5. Matteo
Matteo
ICEHAWKS BITCHES
IRVING
Ellington is in Greece???
why the hell wasn’t I invited
ELLINGTON
the last time we traveled together I woke up to you spooning me
LEWIS
spooning has amazing health benefits
IRVING
yeah, lowers your stress level!
ELLINGTON
you were butt naked!
JOHNSON
and I bet you liked that
reminiscent of your threesome
ELLINGTON
shut the fuck up, you old prick. at least I’ve had a threesome
JOHNSON
I’m the king of threesomes
IRVING
yeah—you, your left hand, and your pathetic right one
O’CONNOR
have I been living under a rock???
when the hell did you have a threesome with Irving?
JOHNSON
anyone got footage for blackmail?
IRVING
don’t lie you just want the material to get off
CRAWFORD
what the actual fuck guys
this is next level
the girls read this
JOHNSON
hence why it’s meant to be the guys’ group chat
IRVING
nah the comedy is too good to deprive them
ASHFORD
for once in my life I agree with Irving
Flopping onto my bed, I hit answer on the call, knowing he won’t stop until I do.
“How is she?” Caleb asks by way of greeting.
My lips pinch as I stare at my bedroom door, knowing she’s just across the hall and yet feels hundreds of miles away. “Not the best, C.”
His sigh is so deep and endless I’m worried he’s going to deflate.
“Carter really did a number on her. When was the last time you saw her?”
I don’t even need to be beside my best friend to know he’s running his fingers through his blond hair in frustration, the color identical to Evie’s. The second we get off the phone, he’s probably going to find a party to help him unwind.
“Two, maybe three months ago.” He pauses. “It wasn’t willingly. I showed up at her work.”
“I bet that went over well.”
“Actually, she didn’t bite my head off.”
I’m still for all of two seconds before standing, needing to pace. For an apartment, the rooms are astronomically big, though that shows on the price tag. Not that money is an issue for either Caleb or me, but it still catches me off guard.
However, it’s worth every penny for the view we have. The stunning downtown Denver skyline shines bright every night through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
“That’s not like her,” I say after the line falls silent for quite some time.
Evie is usually all tongue and sass, full of quips that strike like a serpent.
“No, it wasn’t,” is his quiet response.
Nothing seems to be like her, but I don’t voice that. Part of me would feel like I’m betraying her sharing that with Caleb.
Carter has changed her, made her a smaller version of herself. It’s like he walked into her house and turned off all the lights.
Earlier in the kitchen, the second I pushed back, she receded, her eyes downcast, her voice quiet, her shoulders even hunched for fuck’s sake. In that moment, Evie tried to be small, as small as she possibly could be when she used to be vivacious, loud, and all-consuming.
She used to walk into a room and shine.
Her energy was infectious, something you couldn’t pull your gaze away from even if you tried.
He’s taken that from her.
Stolen it.
If Caleb knew the full weight of how broken Evie is right now, he’d get on a plane in an instant. And as much as even I want to help her, this is something she needs to do on her own. She needs to reclaim herself, because the woman sitting in that room isn’t Evie, that’s for damn sure.
As if our thoughts are on the same wavelength, he blurts out, “I’m coming back.”
“I don’t think that’s what she needs right now.”
He scoffs. “That’s my sister. As if you know what she needs and I don’t.”
My pacing comes to a screeching halt, my head swinging to my bedroom door as if I can see all the way through the wood to the bed she’s lying in. “I promise I’ll be here if she needs me and I’ll look after her, but it won’t do anyone any good for you to come home and smother her.”
“Oh, so wise of you.”
The sarcasm dripping from his voice isn’t missed.
“Come on, C, think about it for a second. Carter was obviously controlling; you don’t stop seeing your family overnight when nothing’s happened. Why don’t you just give her a couple of days to breathe, and if she’s really not getting any better, I’ll let you know and you can come back?”
He’s quiet for a moment. The rush of people, boarding announcements, and static fill the silence.
He probably called me the second the plane wheels hit the landing strip.
