17. Chapter 17
Chapter 17
Matt
Matt
We’re having a thing today for my mom’s birthday. Want to come?
Riley
I think it’s too early for me to be coming to family dinners.
It’s family and friends. We can tell everyone you’re just a friend.
I don’t think I’m ready. Maybe another time?
Okay, I understand.
I’ll come over after?
You’re always welcome to come over. Emery and I are going to put up her fall décor today.
Can’t wait to see it.
I knew she would say no, if I had thought there would be any chance of her saying yes, I would have asked her during the times we were together this week or even while we were on the phone this morning. The hopeless romantic part of me couldn’t stop thinking that maybe, just maybe, if I asked her, she would prove me wrong. The thought drove me crazy as I got ready until I had texted her while sitting in my car ready to leave my apartment like a coward.
She responded immediately, making my heart race with hope and then crash as I read her response. dropped my phone in my cup holder, drumming my fingers on my steering wheel the full fifteen minute drive to my parents’ house as I thought over what to say, only texting her back once I was in their driveway. I had to remind myself that we’d only really known each other for a month, that I shouldn’t rush things. She needed to take things slow. Hell, I should probably be taking things slow. We were good together, there was no denying that. Being impulsive and pushing her would just scare her off, I’d already done it once.
I pressed my head back against the headrest and scrubbed a hand over my face, letting out a disappointed sigh. My phone buzzed in my lap. I unlocked the screen to see a photo of Riley surrounded by an assortment of pumpkins. Her hair was piled on top of her head and twisted into a bun, baby hairs frizzing around her face. A small peek of orange in the bun caught my eye. I zoomed in, a chuckle escaping me as I took in the small pumpkin nestled inside her bun.
How long do you think it will take for her to notice this one is missing?
From what I had learned this week hearing Emery take inventory of her collection, she was going to be tearing their house apart once she noticed it was missing. I didn’t know how long it would take her to notice, but it was going to be hell once she did. Another picture popped up in our messages. This time Riley had stuffed a tiny scarecrow in her bun, the legs hanging out.
How many things do you think I can fit in my hair?
She had so much hair she could probably fit several tiny pumpkins and scarecrows in there. A third picture came through with more legs hanging out of her bun. I could see Emery behind her with her arms crossed. I chuckled again.
I think I’ve been caught.
You’re so cute.
A knock on my window startled me and my phone tumbled from my hands down into the space between my seat and the center console. My finger fumbled in the space until I caught one corner enough to push it forward onto the floorboard. I turned to see my youngest sister standing outside my car with her arms crossed and her eyebrows raised. Her bleach blonde hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail that made her face look more intense. She popped my door open.
“Everyone is waiting for you,” she said. She dropped her eyes to where my phone rested on the floorboard. “Who is she?”
“How do you know it’s a she?” I swung my legs out of the car, forcing her to take a step back, and then leaned down to scoop up my phone.
“I guess it could be a he. Or maybe a they? But it’s definitely someone.” She pinned me with a glare, reminding me how much she and Emery were alike. No wonder Emery and I were able to slip so easily into a sibling relationship. She motioned with her pointer finger, drawing circles in the air. “You have that look.”
My phone vibrated in my hand, and I fought the urge to look, shoving it in my pocket instead and stepping around Shelby. The front door of the house swung open, my nieces and nephews sprinting outside. My knees hit the pavement and my body braced for impact, arms spread wide as their tiny bodies crashed against me. I wrapped us in a group hug, swaying us all side to side just rough enough to draw giggles from them.
***
I dropped into a camp chair to take a break. “Uncle Matt, we’re not done yet,” my oldest niece, Melody, said. She tapped her foot on the ground as her siblings and cousins gathered around her.
“Uncle Matt is too old for this,” I answered. They hadn’t let me sit down once in the hour since I arrived, barely even giving me a moment to greet my parents and sisters before pulling me into a game with rules that changed every two minutes. I didn’t know what was happening other than it leading to me running around the large back yard for an hour. “What if we play a different game?” I suggested.
