A/N: our air conditioner broke... :(

but my room is freezing... :)

this chapter made me so hungry... xD

Been forever since I've done one of these...

The Song for This Chapter is: Nine in the Afternoon by Panic! at the Disco

Chapter 38: My Heart Shaped Strawberry

I had mud in my hair.

Grr.

I heard a groan come from Matt as I tried to sit up.

"What's up with you?" I whispered, not bothering to open my eyes enough to see where he was at. I lay back down and he sighed, cuddling into my side moreso than what he already was. Okay, I had to see this. I opened my eyes to find a very peacefully sleeping Matt, his head on my lap and his hand gripping my shirt.

I absent mindedly wondered where his goggles had gone, because they weren't on his face, nor were they perched on his head. I reached out and lifted the sleeping boy's hair to find them around his neck.

I sat up, ignoring his protests from the sleeping world, and he whimpered, rolling over to face the sky. He sighed again and opened his eyes, turning his head to look at me.

"Sleep well, Red-Head?" I asked as he luxuriously stretched, rolling over and laying down in the grass.

"Quite well, Bed-Head. Quite well." He suddenly sat up, with the energy of a jackrabbit, and kissed my cheek, pulling me up to stand.

"Gahh!" I gasped at the sudden movement that I was not awake enough for.

"Come on, Roseh," he said so cheerily I was certain he had been awake for longer than the three seconds he appeared to be.

"Wahh, I don't wanna move fast," I complained, pulling him back and rooting my feet to the ground. "We walk or we stay."

"Or I carry you," he stepped toward me, and I completely freaked out as the ground suddenly went goodbye and I didn't have anything to grab onto, for he had picked me up from behind.

"Matt! No! Put me down!"

"You're afraid of heights, aren't you?" he chuckled. "You're two inces off the ground." He bent his knees just enough for my toes to touch the ground to prove his point.

"I'm not really caring at this moment in time," I twisted around and grabbed his neck, which by now he had fixed his goggles. He rolled his eyes, and he let go of my waist, and I dropped the short two inches and stood there, still gripping his neck. I narrowed my eyes.

"Not cool."

"It is in my book," he grinned, bending down and picking me up bridal-style this time. "There we go. Easier transportation. So... You are a'scared of heights?"

"Don't... remind me..." I clung to his shirt. "I'm not awake enough for this, Matt."

"I am. I won't drop you, don't worry." He stopped walking when he got to the door. "You know, I can't carry you in to the door, right?"

"...why?"

He sighed, grinning as if I had missed an important memo. "Haven't you heard of the 'crossing the threshold' wivestale? It's bad luck for me to carry you into a front door, since we're not married."

"... that has anything to do with it?"

"No, it's just fact. Not hinting at anything, and trust me, if I was, you'd know. I'm just refusing to jinx you."

"Jinx me? What about you?"

"Rose. I'm me. I doubt the world could throw anything more creative at me."

"... I see..."

"Come on," he put me down, opening the door.

"Alright," I yawned, walking past him. "I didn't wanna be carried anyway, so..."

He rolled his eyes. "Don't even think about heading for the cereal cabinet."

I froze in my tracks. "Why not?"

"Pfft, you think I'm just going to let you get away with a breakfast as simple as that after last night? You're crazy," he gently pushed me aside, steering me to the table and opening the fridge.

"Why does kissing effect my breakfast?" I asked.

He turned to me. "It gives me an excuse to cook for you." He turned back to the fridge. Oh, so it was that simple.

"Oh, speaking of kissing," I started. He quirked an eyebrow.

"Yes..?"

"You've been holding out on me. I expect a lot more than a peck on the cheek before bed, now." He rolled his eyes, but his shoulders relaxed significantly. What, did he think I was gonna say something else? I decided not to press the subject.

'Yeah, well," he said as he balanced the tub of butter on his knee so he could get out the eggs and milk.

"You're not making a cake, are you?"

