Chapter 8
I fell asleep with a smile on my face, and my dreams were filled with the sounds Matt made in that bathroom stall.
They were filled with the memories of his hands on me, both from that club bathroom and in our shared history.
My mind created other scenarios for our bathroom hookup, took it from the bathroom to other venues.
I imagined us making out in dark club booths.
I dreamed of sucking him off in the backseat of my car.
I even dreamed through the scenario where I suggested we go upstairs again, and this time he took me up on it.
That was probably my favorite imagined scenario.
In my dreams, we took each other apart. Over and over again, and every time, the memory of him cumming played out. God, the way he’d sounded as he shot his load over my hand and our shafts? It had been borderline pornographic.
It was no surprise that I woke up rock hard. I closed my eyes and replayed my favorite dreams as I got myself off, Matt’s name on my lips.
The combination of the late night, the dreams of Matt, and taking a few extra minutes to get out of bed left me in a rush to get ready for work.
I barely had time for a shower and my full skin care routine, but I would rather be late than miss a day of proper skin care.
There was no way I was going to be a wrinkled old prune by the time I turned fifty.
I had silver fox aspirations, and I was putting in the work now.
I skipped my morning pastry and made do with the awful coffee in the museum break room as a compromise, and I was still on time for work. Sacrifices had to be made, I supposed.
The morning was slow. Just going over paperwork and acquisitions.
I sent Matt a few text messages, and I found myself deeply concerned when his responses were slow and terse.
He must have been busy. He did say that he had a deadline coming up, and I remembered the way he used to be when he got deeply involved in whatever he was working on.
There were times in high school when he’d get so fixated on a project that I had to message his friends to see if they had received any signs of life. I’d probably hear from him later.
But I didn’t.
My ideas to make plans faded with each short and slow response. I was clearly meant for a solo night, not a night with my boyfriend.
Saturday, his messages were more of the same. By the time Saturday night came around, I was starting to get concerned.
I replayed Thursday night, trying to figure out if maybe I’d done something wrong.
Maybe I’d ruined things before they even got fully started, and Matt was just too scared to tell me.
But I couldn’t think of anything. I’d gotten along with his friends.
We’d danced, and he had been the one that suggested the bathroom when things got hot and heavy.
I kissed him good night at the door instead of assuming that our bathroom hookup meant that we should have more.
Which, honestly, I would’ve been more than okay with, but when he didn’t invite me upstairs, I didn’t want a repeat of earlier in the week.
I didn’t want him thinking that I was only interested in his body.
Because with Matt, it would never just be his body that I cared about.
I tossed and turned all Saturday night, and when I woke up to another threadbare response to a good morning text, I started officially freaking out. I grabbed my phone and pressed Moira’s contact. She would be able to talk me down.
She answered on the second ring. “Shouldn’t you be cuddled up with Lover Boy?” she asked. I could hear her rolling her eyes all the way from New York.
“That’s what I’m calling you about,” I admitted, rising from my couch and beginning to pace my living room. “We hooked up. On Thursday.”
“And I’m only just now hearing about it? Rude!” She didn’t even bother disguising the offended tone of her voice. “You have never withheld hookups from me in the past. What the hell, man?”
“Can you not right now? I didn’t call to talk about the hookup.”
“Again, rude.”
I shushed her. I knew that if I let her get going, I would end up distracted.
We would take a thousand conversational side roads, and I’d never get to talk about the whole reason I called her in the first place.
“Anyway, so we hooked up Thursday, and we’ve barely talked since.
I’ve texted him, and he’s sent back one word responses and emojis.
That’s it. Not even a GIF, which takes some effort to find the right one. ”
“Ouch. What did you do to fuck this up already?”
“Rude,” I echoed her previous statement, “and also hurtful! Who said I did something to mess it up? Besides, I’ve replayed the entire night.
We went out with his friends to a club. We danced, and then we ended up hooking up.
I kissed him goodbye at his apartment. I sent a follow up text. I did everything right, right?”
Maybe I’d missed some cue that someone else might have seen, someone who wasn’t messed up when it came to romantic interactions.
