“I see that.” Matt nods a few times. “Yes. I see that.”
“Glass of wine? Or a beer?”
“Beer, thanks.”
As I head to the fridge, Matt surveys the nearest bookshelf—and when I join him, he glances up with a furrowed brow.
“Drystone Walling in the Vales. Theory of Modular Electronics. You have eclectic tastes.”
“Oh, those.” I hand him his beer. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.” He swigs his beer, then adds, “The Chevrolet: A Guide, published 1942. Seriously? And this one’s in…” He pulls out a hardback. “What language is this? Czech? Do you read Czech?”
“A lot of these books I didn’t exactly buy to read,” I clarify. “I suppose they’re like…rescue books.”
“Rescue books?” Matt looks dumbfounded.
“Sometimes I go into a junk shop and I see an old book…and it speaks to me. I think, if I don’t buy this book, no one will. And then it’ll be destroyed. It’ll be pulped! I feel as though it’s, like, my responsibility to buy them.” I run a sweeping hand along my bookshelf. “These would all be pulp if I hadn’t rescued them!”
“Oh.” Matt swigs his beer. “Would that matter?”
I stare at him in shock. Would that matter? For the first time ever, I feel a tiny tension between us—because what kind of person doesn’t care about the plight of books?
But, then, we can have our little differences, I remind myself. It’s not a big deal.
“Sit down. Let’s have some music.” Smiling at Matt, I find my favorite playlist on my phone and hook it up to my Buddha speakers. I sit next to Matt on the sofa and sip my drink contentedly as the music fills the room. Then I blink. Did Matt just wince?
No. He couldn’t have winced. No one winces at music. Especially music as relaxing as this.
“What is this?” he says after a pause.
“It’s called Mexican spirit power music,” I explain eagerly. “They use special pipes and flutes. It’s guaranteed to calm you.”
“Huh,” says Matt after another pause.
“What kind of music do you like?” I ask conversationally.
“Oh, all sorts.”
“Me too!” I say quickly. He might prefer chimes, I’m thinking. Or the harp. I’m already summoning up my Spotify playlists when he adds, “I guess mostly Japanese punk.”
I stare at him, a bit dumbfounded. Japanese punk?
“Right,” I say, after a long silence. “Awesome. Er…” I glance down at my phone. “I’m not sure I’ve got that much Japanese punk…”
The closest I have probably is “Cardio Energizing Music,” and I’m not sure that’s very close at all.
“This is fine.” He smiles and swigs his beer, then surveys a nearby poster, which I bought from a gallery. Its frame is covered in silk petals and it’s gorgeous.
“ ‘You can cut all the flowers, but you can’t stop spring from coming,’ ” he reads aloud.
“I love that, don’t you?” I say. “Isn’t it inspiring?”
Matt looks at the poster again with a puzzled frown. “Well, actually, you would,” he says.
“What?”
“You would stop spring from coming. Surely. If you cut every single flower before it had a chance to set seed. And what about pollination? If you cut every flower literally at the moment it bloomed, bees would die out. Cut all the flowers, what do you have? Dead bees.”
Dead bees? He looks at a lovely inspirational quote about flowers and sees dead bees?
“Although I suppose it depends what you’re defining as ‘spring,’ ” he continues thoughtfully. “Cutting all the flowers wouldn’t affect the earth’s rotation; it’s more of a biodiversity issue.”
I’m feeling a weird emotion rising inside me. Is it…annoyance? No. It can’t be annoyance. Of course it’s not. This is Dutch. This is Matt. This is my love.
“I don’t think it’s supposed to be literally about flowers,” I say, making sure to smile.
“OK.” He gives an easy shrug, and my heart melts again, because he’s not trying to score points, is he? He’s just a logical person. Super-logical. (Possibly over-logical.)
“Come here,” I say, and pull him in for a kiss, and as soon as I do, I forget I ever felt even a smidgen of annoyance with him. Because, oh God, I love this man. I want to kiss him forever. I want to be with him forever.
At last, reluctantly, I pull away and say, “I’d better check on the food.”
“Cool.” He touches my cheek softly, then says, “Where’s the bathroom?”
As Matt disappears into the loo, I take the opportunity to whip out my phone, because I’ve promised to let the squad know how it’s going, and frankly, I’m looking forward to telling