Chapter 20
MATTHEW
The evening after.
Yeah, it’s awkward. Or, at least, I feel awkward when I wake up in Fischer’s empty bed, remembering in vivid detail everything I said and did before I fell asleep in his arms.
I venture into the living room and find him lying on the couch with Vaughn who looks about two minutes away from going comatose. They’re watching Coco again. “Big day at the park?”
“I thought I was gonna die,” Fischer says.
Vaughn reaches up and pats his dad’s cheek. “I’ll come see you if you die, Dad.”
He’s watched this movie way too many times.
“Tell uncle Matty he should have a sleepover with us tonight,” Fischer says.
“In my room?”
“No offense, bud, but I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep anymore tonight.” I slept for nearly twelve hours. That’s not typical for me at all.
I cross the room to the kitchen, pour myself a glass of water from the tap, and guzzle it. I refill it, take one more sip, and contemplate where I want to sit, or if I want to sit.
Fischer draws his legs up slightly, indicating where he thinks I should go. Once I’m there, he puts his legs on my lap and stares me down. “I’m not spending the night,” I tell him.
“I know. And I’m guessing you’re not coming back in the morning either.”
I glance at his face, which is drawn and pensive. I hadn’t counted on the truth coming between us quite like this, but I have a sinking feeling it has. And here I’d thought sex was the bad idea. Turned out it was just the idea of it. I wrinkle my nose. “Maybe we need a break.”
“We just had a break,” he pushes back.
“And look how that wound up.”
“Matty…”
“Shh. Watch the movie, Dad,” Vaughn says, giving Fischer a backhand to the chest.
I smirk and pull up a food delivery app on my phone.
He sighs and settles back into position with Vaughn, holding him not unlike he held me this morning. It’s so sweet it makes my stomach hurt.
I order a Cobb salad with no blue cheese and set down my phone.
I glance at Fischer again, and he’s still looking at me.
I frown. He rolls his eyes. I rub his socked feet, figuring a full day at the park warrants it.
He sighs contentedly, and we watch the rest of the movie, which conveniently ends exactly at Vaughn’s eight o’clock bedtime.
“I’m not tired,” he says immediately.
Fischer buries his face in Vaughn’s neck and does something that makes the kid squeal with uncontrollable giggles, which in turn, makes me smile. Breathless, Vaughn wiggles out of his dad’s arms and stands facing the couch, a mischievous gleam in his eyes that makes me nervous.
He pounces, his hands out like he means to tickle Fischer, but I hear the distinct sound of an elbow to the crotch.
I laugh and try to grab my nephew, but he only turns his spaz on me.
While Fischer recovers, I manhandle the six-year old, eventually getting him on his back and tickling him until his lips are turning blue with gasping laughter.
“Uncle!” he screams.
“That’s me,” I say, as relentless as he is.
“I—mean—Uncle!”
“Is someone calling my name?”
“Matty!” he screams.
I let up and get him into a straitjacket hold, pulling him onto my lap and letting us both catch our breath. Fischer has bounced back and he’s standing above us now, looking sternly at his son. “You are a menace.”
“I got you good, though,” he says.
I snort a laugh as Vaughn tries to get out of the impossible restraint I have him in.
“Thirty more minutes,” Fischer says.
I give him a disapproving look. “He gets his way?”
“Like he said—he got me good. What’s the plan?” he asks Vaughn.
“Ice cream.”
“No go.” Fischer shakes his head.
“Pillow fight.”
“Deal.”
Jesus. If someone doesn’t wind up with another concussion, I’m gonna buy a lottery ticket on my way home.
The pillow fight is brutal. I have to move the coffee table so Vaughn can’t dive bomb us from it, but we’re all on the floor by the time it’s over something like ten minutes later when Vaughn starts losing some steam.
Since I’m already down, I give him a few airplane rides on my extended legs while Fischer leans back on the couch and watches with a lopsided grin.
“Can you do this, Dad?”
“Probably not,” he says, “but I can arm wrestle.”
“How do you do that?” Vaughn asks as I lower him to the floor.
“Matty and I can show you.”
I frown at him. “Maybe a thumb war is fairer.”
“How’s he gonna get strong if he’s never challenged,” Fischer says. “Pull the table back over.”
I do, and Vaughn climbs onto it, sitting on his knees closer to his dad while I flex the fingers on my right hand. I look up at Vaughn. “Your dad’s already cheating,” I tell him. “He knows I’m left handed.”
“I can switch,” Fischer says.
“No—I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your kid.”
He smirks, and I wish I didn’t find that so fucking sexy—that and his forearm as he pushes up his sleeve to expose it. I take my position, already feeling the disadvantage as Fischer explains the rules.
