23. Chapter 23
Chapter 23
Riley
October
Hot Nerd 3
Come with me on a road trip this weekend.
Riley
Where are we going?
Did you change your name in my phone?
There’s an overlook I want to kiss you at.
I want to drink coffee with you while we watch the sunrise on a porch in the mountains.
Matt, did you do what I think you did?
I have a lot of regrets about how things went over the summer and I can’t stop thinking about them.
I want to see your crazy morning hair against the backdrop of Smoky Mountains painted by the sunrise.
You’re so cheesy.
You know you love it. ??
No funny business, I promise.
We left Friday right after school to make the three-hour drive to Copper Ridge. He drove the whole time with his hand on my leg, graceful fingers tapping to the radio, while we shared stories of our family vacations. He told me that his and Shelby’s birthdays are in June, so his parents always let them each bring a friend along for their vacation instead of having a party. I panicked, realizing that we never shared our birthdays with each other.
“June 9th,” he told me as he squeezed my thigh and smiled. He knew what I was thinking before I could ask him.
The date rang a bell. I pulled out my phone and checked my calendar to see if it would tell me why. That was Sunday when my family and I were at the cabin. “That’s the day we first texted,” I exclaimed as I squeezed his wrist.
“Best birthday gift ever.” He glanced away from the road to grin at me.
“Mine is April 29th.” I never did anything big for my birthday, but this past one had been smaller than ever before. Emery had baked me a cake and insisted on doing the cooking and cleaning. She made me wear a crown and blow out candles for a few pictures.
“Good, I didn’t miss it. I’m going to spoil the shit out of you for your birthday.”
“You already spoil me enough.” I wasn’t just trying to brush him off, he did truly spoil me better than anyone ever had in my life. All the little everyday things he did felt grander than anything big ever did.
I shared about the time Milo told Emery and I ghost stories about the Appalachian Mountains around the campfire after our parents went to bed one night when we were teenagers. The two of us had been so scared that we stayed up all night cooking and baking to distract ourselves. We didn’t want Milo to know that he scared us that bad, so we told everyone we were starting a new tradition. Every year since the two of us stayed up all night our last night there and treated our family to a full four course breakfast the next day.
We always made Milo do the dishes.
“Have you and Emery always been this close?” he asked me after he stopped laughing.
“She’s always been my best friend. We’re only a year apart and sometimes it feels like we take turns being the older sister. Things were rough when we were teenagers and there were a few years not too long ago when we were distant. We were both going through a lot at the time. I think we’re the closest we’ve ever been now.” I left out how we both lost ourselves in our romantic relationships during those years and stopped making time for each other. Sometimes I wonder if I could have kept her safe from whatever she went through during that time if I hadn’t been so focused on trying to make my exes stick around.
“Your sister really loves you in her weird aggressive way,” he said. He moved his hand from my thigh and intertwined our fingers, his thumb stroked the back of my hand. “If I ever accidentally do anything to get between you two, please tell me.”
I knitted my brows in confusion. Matt had been so amazing about accepting Emery and I as the package we are and making sure I still have time to spend with her.
“Matt, I don’t think you would ever –”
“I know, Riley. You just got extremely sad talking about how you lost touch. You don’t have to tell me what happened back then. Just don’t ever let me be a reason it happens again. Okay?”
I bit my lip and nodded.
He told me about how much he regretted losing touch with Oliver when he moved. About all the trouble the two of them used to get into as kids. Oliver was like a brother to him. He’d been looking forward to reconnecting when he moved back only to find out that Oliver had been through the wringer the past few years.
As I laughed about his stories, I couldn’t help but think about how unfair it was that he was so great to Emery, and I wouldn’t even give him the chance to introduce me to anyone important to him. The thought of meeting his family felt like something big, something high stakes. Meeting his friend felt a little lower stakes. Plenty of people introduced their friends to people they were dating before things got serious.
“I think I want to meet Oliver. Do you think I could meet him before I meet your family?”
“Really? Yes, absolutely.” His voice was loud as a grin stretched across his face. “Are you sure?”
I laughed as his face lit up. “Yeah, let’s do it.”
“He’s always busy with work nowadays, but I think I can figure something out.” His hand squeezed my thigh tightly. “He’s kind of grumpy, but I promise he’s a good guy.”
***
The sun had already set when we made it to the overlook where I left him four months ago. Anxiety clutched my chest like a fist as that night flashed across my mind. I took a deep breath and focused on how different things were this time.
He helped me from the car and led me to the railing of the overlook. He pulled me into his arms and tilted my face up to his. The early fall breeze blew my hair into our faces, and he laughed as he brushed it back, tangling his fingers with it to hold it back. I reached up to push his glasses up onto the top of his head so I could see his eyes better. He started wearing his glasses more than his contacts once he figured out I liked them.
“Hi,” I whispered.
“Hi,” he breathed back, his lips hovering over mine like they did the last time they were here. “I owe you a kiss right here.”
