21. Chapter 21
Chapter 21
Riley
A few coin tosses later we found ourselves in his car parked in the Walmart parking lot eating cookie cake with a game of battleship set up between us.
“You have to be cheating,” Matt said as I sunk another of his ships. He only had one remaining while he had only managed a couple hits on mine.
“I think you’re underestimating how competitive Emery and I were as kids.”
“I’ve seen you together, trust me, it wasn’t just when you were kids.” He turned to look at his window, no doubt checking to see if his board was reflected in it. “I grew up with three sisters, remember? I know all about how competitive they can be.”
“You’re just salty because I’m better at board games and arcade games.”
“I’d be less salty if you would be my secret weapon for family game night.” He held up a hand before I could say what I was thinking. “Forget I said that. I mean, unless you want to think about it, but I know you’re not ready to meet them.”
I chewed on my bottom lip and leaned back against my door. “One day, I promise, I do want to meet them. I just need to work through my problems first.”
He moved the game boards from between us and onto the dash. His hands squeezed my legs. “I know, Riley. I don’t want to pressure you. Sometimes I just get excited thinking about how you’re going to fit in with them. They’re going to love you.”
I’m sure I’m going to love them too.
“Can I see a picture of your family? I don’t think you’ve shown me any.” He had framed photos all over this apartment but I always stopped myself from looking at them. It was too much of a reminder that I was scared to meet the people that were important to him.
He reached for his phone, stopping to check my game board. I had the aircraft carrier, cruiser, and submarine all lined up horizontally two columns over from the middle. My battleship and destroyer were each horizontal a column to the left and right. “I won’t forget this,” he said, squinting his eyes as he tried to twist his face into a serious expression.
I cleaned up the pieces as he scrolled through his phone for a family picture.
The first thing I noticed when he showed me the picture was that he had his dad’s smile and gentle eyes. His nose and blonde hair came from his mom. They all gathered around a Christmas tree and wore ugly Christmas sweaters. His youngest sister, Shelby he told me, looked the most like him. Matt stood behind her trying to give her bunny ears, her head tilted back with laughter because she noticed, and she had a hand up knocking his hand away. He wore both a Santa hat and reindeer antlers.
His older sisters, Madison and Grace, sat in their husbands’ laps on the floor. Grace held a baby and there was a toddler climbing her husband’s back, her little hands pulling his hair. Three kids gathered around Madison and her husband, the oldest looked around five.
“This was Christmas last year,” he told me. “The older everyone gets the harder it is to get us all together, especially when I was living in Kentucky. My favorite part of being back here is that I can see them whenever I want.”
I stared at the photo and tried to picture myself there with them. It was easy to see myself there beside Matt with his arm around me as I leaned into him laughing at Shelby. I wondered which of his parents he learned to give such great hugs from.
Matt brushed a strand of hair back from my face. I turned to see his eyes fixed on me. I wondered if he had been watching me this whole time. “I can’t wait to have a family photo with you by my side.”
“Matt, no talking about the future.”
His smile turned sad, his eyes dropping to where his fingers brushed my neck. “I know, but it’s hard not to when all I can think about is a future with you.” He gestured to the game and cookie cake on the dash and then to his clothes. “A future full of nights with adventures like this.”
Warmth flooded my stomach, because I could see it too. A future full of talking for hours on end and forgetting the rest of the world existed. A future of him holding me while I cried one moment and having me rolling with laughter the next. Sitting in his car dressed up and playing board games while having the time of our lives, because anything with him felt right.
The panic didn’t creep in until he asked me what I was thinking.
“No talking about the future,” I told him. It’s too soon, you can’t know you want this already, I told myself.
He nodded and started the car. My eyes flicked to the clock, and I had to pull out my phone to double check the time. “Matt, it’s almost midnight.”
“Are you ready to call it a night or do you want to see what else we can find to do?”