"I'm offended. This is nothing like a cake," He grinned childishly, putting the eggs and milk on the counter so he could grab the butter and put his knee down.

"Well, all I see is milk, butter, and eggs. Looks like cake to me," I giggled.

"But it's not," he said matter-of-factly as he studied the objects on the counter and turned back to the fridge to grab a packet of cream cheese and some lemons. He then went over to the cabinet and pulled out a bag of flour, a bag of salt, and a bag of sugar.

"Jeez, you'd think you were cooking for Thanksgiving Day," I raised my eyebrow, standing up from the table and moving my chair to sit at the counter. "I wanna watch," I said as he poured some water into a measuring cup.

"And watch you shall," he said as he rummaged through the cabinet once more, his hand finding what it was searching for as it set a bottle of vanilla extract on the counter. "What?" he said as I looked over all the ingredients to God-knows-what he was cooking. "I told you I could cook. I have to fend for myself when Mello eats nothing but chocolate," he chuckled.

He bent down and disappeared under the counter for a second, coming back up with a blender.

"Okay, you're making smoothies or you're baking. Which is it?"

"Neither, dear," he said as he opened the fridge once more and grabbed the cream and a box of strawberries.

He set some strawberries aside, the others he poured into the blender, to blend later. I remained by my smoothie theory. That is, of course, until he popped a bowl of butter into the microwave.

He then got out a rather large bowl, pouring a precise measurement of flour in and whisking two eggs into it.

"What are you making?" I asked as he poured the milk into the mixture slowly.

"Figure it out, and I will tell you," he abandoned the milk, reaching for the sugar bag.

"That's informative," I let him know as he went to the microwave and grabbed the now-melted butter.

"Uh-huh," he said, pouring the salt in, "I know."

Well, then, it certainly seemed like he cared about how curious I was as to what he was baking-smoothie-ifying up for me.

I watched as he poured the butter into the mixture, then started to whisk it all up. It soon grew quite thick.

He then got a skillet out, spraying it with something or other, then poured the concoction into it. Once he got that cooking, he turned to the strawberries he had abandoned in the blender. Poor strawberries. I'd freak out if I got popped into a spinning death blade machine.

That's a morbid way to think of your smoothies.

"So is there a purpose behind all this?" I asked as I stole one of the sliced strawberries.

"Uh, Yeah," he paused what he was doing to look at me. "I just told you," he reached his hand out to cup my cheek, and I though he was going to kiss me for a second, until he smirked and wiped off some strawberry juice from my lips with his index finger. "Caught red handed- erm, red lipped," he said, popping his finger in his mouth, sampling the strawberry that had obviously missed my mouth.

Yet again, he went to the microwave, leaving the blender on auto mode and me on blush mode. This time, he set the cream cheese inside it, putting it in for a minute thirty seconds or so.

As the blender pureed the poor red things, he began slicing about two cups of said red berries.

Once the berries were liquified and sliced, he grabbed the cream cheese and put it in the bowl. I noticed it wasn't melted; just soft. He poured sugar in this mixture, too, along with the vanilla extract. He grabbed one of the lemons and a cheese grater. When one whole lemon was completely bald of all zest it had ever known, he sliced it and the other lemon in half, squeezing the juice into the bowl and mixing it all up.

"Okay, I don't care what you say," I began as he grabbed a seperate, smaller bowl and began to whip the heavy cream in it. "You're just cooking for me with no reason."

"Ah, while that may be true," he said, as he got a spatula and went to flip the now-tortilla resembling thing in the skillet, "I have the excuse of you being the most extraordinary person I have ever had the oppurtunity to meet, let alone kiss, in my entire life." He set some of the whipped cream aside, pouring the most of it into the cream cheese mixture he had started up recently.

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever, that doesn't count as a reason," my head followed him as he walked to the stove and turned the burner off, popping the whatever-it-was onto a plate, bringing it back to where he was working.