“It sounds like you did everything right,” she said after a moment of thought. That was what I loved about Moira. She didn’t just say what I wanted to hear. She gave my words actual thought; she made sure that she believed what she said. “So, have you just texted him or have you called him?”
“Just texted.”
“Well, there’s one thing you did wrong. You should have called!
Actually, no, fuck that. If you’re bugged by the fact that he hasn’t called, then maybe you should go over there.
King’s Bay’s small, right? Not like that time when you left your phone at that guy’s place in SoHo and just got a new phone rather than deal with the public transport. ”
“Oh, that had nothing to do with not wanting to take the subway. He had terrible morning breath, and I’m pretty sure he’d never changed his sheets. Like ever.” I shuddered at the memory of that terrible one night stand. “Worse than all of that, he definitely wanted to go on dates.”
Moira’s melodic laugh filled my ear, and I missed her so badly.
I wished we were having this conversation on my couch, gripping hot cups of coffee and eating homemade pastries.
Of course, if she were here, I never would’ve gotten into the state I was in.
She would’ve driven me directly to Matt’s apartment Friday night and deposited me on his doorstep.
She would’ve sat in the car until she saw I went in and probably a good ten or fifteen minutes after to make sure I didn’t run scared.
I wished she were here now. I needed her strength.
“I’m going to hang up and go over there.”
“Good.” I stopped pacing. “Oh, and Noah? If you haven’t changed out of your pajama pants, do that. You can’t have a romantic moment in those ugly as hell French toast pajama pants.”
“I’m not wearing them,” I scoffed, looking down at my legs. I wasn’t. I’d retired those after years of her incessantly mocking them. They hadn’t even made their way to King’s Bay with me. “I’m wearing the green plaid ones.”
“Those might be cute but put on some jeans. The nice ones that make your ass look like a million bucks.”
I knew exactly what jeans she meant. I promised her that I’d put on real clothes and hung up.
An hour later, I was in the jeans she suggested, a green button down Moira had always said made my eyes sparkle, and smelling like the expensive cologne I’d made my signature scent back in college.
I was also pulling into Matt’s parking lot.
His car was still in the same spot I’d seen it Thursday night when I’d dropped him off.
It was a good sign that he’d probably be home, unless one of his friends had picked him up.
I thought about sending a text, but I decided against it.
What if he said he didn’t want to see me?
I’d rather him say it to my face.
I steeled myself as I walked up the stairs to his unit. Once I got there, I took a deep breath and knocked. No one answered. I knocked a second time, and I heard Matt’s voice through the door. “It’s unlocked.”
There was a worrying distance to his voice. I pushed open the door, expecting the worst. Maybe he’d been expecting one of his friends, and he’d be disappointed to see me. Why else would his door be unlocked? I was probably intruding by showing up without warning or invitation.
When I stepped inside, the worry amplified.
Matt was sitting cross legged on the floor.
The room was shadowed, and his face was lit up by his laptop screen.
There were a few open root beer cans on the floor and crumbled up bags of chips.
He was wearing a tee shirt that looked like it had seen better days and pajama pants with a few holes in them.
I could see the bags under his eyes, pulled into contrast by the harsh computer light, but that wasn’t the most disconcerting part.
No, the most disconcerting part was the dozens of rubber ducks all over the room.
They were scattered around. Some were in neat lines, and others were in clumps.
One or two were flipped over by a wall, like he’d thrown them there.
There were all different colors and designs, different sizes, and they were all facing Matt.
I knew that he had a few ducks that he talked to when he was working, but I didn’t realize the collection had grown this out of hand.
I took another step into the room and realized that dozens of ducks was an understatement.
Every surface had ducks.
The closer I got to him, the closer together the ducks were. They were forming a protective barrier of rubber around him.
“Matt?” At the sound of my voice, Matt jolted, almost dropping his computer. He blinked a few times, and it gave the impression of a man coming out of a trance. “Is this some kind of weird duck ritual?”
“Noah?” His voice sounded just as distant as it had through the door.