“I think the only thing open at this point is Waffle House and I’m not feeling that tonight.” I frowned at my phone as I scrolled through increasingly more aggressive messages from Emery telling me not to come home tonight. Matt rubbed his jaw when I showed them to him.
“Your sister scares me sometimes.”
I laughed. “She gets like this with people she cares about. She likes you and wants me to be happy.”
“Stay with me tonight.”
I blinked at him, not sure that I heard him right.
“I’m serious, stay with me. I’ll blow up the air mattress in the living room and we can build a blanket fort. We can stay up all night together.”
It all sounded so nice. I wasn’t ready for the night to end, I never was. Even if we didn’t do anything more than talk and sleep, the idea of it all felt more than casual. We were more than casual, and had been for a while. What would he think when he saw me in the morning? I couldn’t even say I loved him, how could I let him see me with my messy morning hair and stubble covered chin? All my morning supplements were at home. It wouldn’t hurt to miss just one day, but it felt like a big deal after being so diligent about never missing a single one for so long.
“I don’t have a change of clothes or anything,” I said instead of all the worries clouding my head.
“I have something you can wear.” Matt wasn’t a small guy, but he wasn’t big either. Would I even be able to fit in any clothes he had to let me borrow?
I bit the insides of my cheeks and tried to stop my head from spinning.
Matt bracketed my head with his hands and kept my eyes on him. “I know you’re scared right now, and you’re thinking about all the reasons this is a bad idea. All you need to decide is if you want this. It doesn’t have to be anything more than us just having more time together. The rules still apply. No funny business.”
I swallowed and tried to focus on his eyes, tried to remind myself of all the mornings I had dreamed of waking up next to him. Maybe this could be a good thing. We could try this, and if things went sour then we would know that this wasn’t what we thought it was. We could rip the band aid off before we got any deeper into whatever this was.
“Okay, but just for tonight.” The way his face lit up made me think maybe I had made the right decision. I wanted to always be the reason for this look on his face.
***
I stood in Matt’s bathroom staring at the pile of items he left on the counter for me. There were brand new bottles of my body wash and face wash, a pack of my favorite kind of scrunchies, even a tube of my deodorant, an electric toothbrush identical to the one I use at home. There was even a brand-new razor. I had been so worried about what I would do in the morning since I knew Matt didn’t shave, he just trimmed his beard hair down to barely there stubble when it started to get long because he didn’t like the way shaving irritated his skin or the way a full beard felt. There was a worn t-shirt folded up with a pair of my favorite sweatpants. The print on the t-shirt was faded but I could make out the words Mountain View High.
He had been in my house enough I shouldn’t be surprised that he noticed any of these items. I had several pairs of these sweatpants and wore them all the time around him. But I was surprised, because he didn’t just notice, he remembered. He remembered and made sure he had them on hand.
“Matt?” I call from the bathroom door.
“Everything okay, sweetheart?”
I opened the door to let him in. “What is all of this?” I asked, pointing at the pile. “Why do you have all this?”
A mix of emotions flashed across his face. “In case you needed it.”
I clenched my eyes shut and took a deep breath determined not to add any more crying to the night. “But why?”
“Riley, I don’t think you’re ready to hear the answer to that question.”
Because he loves me.
He, this gorgeous sunshine man, loves me.
He’s been telling me for a while now, with the way he touches me, the way he looks at me. With the flowers he never forgets to bring me. He kept my favorite snacks in his pantry even though we didn’t spend much time here and had a list of recipes to try together from all my favorite blogs. The way he was okay with spending more time at my place than his because it makes me more comfortable. He told me in all the soft ways that no one else ever did.
I saw it every time, but it’s different to hear it. He’s right, I’m not ready to hear it just yet.
His hands held the sides of my head, and his thumbs brushed the clenched corners of my eyes. “You know how much I want to keep you around. I just wanted to be prepared for anything you might need while you’re here with me.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
He slowly planted kisses all over my face until I opened my eyes. “Please don’t ever say that again.”