"Then I guess I'm reasonless," he looked at me as he spooned the pureed strawberries onto the tortilla-smoothie-cake thing, smiling, and then filled it with the cream cheese stuff.

As he folded it up, topping it with the whipped cream and a few of the sliced strawberries, covering it with a napkin and getting out a muffin pan. What was he doing now?

"If you're reasonless, and cooking for me on a whim, then that's incredibly sweet, Matty-boy," I said as he filled each of the little indents in the muffin pan with water.

"Well, I can't say I'm completely reasonless," he said, plopping a single strawberry in each tin.

"Whatcha mean, completely?"

"Well," he started, putting the muffin pan into the... freezer? That was going to get us nothing but ice cubes.

"Well what?" I grinned. He was a little uncomfortable now.

"Well, I'm actually buttering you up for a question that I'm planning on asking you, not this minute, but soon."

"Today soon?"

"I'm... I'm not sure, but soon," he thought.

"You're helpful."

"Aren't I?"

"No," I giggled.

He took my hand and led me to the living room. "Stay," he ordered, as he set me down on the couch. I blinked, thinking about what he could possibly be trying to ask me.

He got back, and he was surprisingly holding two wine glasses.

"No worries, it's non-alchoholic Strawberry Daquri," he handed me one. I smiled. The strawberry icecubes...

The strawberries were shaped like hearts inside the ice.

I reached up to kiss his cheek. He smiled.

"So where's the thing that you spend most of your morning making?"

"It took about fifteen minutes, Rose. And I didn't think you'd wanna spill it..." he sat the daquri on the coffee table, moving my arm to do the same.

My silent question in my eyes was apparent enough for him to brake the kiss to explain.

"You seemed disappointed when you scolded me for 'holding out on you'. So now, I'm not gonna hold back. Be prepared for random kisses in the middle of the day, because you have no idea how much I feel the need to make you feel loved," he said, bringing his lips to mine again.

I didn't really have an excuse like that when I tackled him...

Even though I was the one to attack him, I was still terrified as I pinned him to the couch, gently tugging at the pockets of his jeans. There was always the chance that he would...

"Rose..." he froze for a second, breaking the kiss and looking at me. "What are you doing?" reject. Ouch.

I didn't let it show that I was bummed out, instead, continuing to kiss him, mumbling around his lip. "What does it look like I'm doing, genius?"

"Um..." well, for once, he was speechless. I was a little shocked in myself, too. What was I doing? "Rose, no. We can't. You know this."

I blinked, the reality of the situation sinking in. Was I seriously trying to... to seduce Matt?

Further pushing myself into shock, I proceeded to ask, "Why not?"

He chuckled. Well, I'm glad he was entertained by my forwardness that frankly I didn't know I was capable of. "Rose..." he sat up, holding my in his lap like a toddler. "You think you want it, maybe even need it, which I really wouldn't dout after that, but trust me," he raised an eyebrow, "you'll hate me if and when you get knocked up."

My eyes widened. "Who says I'll get knocked up?"

"My luck. Trust me, I have terrible luck, and you trusting me anyway just puts me in a position where things are bound to go wrong," he chuckled.

I put my head on his shoulder. I would ask once, and if he still said no, I'd drop it. "... Please?" Please? That's all I can say? It's like I'm asking for some ice cream and Mom said no.

He didn't answer. I sighed and pecked his cheek, smiling just a little. "Okay," I gave in. At least he cared about me enough so that he wouldn't put me in that position.

By now the strawberry-heart-ice cubes were melted. I reached over and plucked out one of the little hearts, sucking on a corner thoughtfully. I heard Matt sigh, it was one of those I-can't-believe-I'm-gonna-do-this sighs. He grabbed my arms and gently pushed me onto my back on the couch, the strawberry still in my mouth.

"Let me get this straight," he said, touching his nose to mine. "Any and everything that happens," he dropped his voice down to a whisper, "is solely your fault."

A/N: fluffyful :3

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