"Have you given any thought to what we talked about the other day?" Mary asked as they sat at the kitchen table, eating. Matt made sirloin tips in gravy over noodles for them and it was delicious.
"You mean that stuff about me getting involved with someone younger?" he asked.
"That, among other things," Mary said.
Matt gave her a puzzled look and asked, "Why are you pushing that?"
"Because I love you. I don't want you to wind up hating me because I deprived you of things you could have experienced if it weren't for me," she told him.
Matt put down his fork, took her hand, and said, "I could never hate you, not for any reason."
"You can say that now," Mary said. "And I really do believe you mean it. But I love you, and I don't want to make things difficult for you. I want you to have everything someone your age should have. There are so many things you should be doing at the end of your senior year, and I can't do them with you."
"I don't care about all that crap!" Matt said firmly. "All I want is to be with you!"
Mary decided not to push the issue. "Maybe we can talk about this some more later," she said. "Why don't we go backup to the darkroom and see if the pictures are dry."
Matt let her lead him upstairs. He didn't understand why Mary kept pushing the issue of their age. It didn't make any difference to him, why should it bother her? He wouldn't have gone to the prom anyhow, except to take pictures, so what was the big deal?
"These pictures are incredible!" Mary said. Still nude, she was sitting on his bed, going through the stack of photos of her. "Matt, you are a talented photographer!"
"It was easy," Matt replied. "You're so pretty and all, it's easy to get good pictures."
"I think we probably ought to go home," Mary suggested. "If Ricky calls, he might wonder where we are."
"Want to take the pictures along?" Matt asked.
"I'm not sure that would be a good idea," she said. "What would Ricky say if he saw them?"
"Good point," Matt replied. He collected the pictures and negatives and locked them in his file cabinet. By the time he was finished, Mary had dressed. Matt felt odd, being nude while Mary was dressed, so he quickly got back into his clothes and they went downstairs, got in his truck, and drove back to the Forrester house.
They'd been there about an hour when Ricky called, extremely excited. The college wanted to offer him a full scholarship, he told Matt.
"Den, you got to see this place!" Rick gushed. "They got girls up here so gorgeous it blew me away! And the dorms for the athletes, man, they're awesome! You really ought to think about coming up here, too!"
