Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
JORDAN
I’m trying not to spiral and make this a thing. Trying to be fine with it.
I’m failing… miserably.
I told myself I was all in. Period. The end. I love Matt, and I know he loves me—this truly shouldn’t matter.
But he just told Jensen and Alley he loves them.
Jensen? Sure. They’re brothers. I love Jensen.
I love Alley too, she’s great, but he’s only known her for six years.
He’s known me forever.
It’s not jealousy. I know he means it platonically, the way you love a family member. I’ve even heard him say it to her before. God, he says it to all of Jensen’s family. Everyone who’s important to him.
Everyone... except me.
“Christ, that baby’s cute.” Matt’s voice pulls me back to the present. Back to his hand that’s gripping mine. Back to the way he gives it a squeeze, or even a kiss every few minutes, right before he glances over with a smile.
He loves me.
I turn my head toward him, resting it against the leather seat of his Porsche. “He is,” I say. “He’s so damn cute.”
There it is again—another hand squeeze.
My lips curve. “He’s so tiny. So perfect.”
“So fucking perfect.” His lips brush my knuckles, then he glances at me. “Kind of turned me on, watching you hold him.”
God. The way he says things that make my stomach flutter.
I laugh softly. “Yeah? What about that turned you on?”
Genuinely curious here.
He shrugs. “Not sure. But it made me want to pull you into one of the empty rooms and make our own damn baby.”
What?
Matt has never said anything about wanting kids in his entire life.
Never.
“Since when do you want to have kids?”
He exits the freeway nowhere near home, slowing to a stop at a red light. Then he turns to me. “Since I started picturing them with you.”
I open my mouth to answer, but pause when he heads east.
We need to go south.
“Where are we going?”
He grins. “Don’t you worry about it.”
“Okay…” I say slowly. “So these kids you picture… they’re yours?”
He chuckles and presses on the gas. “Who else’s would they be?” He shoots me a quick glance. “You sleeping around?”
I stare at the side of his face, my smile impossible to suppress.
He loves me.
Growing up, I always imagined love being this big, explosive, grandiose thing. The way the movies portray it.
The drama, the fights, the hero professing his love and catching you just in time, before you’re gone forever, like in The Notebook.
God, I love that movie.
There was a time when it reminded me of me and Matt. How we drifted apart and then found our way back to each other.
But then we’d break up again.
And he didn’t write me. He didn’t come after me or fight for me.
He watched me walk away.
Every single time. He watched me go.
I realize now how silly that was, wanting him to follow, to make some grand declaration of love in the pouring rain, to convince me to stay.
How wrong I was.
Love is nothing like that.
It’s not confessing your love in a storm or writing a letter every day for a year.
It’s better than that.
It’s this, right here.
It’s telling someone you love them without actually saying the words I love you.
And it’s learning how to hear it when they don’t say it.
“You’re too hot to ever want to sleep with someone else,” I finally say.
“Good answer,” he says, pulling into a parking lot.
“What are we doing here?” I ask, suspicious.
He shifts into park and moves his seat all the way back. Then he turns to me, frames my face in his hands, and smirks. “We’re making out, babe.”
His lips meet mine with a heat that makes my toes curl. He deepens the kiss, tongue skating against mine. It’s hot and passionate and everything we’ve always been—serenity in the midst of a storm.
He pulls me toward him, and I climb over the middle console, straddling his lap. My hands rake through his hair as I suck his bottom lip into my mouth. He groans low, tightening his grip on my ass.
He loves me.
I know he’ll say it eventually, when he’s ready.
I don’t want to rush him.
I’m here.
And I’m staying.
For good.
In the past, it was always about the things he never did… and the things I was too afraid to do.
But thank God, I know better now.
I set the box I’m rummaging through aside when my phone buzzes.
Sabrina
Girl, I’m still waiting on my $300 and the rest of your Switzerland story.
I laugh softly. I’ve hardly seen Sabrina since we got back, aside from a few quick check-ins about Sherry’s remodel. I came clean and told her I slept with Matt, but I haven’t had time to give her all the details.
I know! Drinks next week?
Sabrina
Fine. But at this point, I’ll pay YOU $300 to just tell me the details already. I have so many questions. Like—what’s it like sleeping with a billionaire? Did you do it on a pile of money? I’m dying over here not knowing how this went down.
I laugh again.
Full details coming soon. Promise!
I send her the $300, then dig through the box of sweaters, pulling them out and tossing them to the side.
“Shit. Where is it?” I mutter.
It’s my favorite sweater. Cashmere. Chanel. My pappoús gave it to me for Christmas last year. It’s gorgeous and soft and comfortable. God, I could live in it. I remember boxing it up at the start of summer, but now I can’t find it anywhere.
I groan, pulling down the last two boxes in my tiny storage closet. It can only be so many places. It’s not like I have a ton of space to hide things.
I tear open the box.
