The Dance

Chapter 124 Expectations

Jill found Matt making breakfast the next morning. He flitted around her small kitchen shirtless sporting a pair of boxers. She quietly watched him flip pancakes like a Waffle House expert as he amused himself singing outloud.

"Now that's what I like, bearded men, boxers, and breakfast food." Jill giggled at the sight of him. He turned holding a platter of pancakes wearing that look that could make you forget your name.

Jill joined him at the table as he heaped a stack of pancakes on her plate and then his. Matt dove into them eating his and half of hers. She loved a man with a healthy appetite for food and for her.

"I need to find work today." Matt wasn't one to sit on his laurels. "I can't be a lady of leisure all day. I need to earn my keep."

"You have a job already. You're a working artist." Jill walked to her bedroom and came back with an envelope and placed it in front of him. "Open it."

Matt peeked in the envelope and found that it was filled with cash. "I can't accept money from you." He slid the envelope back to her.

She slid the envelope back to him. "That's your profit from the sale of your jewelry or have you forgotten that you consigned a number of pieces with me."

Matt picked the envelope up and thumbed through the bills. "That's a pretty impressive amount of money."

"Right? So why don't you take some of that money, and get some supplies and make more jewelry. There are a couple of cruise ships going in this weekend and small portable things like jewelry sell well and maybe if the handsome artist was working in the shop and flirted with the customers, he might even sell more."

"Why Jillian Heather, are you pimping me out to the cruise ship crowd?"

Jill threw her head backwards laughing hard. "Why whatever do you mean Matthew Brown?" She batted her lashes similar to what he once saw Vivian Leigh do in the movie "Gone with the Wind."

"Are all you southern girls that devious?"

"In the south, honey child, we call it charm."

Jill could see the wheels in Matt's mind turning. If he could multiply that profit several times over, he would have a down payment on some land to set up a small sawmill in town.

"You know I think this is going to work out great for all of us." Matt had a renewed enthusiasm that morning for his life in Hoonah. "I may need to go over to Juneau today to get what I need. Are going to be okay for the day while I source some sterling flatware?"

"I'll be fine, Matt. Just be home for dinner." Matt and Jill cleaned up the kitchen and dressed for work. After escorting Jill to the shop, he headed for the ferry to take him to Juneau to find the scrap flatware he needed to create more rings and bracelets. It was a good feeling to have a plan and to plan a future. If he could bank his profit, he could accumulate enough money for a down payment on some land in town and bring his sawmill business into reality. He would then have a life to offer Jill more than just being her live-in boyfriend.

As the ferry pulled into Juneau, Matt already knew where he wanted to go. He set out about town and soon found himself in front of an antique store called Alaskan Antiques. He had been through the shop before with his family but never bought anything. This time he made a dash over to the part of the shop that sold silver. He found exactly what he needed and at a price he couldn't refuse. It didn't hurt that he used his boyish charms and starving artist story to get an extra discount. The gray haired little lady behind the counter kept asking him why he was still single. Matt made her blush when he asked her if she was husband shopping.

Matt had such a pleasant personality. He was gregarious and fun and could talk to anyone in any situation. It was also why he had slipped into his dark period so long ago. He had been tired of spending time with just his family, always being second guessed by his father and his brother Bam. He had secretly been going into town and hanging out with a crowd that drank too much and played too hard. He was not proud of the trail of one night stands he left behind either. All of those misdeeds only made him feel empty, desperate and alone. It earned him a long stint in rehab one that he volunteered to go through by himself and he was a better person for having done it. He found Jill and she made him a better man, at least he believed it was her. Never had one woman looked at him with such adoration and expectations. He may have let his family down before but this time he had more to lose and he didn't want to lose her. She was by far the best thing that happened to him in a very long time.

On the ride back to Juneau, Matt watched the people around him on the ferry. He watched an elderly couple board the ferry, hand in hand and toting their shopping bags. He surmised them to be in their seventies from their grayed hair and wizened faces. He thought it remarkable at their age to still show such love for one another by just the simple act of holding hands. He wondered if he and Jill would go the distance. They were both older and neither had been married and to his knowledge neither one of them had children but he knew they both eventually would want kids. So many ideas swirled around in Matt's maniacal thought process. He tried to practice what they taught him in rehab....how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. He would work his plan with an end goal in sight.