“How about hide and seek?” My oldest sister suggested sitting in the chair next to me. She urged the kids to go hide while I counted to a hundred. I covered my eyes dramatically, counting at the top of my lungs until I heard their giggles drift away. Madison tapped my arm. “I think you’re all clear,” she said.
I dropped my hands. “Thanks. Smart move on picking one hundred,” I said turning toward her. Her highlighted hair was shorter than the last time I saw her, just grazing her shoulders, and the creases around her eyes were deeper. She looked more like our mom every time I saw her.
“Should buy you a long break.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, checking for any messages from Riley. She sent several progress photos of the decorations, including one with a garland of leaves wrapped around her like a scarf.
“She’s cute,” Madison said, leaning over my arm to see my phone. “Shelby mentioned you were seeing someone.”
I locked my phone and shoved it back in my pocket. “It’s new,” I answered. I clamped my mouth closed to hold back all the information I wanted to share about Riley. There hadn’t been a chance for me to talk about her to anyone yet, but doing so felt like getting my hopes up. I had fallen hard for her on our date in June, and even more so in the time since we reconnected. I was in this more than she was and letting anyone know how I felt about her seemed like a great way to curse the whole situation.
“Is she why mom keeps complaining about you not coming over much?”
I cocked an eyebrow at her. Despite all the time I spent with Riley I had still been making time to stop by at least once a week since school started back. “I think I just spoiled her with how much I was here over the summer,” I answered. During the summer I had practically moved back in with them, helping my mom babysit my nieces and nephews. Shelby had moved out at the beginning of summer and my mom had been struggling with the adjustment.
“Why didn’t you bring her with you?”
“It’s complicated.”
I braced myself for her to ask why, tried to gather the words to explain it without her thinking that Riley was just like Liz. Instead, Madi nodded once as her eyes scanned the yard for rogue children. “Is there anything you can tell me about her?” she asked me, her eyes locking on a child peeking out from behind a tree. She lifted a finger to her mouth in a shushing motion.
“Fifty!” I yelled as if I had still been counting. “Her name is Riley,” I answered my sister, trying not to cringe at how lovesick my voice sounded when I said her name. “She’s a teacher.” I paused to choose what else I could tell her, my mind flooding with options but I didn’t want to share a single one. I wanted to keep them all to myself, to enjoy her being just mine, not my family’s, for just a little longer.
We fell into silence as we watched our family around the back yard. Mom and dad stood in front of the grill, dad’s arm around her as they swayed back and forth. They touched each other the way Riley and I did, effortlessly. A pang of jealousy shot through my chest, a longing to have her with me and my arm around her in front of everyone.
Don’t rush things, Matt, just let it happen. I tapped my fingers against my leg in time to the music flowing from the Bluetooth speaker on the back porch. The music stopped, changing over to children’s music after a pause. I looked over my shoulder to see Shelby shoving her phone into her pocket. “Oh no, Matt, I can’t believe you. I guess I’m it!” Shelby yelled dramatically as she sprinted past us. She paused in the middle of the yard and turned in a circle, covering her eyes with her hands. “One hundred!” she yelled, dropping her hands to her sides. “Ready or not, here I come!”
“Looks like you’re off baby-sitting duty,” Madi chuckled beside me.
“Good, I’m getting too old for this.”
“How’s the new job?” she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders and suppressed a smile. “It’s harder than I expected. Middle schoolers are kind of evil.”
“But you like it?” she prodded. Her head swiveled again, watching as the kids frantically changed hiding places every time Shelby had her back turned.
My lips twitched as the smile I fought back won, spreading across my face as I dropped my eyes to my shoes. “I do.” Then I remembered all the times Riley told me she liked the way I brightened when I talked about work. Most people would argue that I wasn’t teaching the kids anything useful, that it was less important than the core subjects, but to me it was more important. Kids needed a creative outlet and that’s what I was giving them. I gave them a classroom to come to each day that was just about having fun, without the pressure all their other classes put on them. I liked to think that I was changing their lives by just being that fun safe space.
