“That’s what I thought,” she said, smiling pertly.
“The point is, I’ve been around campaigns, I routinely work with elected officials, and I know how this thing goes down. You, on the other hand, have been too busy running up and down the runway blowing kisses to the crowds to know that Eeyore’s birthday is not the sort of venue where we want our candidate!”
“Ah. So you’d have him down at the courthouse with all your cronies?”
“I prefer to think of them as elected officials with statewide contacts.”
“I see,” she said thoughtfully, and, Matt thought, she was finally getting the picture as she picked up her envelopes and carefully straightened them into a perfect stack. “Did I tell you?” she asked, standing up. “We got a very generous contribution from Judge Gambofini at Eeyore’s birthday party. He said to tell you hi.” She flashed a proud little smirk and prissed out of the staff office.
Dammit.
It was obvious that Rebecca was enjoying his frustration, and maybe, just maybe, getting a little too big for her britches. She was taking advantage of the fact that he had, in spite of all the heretofore improbable, if not impossible, emotions bubbling to the surface (which could only mean an increasingly likely possibility of a major devotion, for Chrissakes), gone and done something insane and confessed he was nuts about her. Matt had taken his big old dusty heart and laid it out, salted and peppered it, and served it up to her on a platter. And just when he thought there was hope of getting close to the object of his great affection, she’d find a reason to be mad at him again, and they’d go round again. It was almost enough to make a grown man cry.
What was funny, particularly since Matt didn’t know it, was that this was precisely what Rebecca was thinking of him. He could be so terribly charming and witty, so very sexy. She would believe there was really the possibility of something between them—taken, of course, in baby steps—and then he’d bug her about some little thing she had done. He seemed to think he was the Central Authority on All Things Campaign, giving her a hard time about silly things, such as how she was wasting time hand-addressing the campaign envelopes (but did he volunteer to generate labels? No). She was taking Tom to all the wrong events (Eeyore’s birthday party was for hippies . . . and distinguished judges, apparently). She couldn’t possibly pull off a bigger gala than The Party was organizing, so why waste her time (but he didn’t actually have any of the details of A Big Party fundraiser, did he?), and he thought Grayson was in the campaign offices too often. He had actually said to her, and these were his exact words, because there was, apparently, no end to the list of topics about which Big Pants was an expert: “Grayson is really bored. Don’t you think he could use a friendlier after-school environment?”
Augh!
She had politely but firmly informed him that Grayson was fine, and politely but firmly ignored the little voice in her head that said Matt was right, because she hated when he was right.
The confusing part about Matt was, when he wasn’t trying to mow everyone down with his ideas, he was really great to have around. Like the day he helped her, without any smirking or sarcastic remarks, put up drawings of America Grayson’s preschool class had made for Tom and they stood there, side by side, admiring the drawings and laughing like old friends. Matt even pointed out that Grayson’s drawing had a monster in it, which he said made Grayson’s stand out from all the rest.
That was another obvious and huge selling point—Matt seemed genuinely interested in her son, which was very cool, particularly since Bud wasn’t.
And not only was Matt’s concern for the underdog real, but well known. He had been overly modest when he told her about his involvement with Children’s Aid Services. Gilbert told her about Matt’s reputation for taking on some difficult and heart-wrenching cases and said he’d once read that Matt donated several thousand dollars of his own money to the Children’s Aid Society.
That made her heart skip just a little.
She had to admit that he was unusually chipper about the string of seniors that were still calling after the bingo bash. He was a good sport, too, would always laugh when she messed with him. One day he asked her about the stars she was lining up for the big to-do he was so adamantly against. “So, do you have the Dixie Chicks lined up?” he’d asked.
“No,” she had sighed wearily, glancing at him. “I could only get Lyle Lovett.” That, of course, was a lie.
Matt had chuckled, his eyes glimmering with amusement. “Only Lyle Lovett? That’s a tragedy. How’d you manage?”