Elbows on the table, Fischer and I clasp hands and lock eyes. “Count us down, bud,” he says.
“Three-two-one-go!”
Our arms flex simultaneously, and my core engages immediately from the amount of resistance I meet. Grimacing, I shift my hips and try to gain an early advantage.
Fischer licks his lips and sucks his lower one into his mouth, narrowing his gaze. Jesus, even his hand is strong. “This is totally unfair,” I grunt, fighting the pressure he’s applying with my whole body.
“How old are you? Twenty-eight? You should have me easy.”
“Dad’s forty-one,” Vaughn offers.
“I’m aware,” I grit out as my arm shakes.
Fischer’s cheeks are getting pink and Vaughn is rooting for him to “take Uncle Matty down!”
Five seconds later, he does, my knuckles slamming into the wood while my left hand comes up to shove him in the chest. He laughs, and Vaughn tackles his head with a hug. “My turn.”
I sit back and watch Fischer pretend to give his son three fighting chances before beating him every time. “I got you good,” he finally says. “Now it’s bedtime.”
“Ugh.”
“If we don’t get on FaceTime soon everyone’s gonna be asleep.”
Vaughn pulls himself up from the floor and shakes out his arm. “Wanna wrestle me, Matty?” he asks. “You can use your left hand.”
“Winner makes the rules,” I say, nodding toward Fischer. “Bedtime, bud.”
He sighs. “Fine.”
Fischer uses his cane to get up from the floor, groaning as he does. He rubs my head as he walks past me and follows Vaughn into the bedroom.
The salad I ordered arrives while Fischer puts his son to bed.
They have a whole routine to get through of FaceTime calls and reading that takes another half hour.
The payoff is that Vaughn sleeps like he lives life—hard.
Which is probably how Fischer gets away with fucking Ravenna when his kid is down the hall.
Not that I’m judging.
Just jealous.
Stupid jealous.
By the time he returns to the couch, I’ve eaten, straightened up the living room, and made him a drink.
“Should I read anything into this?” he asks, sitting down and taking a sip of the vodka tonic.
“You beat me. There’s your prize,” I say.
He sighs. “For the record, I’m not letting you leave without talking about this morning.”
“I think we need to talk about the wild animal you’re raising first,” I say, dodging the topic.
“He’s six.”
“He’s feral.”
“I was just like that,” Fischer says. “Weren’t you? There’s a reason Dick has a bad back.”
“I was not like that.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know, but he’s a perfectly normal kid with a lot of energy.”
“Seems violent,” I say.
“Spoken like a true artist, and someone who’s avoiding my question.”
I sigh heavily and fold my arms over my stomach. “What’s there to talk about? You know my dirty secret.”
“Why dirty?” he asks.
“Did you forget you’re my brother?”
“Did you forget I’m actually not?”
The truth is there hasn’t been a single day of my life where I thought of Fischer as my brother.
Maybe that makes me an asshole, but he was a hostile stranger.
Until he became my world, and now my best friend.
Still, what I want between us isn’t possible, and I’ve known that a long time.
It’s the cross I bear. “Regardless,” I say.
“But I’m sorry about all that earlier. I was just frustrated. ”
“Why were you frustrated, though?” he asks. “What did I say?”
I let out another sigh, but this one sounds more like a groan. “You were talking about getting married again and settling down, and you’ve got a regular hook-up who’ll probably worm her way into your life sooner than later, and when that happens, for me, you might as well be back in Jerusalem.”
Fischer scowls deeply. “What are you saying?”
“Just what I said.”
“No…it’s not just that. What are you saying, Matthew?”
“I’m saying…” I take a deep breath. “That if what you want is a life with someone you can raise your kid with, then maybe I shouldn’t be coming by as much.”
A long silence hovers between us. It doesn’t settle. It’s charged and it’s got weight. We stare at each other, and I have no clue what he’s thinking. He doesn’t look happy. But he doesn’t look devastated either. Meanwhile my insides feel like they’re being put through a shredder.
After a few endless minutes of this, he holds out a hand. “Come here.”
I roll my eyes. “Why?”
He wiggles his fingers at me. “Come on.”
Against all my better judgment, I take his hand and let him drag me down. After some rearranging on his crazy-firm couch, we lie on our sides facing each other. My leg instinctively cages him in because he’s the one on the outside, in danger of falling to the floor. Again.
“What?” I repeat myself.
He rests a hand on my face. “You’re beautiful. You know that, right?”
This is suspicious behavior. “What’s the point of this?”
“I’m telling you I think you’re beautiful.”
“Thank you. You’re not so bad either.”
His eyebrows lift. “Thanks, I guess.”