“I think I’m starting to get into the groove of things now,” I said.
Madi’s hand clapped on my shoulder. “I’m glad you’re happy and back home. We were getting worried about you for a minute there.”
A chorus of hello echoed from the porch, followed by the kids coming out of hiding and running to greet the new arrivals. I looked over my shoulder to see my best friend and his siblings filing out of the house. Oliver had been my best friend since the day he stood up to another kid in our class for stealing the blocks I had been playing with when we were in kindergarten. He spent more time at my home than his own, something I later learned was due to a rough home life. Somewhere along the way when things were at their worst my family had welcomed his siblings into our lives, becoming a second home for the three of them.
Shelby stopped where she was to scowl toward them, crossing her arms over her chest. Oliver’s cousin Wade stood at the back of the pack, slouching down like he was trying to hide his tall frame behind his much shorter cousins. I watched as he shifted under the weight of Shelby’s glare.
“Well, I guess this party just got a lot more interesting,” I said to Madi. I slapped my hands against my thighs as I stood up.
“I still can’t figure out why she hates him so much.” Madi jumped up and grabbed a kid that was scaling the side of the porch instead of using the stairs.
I pulled my phone out, remembering that I hadn’t texted Riley back. I couldn’t hide the smile on my face as I looked through her last few progress photos before typing out a quick reply. Oliver took Madi’s place next to me as I typed, lifting his hat and pushing back his shaggy hair.
“How are things at the shop?” I asked him without looking up from my phone and returning to my seat. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the dark circles and bags under his eyes. He always had a permanent look of exhaustion but over the summer I had noticed that it was getting worse and worse. I’d offered several times since I moved back home to help out. During my last haircut his sister Ava spent the entire time telling me how worried she was about him.
He huffed and slumped in the chair. I flipped my phone over on top of my leg and shifted to look at him. God, he looked bad. The man needed a break, a long vacation, or maybe a year long hibernation. I don’t think any of those were words in his vocabulary. “Dude, you need to hire some help. Or at least let me help on the weekends.” I was getting sick saying those words to him. We had this conversation every time we saw each other. Ava said it was a conversation she and the others had with him daily.
“It’s fine. Aubrey has been dealing with some stuff lately so she’s been out a lot. It’s fine. I’ve got it under control.” He always had it under control. Even when he was drowning, he had it under control. Ava was the same way. They both complained about each other but couldn’t see that they were doing the same thing. Some things never changed. Aubrey was Ava’s wife who started helping at the shop almost two years ago when her chronic pain became too much for her to keep working as a stylist. I knew all about her struggles with seeking a diagnosis, how she’d been going around and around with doctors hoping one would finally listen.
My eyes shifted to Shelby chasing kids around the yard. This was the first family event she had been able to attend in months. She was juggling two fast food jobs that kept her working constantly. She needed something stable, something that would pay well enough she wouldn’t need a second job. She needed it soon before she burned herself out. “What if you hired Shelby?” I suggested.
Oliver adjusted his cap on his head and huffed. I could hear the no on the tip of his tongue.
“Let her cover the front so you don’t have to worry about when Aubrey is out. Weren’t you saying you need someone to help with marketing? She could do that too.” Shelby had been going to school for a degree in marketing before she dropped out. Even though she didn’t graduate I knew she was a natural enough at the work that she would be able to help out. It would be better than the absolute zero marketing they were doing now. The shop may be thriving on word of mouth and repeat customers but eventually the lack of new customers was going to catch up to them.
Maybe if they were a little busier Oliver wouldn’t have a choice not to hire a couple more mechanics instead of insisting on doing the work of three people all on his own.
