Matt woke confused. He was often confused upon first waking. His mind was never too sharp first thing. Not that anyone ever really was but he suffered quite particularly.
The first thing he realized was that he wasn't home. But he then also noticed that Elizabeth was in his arms. "Wha…?" he mumbled.
She apparently was already awake or else hadn't slept because she immediately shifted to look up at him. "We're in LA at my parents' house. You were jet lagged from the flight and took a nap," she reminded him.
"And what are you doing here?" he asked, gently stroking her soft hair.
Elizabeth gave him a sad smile. "I just wanted to be with you."
It was a sweet thing for her to say, but Matt knew better. "What happened?" After all, something must have happened if she felt like she wanted to be with him when they made this whole sodding trip for her to see her parents.
"They were asking me about the adoption," she confessed with a sigh.
Matt felt his heart sink. "Oh." He didn't have anything else he could say. They both felt the same way, he knew. Desperate for a child and losing hope of ever getting one. Matt had never really been too serious about becoming a parent beyond knowing Elizabeth wanted to be a mother so badly. He knew without a doubt, however, that he would fall madly in love with their child as soon as he held the baby in his arms. He just wasn't as fixated on the dream of it like she was. For her, though, he would do whatever it took. Elizabeth should be a mother. He wanted to give her a child. Give them a child.
They didn't discuss the issue any further. Elizabeth nuzzled against him and Matt just held her tight.
After a little while, they both got up and got themselves refreshed. Matt let Elizabeth take her shower first since she took longer to do everything than he did. She was blow drying her hair while he showered. The hot water soothed his aching muscles and helped perk him up a bit. They jostled each other slightly trying to move around in a bathroom that wasn't theirs. She paused doing her makeup to look at him in the mirror.
"What?" he asked, wondering if he'd done something wrong or looked silly for a reason he'd not noticed.
But she smiled. "You look very handsome with your hair wet like that. I love how it curls. Maybe let it grow a little bit," she suggested.
He immediately brightened. "Oh I...okay," he stammered. Matt would never get used to that American way about Elizabeth of just saying things like that without any hint of embarrassment.
She laughed at his discomfort and turned to him, taking his chin in her hand and pulling him down to kiss her. "Should I not tell my husband when I find him attractive?"
"You should always tell your husband," he replied with a grin, "even when it makes your stuffy English husband all flustered."
"Well I can't tell you every time I find you gorgeous and sexy or else we'd never be able to have a single conversation."
She was teasing, he knew, but he was just overwhelmed, in that moment, with his love for her. The utter adoration he had for this woman who made his life so strange and wild and messy and full of more joy and love than he'd ever imagined. "I love you," he said simply.
Elizabeth smiled and kissed him again. "I love you, too. Now finish getting ready. Mom and Dad are going to be wondering where we are."
They went out to an old Los Angeles restaurant that was a favorite in the McGovern family. Elizabeth and her brother had always begged their parents to take them there for every special occasion. Matt had been there before with the family. It was strange and wonderful to find old world Italian dining in LA, but Matt had figured out that LA had a little bit of everything whether it was expected or not.
He sat quietly at dinner, observing his in-laws. Elizabeth could certainly be excitable, but for an actress, she wasn't particularly loud or talkative or boisterous. That was something that drew him to her in the beginning. She had a quiet mystery about her. A gentle warmth that invited him to want to know more. But here with her parents, she was so much of herself. They all talked over each other and laughed and shared stories. She was radiant and joyful, and it brought him a quiet peace, watching the three of them together.
Richard, Elizabeth's father, was a lawyer who had retired from private practice and now taught at a small law school. Margaret, Elizabeth's mother, was a doctor specializing in obstetrics. When Elizabeth had started having worries about their lack of conceiving a child, she went to her mother. It was Margaret who had told them that it would be very difficult for Elizabeth to be able to get pregnant and, if she did, she likely wouldn't be able to carry a baby to full term. It had absolutely broken their hearts at the time, but having Margaret tell them had softened that blow a little. Both Richard and Margaret were wonderful people and had always made Matt feel very welcome. He loved them very much and was honestly quite sorry that they couldn't all see each other more often. Even if he did hate flying to Los Angeles.