“Are you going to change your mind again?” I asked as I moved to bring our mouths closer together.
“Are you going to run away again?” My heart pounded as the look on his face that night flashed through my mind. His tone was light, but it still felt like a stab to the pit of my stomach.
“Are you still not sick of me?”
“Jesus, sweetheart, I could never be sick of you.”
He kissed me like he needed to prove it. He told me with every movement of his mouth against mine that he loved me, that he was mine. He took my fears and told me I was home, that he’d be my safe place if I let him.
“Matt, I’m still scared,” I said into his mouth. I wanted to, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let him be mine.
Just because he believes he won’t change his mind later, doesn’t mean he still can’t. Maybe not tonight, or next week, or even next year. It might be ten years from now. One day he is going to wake up and see that I’m not everything he thought I was.
“Tell me what I need to do to prove it to you. What do you need?” He broke the kiss but kept his mouth hovering over mine.
“I don’t think you’re the one that needs to prove anything. I need to prove it to myself.”
The words felt like a bomb going off in my head. My therapist had said it during our last session, but it didn’t resonate until that moment. I had baggage to unpack, and he wanted to help. We could have this discussion a thousand times, it felt like we’d already had it a thousand times. Until I could figure out how to open the zipper to let him in, we were just going to keep coming back to this suitcase stuck between us.
“I want everything with you, I really do. I just don’t know how to let myself have it.”
I love you. Please hear me. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone before. You make me think I didn’t know what love was before I met you. I love you so much it hurts.
***
The smell of coffee woke me up. Next me the other side of the bed was empty but still warm. My t-shirt was pushed up over my stomach and one pajama leg was all the way up to my knee. I laid there trying to decide if I should get up or wait for him to come back. The door to the back porch slammed closed. I sat up and pushed the curtains aside to look out the window of the bedroom. There were two steaming mugs of coffee on the table between the two rocking chairs barely visible in the low light of the sun just starting to peek over the horizon.
“Sorry, that door closed harder than I expected.” Matt’s voice was huskier than normal from how late we had stayed up talking. He still wore his pajamas. I felt like we had just fallen asleep. He crouched beside the bed and stroked his fingers through my hair. “I tried to let you sleep in until the last minute.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose. The front of his hair stood up pointing to the left. It wasn’t fair that he could look so cute with bedhead.
I reached for his face, guiding his mouth down to mine, and tried not to think about what my chin looked like or my morning breath as I kissed him. “I think kissing you good morning is my new favorite thing.”
“Mine too. One of these days you’re going to agree to let me do it every morning.” His eyes fluttered closed for a moment as I ran my fingers through the strands of his hair that poked up. His head tilted into my touch.
My brain was too clouded with sleep and happiness to panic at his words. “One day,” I said as I threaded my fingers through the other side of his hair, making it stand up to match.
He pulled the blankets back and lifted a pair of thick socks from his duffle bag next to the bed. He spun my legs around until I sat up on the edge of the bed and straightened my clothes, goosebumps covering where his warm fingers brushed my skin. “I can do that,” I told him.
He slipped the socks onto my feet before scooping me into a bridal carry. “You can let me take care of you.”
He sat in a rocking chair with me in his lap and wrapped a blanket around us. Temperatures in the mountains were always lower than at home, but this morning felt even chillier than a normal early October morning. He freed the hair that had remained in my bun from the scrunchie.
“Did you know that you move around a lot in your sleep?”
I picked up a mug and let it warm my palms. “I always assumed so with how my hair looks in the mornings. Did you know that you’re clingy in your sleep?”
“Beautiful, I’m clingy when I’m awake too.” He tightened his hold on me to prove his point. I leaned into him and breathed in his scent. His normal spicy citrus was mixed with smoke from the fire we built last night because he insisted on showing me the right way to roast marshmallows at 1 am.
“I like how clingy you are.” His touch always made me feel so grounded, so wanted.
He nuzzled my cheek with his nose turning my attention to the sunrise. We watched the sun creep up the sky, flooding it with colors.
“You weren’t kidding about how beautiful this is.”
“Breathtaking,” he said.
I turned back to see his eyes fixed on me. The look on his face reminded me of when he told me about how much he loves music. A blush heated my face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m your favorite thing.”
He laughed and his eyes flicked down as his face reddened. God, he was so cute like that. “Because you are.”
“I look like a mess.” I sat the mug back on the table and reached for the scrunchie he’d put around his wrist with one hand while the other gathered up my hair.
He peeled my fingers from my hair and moved my hand to his face. “You look like my favorite version of you.”
I snorted. “Your favorite version of me is a mess?”
“The version that’s only meant for me.” He brought my mouth to his and kissed me until the sun was all the way up. Then he pulled the blanket tighter around us and we planned our day while we drank our coffee.
It was all so perfect I had only one thought on my mind the whole time.
Fuck, I love this man.