Evie means everything to Caleb. He’s always been protective of her, though if you ask me, sometimes he can be a bit too protective.
It’s why I’m pushing for him not to come back right away.
Is that the real reason? A little voice whispers.
Swatting it away like I have with anything that steps outside the bounds of friendship with Evie, I clear my throat, the sound seeming to trigger Caleb out of his silent stupor.
“You promise you’ll tell me if she needs me?”
“Absolutely, hand on heart.”
Caleb’s sigh floats through the phone. “Fine, but the second she says she needs me, I’m running.”
“I don’t expect anything less. It’s why she hasn’t asked you to come home.”
He chuckles over the line. “Okay, maybe I can be a little—”
“Suffocating?” I supply dryly.
“I was going to say protective, dick, but yeah, whatever.”
A snort escapes me.
“Fuck, I think a chick recognized me. Gotta go. Send me all the updates and tell V to call me the second she wakes up!”
“Will do. Good luck with the bunny.”
Ending the call, I drop my phone on the bed before throwing myself down next to it. I flop my arm over my head, but immediately wince. The swelling in my hand has gone down now that I’ve iced it, but the bruising is making it look god-awful.
Evie was right about one thing—I’m lucky it’s off season. If Coach saw my hand like this he’d blow a lid. As Ashford would say, the bull in him would come out and charge.
Evie can never know what Carter said today, ever, and I hope Felicity has the decency to keep her lips shut too, but something tells me she doesn’t.
She and Evie have been inseparable since they met in college. I can’t believe she’d stoop so low to betray her like this. Although, it doesn’t completely surprise me. Felicity has tried to hit on me behind Caleb and Evie’s back one too many times.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be shocked at all.
I snatch my laptop off the bedside table, pulling up Google. I’m not sure why I would search this, but I don’t want to stumble my way through this and do more harm than good.
“Dear lord, here we go,” I mutter under my breath, then hit enter. The results that pop up make my brows rise.
Google Search:
How to help my best friend through a break-up.
My eyes fly across the screen, trying to comprehend half the crap I’m reading. Painting her toenails? Putting on face masks? Buying new shoes? How is any of this supposed to make her feel better about being betrayed by her friend and ex-boyfriend?
Growling with frustration, I close my laptop lid.
One thing that actually makes sense, mentioned across various articles, is that Evie needs to gain her confidence back—her spark. Could I help her with that, though, or is that more of a solo adventure?
I’ve never had to gain my spark back. Not sure I ever had it in the first place. Most people tell me I have a dark cloud hanging over my head, although if you grew up with the parents I had—or should I say lack of—you’d have one, too.
My parents are both surgeons, damn good ones at that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of their accomplishments. Now that I’m an adult, I can look at all they’ve achieved and admit it took a lot out of them.
As their child, though, I despise the environment they created for me.
They made our home as sterile as their operating rooms—cold, emotionless, and borderline lifeless.
It’s why I spent so much time at the Ellingtons, why I spent more time sleeping in the bed Caleb’s parents bought me and set up in his room.
I even had my own dresser. The Ellingtons deserve parental rights for raising me.
It’s why C and I are so close; he’s more a brother than a friend. Evie, on the other hand…I’ve never been able to view her as a sister, even though I met her at seven years old and spent so much time around her.
It was then when a new job opportunity at a state-of-the-art hospital in Denver, Colorado opened up for my parents and they jumped on it. We packed up our house in Banff, Canada and moved to a residential area in Denver.
For around ten years after that my parents took a trip twice a year back to Banff. The rarity that they actually took a holiday still stuns me when I think back on it, but I try not to, otherwise I see the reality of the memories far too clearly.
My parents didn’t want a child.
They didn’t want me.
It was obvious in every interaction.
I was nine years old when I did my first hike in Banff.
They allowed a nine-year-old to go hiking along a trail where bears were prominent.
My parents desperately wanted me to be independent from the youngest age they could manage because they didn’t want to raise me.
