Page 42 of Fierce-Matt

She’d process that later. “Sounds like she was using you too.”

“Exactly. Once I figured that out, I just let it ride. I never made it a secret to her I wasn’t looking for anything serious.”

“Do you want something serious? Not that I’m asking for me, just asking in general.”

“I do,” he said. His eyes were staring into her eyes. “When I find the right thing in life, I fight for it.”

She felt there was a meaning there directed right at her. “A warning or threat?”

“Neither. It’s a fact. I haven’t fought for anyone I’ve dated. They didn’t get me and I didn’t get them. Or more like they got sick of me.”

“The goofing off?” she asked. Now they were getting somewhere and how he might have changed.

“My job is serious. I have bad days like the next person. I like to blow off steam when I’m not working. I’ll admit that many didn’t understand me or I pushed my limits. I don’t anymore. I haven’t in years, but I need to be with someone who has a personality and can take a joke.”

She nodded her head. “I’m not damaged or anything by what you did. I know my mother made it sound that way.”

“I think I did some damage to you without knowing.”

“Listen, Matt. Every kid has horror stories of embarrassment. It just seems a lot of mine came at the hands of you. It’s not like you were aware.”

“I would have fixed it had I been,” he said earnestly. “I mean that.”

“I believe it. Phoebe stood up for me several times. It meant the world to me. My home life wasn’t always the greatest and going to your house was a reprieve.”

“And I ruined that for you,” he said. “Right?”

Her lungs filled with air. He was being honest so she’d return it.

“That’s not on you. You’d have no way of knowing that.”

Though Phoebe knew and she’d bet anything Phoebe shared it with her mother.

But Grace Kelly didn’t know everything that Matt did to Phoebe and her friends either.

“I can’t change anything I did in the past and I can only apologize so many times.”

“I don’t want you to do it anymore,” she said. “Let’s put it behind us and start over.”

“You’re willing to do that?”

“I am if you are,” she said.

“Then tell me what caused you to stand up for yourself now. If you’d done it years ago, I would have been put in my place.”

“I wish I had the courage all those years ago, but I’ve got it now. Better late than never. I don’t back down from anything and am not afraid to speak my mind. Now I’m learning people don’t like that either, but I’m okay with it because then it eliminates them from my life at the start.”

11

A PRETTY GIRL

“You’re around the wrong people if they don’t like you speaking your mind,” he said. “I grew up around strong women.”

“And that’s what you want?”

Matt knew better than to say what he wanted, expected, or was looking for in a woman.

There was too much on the line and not a lot of answers for the millions of questions that he had.