The evening was almost perfect. It would have been perfect if not for the very unfortunate entrance of two people Matt would have paid a lot of money to avoid just then.
"Hello, darling! Fancy seeing you all here. Matt, Elizabeth, McGoverns, do you all know Sean?" Leon said loudly, dragging his dinner companion to their table and giving everyone overly-enthusiastic kisses on the cheek in greeting.
"Yes, we know Sean," Richard said diplomatically.
Elizabeth sat there, her face bright red with embarrassment, wishing she could just get swallowed up into the earth. Pity she wasn't from Florida. They have sinkholes there.
Sean played everything off very casually. He could be very intense and moody in private but he could turn on the charm when necessary. He had been in Hollywood for a long time. "Richard, Margaret, it's nice to see you again," he said politely. He turned his attention to Elizabeth, giving her a warm smile. "Hi, Liz."
Matt wasn't sure who he wanted to kill most: Sean, Leon, or himself.
Leon was either playing dumb or genuinely had no idea the awkwardness he had caused. "Wait, you really do know Sean?"
"It's been a long time," Sean explained diplomatically.
"Yes, it has been a long time since you were engaged to marry my wife," Matt growled, unable to help himself. He earned a kick under the table from Elizabeth for that.
"We won't interrupt your family time," Sean said quickly, steering Leon away and ignoring Matt's comment. "Enjoy your dinner. Nice to see you all."
As soon as they'd left, Elizabeth put her face in her hands in shame. Matt sat beside her, seething.
"He was nicer than I remember," Richard noted.
Margaret rolled her eyes. "He was probably on best behavior. Elizabeth, you could have at least said hello," she scolded.
"I hate running into him unexpectedly," she moaned. "He always catches me off guard and I do something stupid. I don't know what he does to me."
Matt did not like hearing that one bit. He stabbed his pasta rather aggressively. He stayed quiet for the rest of the meal. The pleasant comfort from earlier in the evening was all gone for him now. But he didn't want to make it worse. It was an unusually rational and mature decision from him to not make a fuss.
But later, when they were back in the privacy of the room they were staying in, Elizabeth confronted him. "Are you going to pout for the whole week, or can we just go to bed and wake up tomorrow and pretend this didn't happen?"
He sighed, focusing on taking off his shoes and socks while he tried to find the words. "I don't like being reminded that you almost married Sean Penn," he grumbled finally.
"Well he wasn't really Sean Penn in the same way when we were dating."
"He proposed and you accepted, Elizabeth. That's a lot more than just dating. And I don't care who he was then or now. If it weren't for a twist of fate, you'd be married to him and I would be probably stuck married to Heidi if I hadn't hung myself in a cupboard already by this point."
He was upset, and she knew it, but she couldn't help but laugh about that morose picture he painted. Elizabeth tried to keep her giggles in as she sat on the edge of the bed beside him and put her arms around his shoulders, kissing his cheek and speaking gently. "We've talked about this a million times, but I'm going to tell you for the millionth and first time: I was twenty-four and caught up in all the Hollywood magic and the star of my movie asked me to marry him. He met my parents, he bought me a ring, and then about three months later, I realized that he's an asshole and not a very nice person, and I gave him the ring back. And thanks to a project I did in England a decade later, I got to meet a very handsome publisher who was friends with my agent and I fell madly in love with another asshole who is a very nice person. And I got to rescue him from a short life of misery with a lunatic he couldn't seem to get rid of. The end." She punctuated her story with another kiss to his cheek.
Matt turned to look at her curiously. "You think I'm an asshole?"
"Yes I do," she replied with feigned seriousness. "But you're my asshole and I love you very much."
He laughed at that, leaning in to kiss her properly. "I love you, too," he whispered against her lips.
They slept well that night, the jet lag being quite present for them both. Matt was exhausted despite the nap earlier. The evening had been more taxing than anticipated. But now Elizabeth lay snugly in his arms, and her gentle breaths lulled him out of consciousness before he knew it.