If I wasn’t at the Ellingtons I was home alone, cooking myself dinner, doing my homework, and spending most of my evenings in the dark with the only illumination coming from the TV, waiting for my parents to finish whatever surgery they were in and wondering why my mom didn’t abort me.
Yes, I may be cold or seem closed off at times, but I wasn’t born that way.
Loveless parents create loveless children, and if it weren’t for the Ellingtons, I wouldn’t have had a single drop of warmth in my life. I owe them the world, because I know I could have turned out much differently than I have.
An ear-piercing scream fills the apartment.
Dread sinks throughout my body like an anchor plummeting to the bottom of the ocean.
I’m up and off my bed in an instant, my bedroom door swinging open as I charge into the hallway. Barging into Evie’s room, my chest is heaving, eyes frantically roaming the room for an intruder, but there’s…nothing.
Evie’s sheets are tangled between her legs, her body curled in a tight ball. Her brows suddenly tighten, the only warning I get before she lets out another scream.
She still gets nightmares?
Like a switch, muscle memory kicks in. Gently sitting on the bed beside her, I lay my palm on her back, prepared when her body stiffens further at my touch. Her panting increases, her lips parting to scream again, but I cut in quickly.
“Dove,” I say soothingly, rubbing my hand up and down her back. “It’s a dream, you’re okay. I’m here, Dove.”
The moment my voice floats toward her, her body loosens, the tension all but leaking out of her like a popped balloon.
Her eyes don’t open, though; they never do.
It’s impossible to wake her from one of her nightmares.
Her mom tried everything when she was younger, but the only thing that ever seemed to calm her was… me.
I had no idea she still got nightmares, that they were still this bad.
Caleb sleeps like the dead, and given how protective he is of Evie, Serena suggested that we not tell him about the nightmares. She thought he wouldn’t react the best given only I could soothe her.
It was the right move. I know that. Serena does, too.
Evie doesn’t, though. She has no idea that I’ve been the one helping her through the nightmares since she was five years old.
I wonder how Carter handled them.
Evie lets out a deep sigh, her furrowed brows smoothing out as I continue to rub calming circles along her back.
Looking down at the woman that’s made my heart skip a beat since I first saw her when I was little, when I didn’t know what it meant to have my heart quicken in the presence of a girl, I know I can’t not help her through this tough time.
That taking a step back will be fruitless. I’ll always be sucked in.
My heart has grown alongside Evie’s, from an innocent boy’s little crush, to an infatuation, to desire when I was a teenager, and now, I can’t help but admit that it’s something else entirely consuming. Even with the time apart, when we’re in a room together, it’s undeniable. The pull…the tension.
It’s something you can’t ignore. I merely deny myself the experience and just sit in the heaviness of always craving her.
Evie’s blonde hair lies along her pillow, the scent of her lavender shampoo invading my senses.
When she’s asleep like this it’s the only time I allow my thoughts to cross that line in the sand I drew in high school, the night when we were both filled with liquor and courage and the magnetic pull that yanks us together.
I close my eyes, knowing damn well Evie, whether she means it or not, is about to fuck with my head, and that line I stupidly drew so vehemently is about to be tested.
I’ve been able to keep some semblance of distance due to us going our separate ways in life. I’ve gotten my hit of Evie Ellington through social media and updates from Caleb. Like an addict, I collected any scraps I could.
But this is different.
She’ll be living here, will be lying in a bed across the hall. Her scent will fill my shower, her voice will greet me every day, her mere presence will tease me endlessly and give me a glimpse of a future I have never allowed myself to fantasize about because it can never happen.
How can I help Evie find herself without losing myself in the process?
Because now that she’s here, now that I can tell she needs help, now that she is within my grasp, how will I be able to hide from her that I have and will always be madly in love with her?
Even knowing the risk of getting my heart broken, knowing that I could be helping her heal from one man only to see her meet another, I can’t walk away. I’ve never been able to say no to Evie.
Not to the girl with the kind blue eyes and the soul that feels like it’s the missing half of mine.