Oliver looked between Shelby and where Wade was hunched over away from everyone else with Drew. “I brought Wade on as a mechanic. Do you think the two of them would be able to work together?” It was a good point. Shelby and Wade used to be inseparable as kids, even before Oliver and his siblings had melded in with our family. We all used to joke that they would end up married. Then one day they just stopped talking. Shelby would roll her eyes whenever I asked about Wade. Wade would walk away from a conversation if Shelby was mentioned.
“Maybe give it a try? You’d be helping her out as much as she would be helping you.” It was a mean move to mention that Shelby needed help, but I knew he wouldn’t be able to say no to that. Being unable to resist helping the people we cared about was a quality Oliver and I both shared.
He pretended to think about it, picking at his nails while he did. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you?” he asked.
I shook my head, my leg jiggling as I did. My phone plopped to the grass landing face up. At least there weren’t any fresh cracks on the screen. “Either hire her or let me start helping,” I told him.
“Fine, I’ll talk to her about it, but if she says no I’m not pushing the issue.”
My phone chimed in the grass. I couldn’t hide the way I smiled seeing a new message from Riley light up the screen. Oliver glared down at my phone and then up at me. “Who is that?” he asked gruffly. All this extra work was turning him from regular grumpy to bitter.
I flipped my phone over with my foot. Not only was I hiding my relationship with Riley from my family, but I was also hiding it from my best friend. I almost told him several times about our date over the summer, chickening out because I knew what he would have to say. I didn’t want him to get a negative impression of her when I hoped one day things between us would be real. I wouldn’t be able to handle my best friend hating my future wife just because we’d had a rocky start.
“Matt, everyone you talk to is here. Who is that?” Oliver hated Liz, always had, but it had been worse right before she and I broke up. He’d never been a relationship guy, something I blamed on his parents. The only time he’d been in a relationship he was convinced she was the one, we were all convinced she was the one even though I never met her, but she’d broken his heart. He’d thrown himself into work even harder after that. He tended to take his bitter views on love out on the rest of us.
My phone chimed again, my fingers itched to pick it up. I was an addict when it came to Riley. All I wanted to do was see her every day, spend every free second with her. When I was away from her, I couldn’t stop myself from needing to be constantly available. I regularly accidentally forgot to respond to messages from my friends and family, but when it came to her, I never forgot. Oliver really needed to let me help at the shop, it would make it easier to keep my distance from her.
Oliver narrowed his eyes. “You’re grinning like an idiot right now. Who is it, Matt?”
I tried to school my face into a blank expression. Riley telling me that she liked my goofy grin popped into my mind. She had blushed when she said it, her own goofy grin spreading across her face. My grin spread wider thinking about her.
He looked down at my phone, leaning forward like he might try to snatch it from under my foot. I could see him calculating if he could get away with it. Riley’s tear-filled eyes when I told her I wanted to meet her family filled my mind. I knew she wasn’t ready for anyone to know about her yet. Madi could keep a secret. No one would believe Shelby if I didn’t offer information to back up her claims. If I told Oliver, it wouldn’t be long before everyone else knew. The girls would have her tracked down before I knew what was happening.
“Do we have to talk about this?” I asked in a lowered voice.
Oliver settled back in the chair, his fingers going to the chain around his neck. He rubbed the rings on it through his shirt. “Be careful, okay? I don’t want you getting hurt again.” I wanted to ask him about the girl that broke his heart. Aside from knowing that there was one, and the few details his grandmother had shared with me, we hadn’t talked about her much. I didn’t even know more than her nickname. All I knew was that it was the only time anyone had seen Oliver be more than the closed off man that made it his mission to put everyone before himself. Whoever she was had balanced him, brought him out of the hard shell he built around himself.
I hated her, whoever she was. She had broken his heart and soon after his grandparents had passed away leaving him the hollow man sitting beside me. Lately I hadn’t even been able to make him smile. I was at my wits end with him; we all were.
Maybe I should take a page from Emery’s book and start meddling in his life more. It’s what Granny would have done if she were still around.