seemedshewas the one that hadn’t moved from her spot.

Her mother propelled her out of it.

She couldn’t fault the way things happened, looking back, and was thankful that Matt handled it the way he had.

He said to trust him and she did.

He pulled her back, he held her tight, and he said he had her.

If that wasn’t love, she didn’t know what the hell was!

“I might have a thing for a cocky man who knows his limits,” she said.