Dammit.
It’s not even clothes.
I start to fold it back together, then pause when I spot my middle school yearbook.
I bend the cardboard open and plop down on the floor in front of it.
I pull the yearbook out with a smile, more than ready to take a trip down memory lane. This is the one box of old stuff I kept from my childhood.
I rummage through it. Polaroids. Yearbooks. Old letters from friends… and Matt.
Yeah. I definitely have to read some.
I tap my camera and take a picture of all the notes folded into weird little shapes, some with pull tabs and others tucked into themselves, and send it to Matt.
Look what I just found.
He’s in Chicago for a private event at the nightclub he co-owns with Leo. He flew in yesterday and is coming home late tonight. He wanted to fly out a day early to take Cole to dinner, but Cece said they already had plans.
He responds a minute later.
Matt
Holy shit. I can’t believe you have those.
What do they say? Should I be embarrassed?
I pick one up. My name is scrawled across the front in his shitty handwriting, simple and all caps. It’s folded into itself, and I already know there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to refold it once I untangle it.
I open it.
Babe,
God. He was already calling me babe back then?
I can’t stop thinking about second base. My parents are gone tonight. You should come over.
-Matt
I let out a laugh. “Oh my God,” I say aloud. I have no idea when this was written, but we were definitely way too young to be going to second base.
I snap a picture and send it to Matt.
Why am I not surprised?
Matt
I knew what I wanted even back then.
I still think about that day. I’ll never forget it.
I honestly can’t even remember the first time we did that. It’s all a blur.
Matt
Happy to refresh your memory tonight.
I roll my eyes, a smile crawling across my face.
Wow. Young Matt would be so proud. Thirty-five and still begging me to go to second base with him. Job well done.
Matt
Thriving.
And I hope you know I’m not stopping at second base tonight.
You better not.
What time will you be home?
Matt
Between eight and nine. Are you at your place? Where did those letters come from?
Yeah. I’m trying to find a sweater, but it’s lost and now I’ve gone down memory lane.
Matt
Yeah, that sweater’s long gone. I’ve seen your place.
You better take that back if you’re wanting to get to second base. Looking like it might be a single… or a strikeout.
Matt
A single? But babe… have you seen my slugger?
I laugh out loud.
Oh. My. God. Bye.
Matt
Be ready for my home run.
I shake my head and toss my phone aside.
“Fucker.”
I open another note.
Babe,
You look real fine today.
-Matt
That’s it.
He’s always been a man of many words.
I grin and reach for another.
Babe,
I hate my fucking dad.
Can you come over later?
-Matt
A pang hits my chest.
That time period was brutal for Matt. Middle school is where he and his dad really started butting heads. There was a lot of shouting. A lot of fighting. Slammed doors. Swearing.
Thank God it only got physical the one time. But that one time was physical enough to make sure it was the only time.
My stomach knots thinking about that day. When we walked in on his dad.
The way Matt snapped. I’d never seen him like that.
He was just being Matt. Protecting his mom. He’s loyal like a German Shepard. He’d die for the people he loves.
My heart constricts. He’s gone to bat for me more than once.
I dig through the box, my fingers diving deeper—into my past, our past. Old dance pictures. Ones of me, Jensen, and Matt eating ice-cream. Birthday cards.
I reach the bottom and spot a small turquoise jewelry box. I pull it out slowly, nostalgia hitting so sharply it stings behind my eyes.
I open it and smile at the tiny silver ring inside. I lift it out. The soft piece of metal weighs nothing in comparison to the memories it holds.
M+J forever.
Warmth spreads through my chest.
I can’t believe I still have this. I remember that day like it was yesterday.
Matt had asked me to meet him by the tree out front of the school after the bell rang.
So I did.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I said back.
We were seven.
“I got this for you.”
He pulled out the box.
Then he got down on one knee.
“Will you marry me?”
I answered immediately.
“I can’t. I’m getting married when I’m seventeen.”
Never said I was a genius.
“Will you marry me when you’re seventeen?”
“Sure,” I replied.
“Okay. I’ll ask you then.”
I took the box, pulled out the ring, and slid it onto my finger.
I remember loving it.
“Can I still have the ring?” I asked. “It’s pretty.”
“I guess. But don’t lose it. You’ll need it when I ask again.”
“I won’t.”
Then I skipped off with my friend, and he shouted after me, “I’ll wait for you, Jordan Demetriou.”
He never did ask again.
But God… he’s still here.
Still waiting.
I blink fast, tears brimming and blurring my vision.
I slide the ring onto my pinky, and a small cry slips out of me.
Memories start flashing in my mind, little blips of the past: prom, our first kiss, Super Bowls, vacations, headlines, my dad.
Good.
Bad.
Happy.
Sad.
No matter where I was or what was happening, Matt was always there—standing quietly in the background, ready to catch me when I fell.
Another cry bursts out of me.
I don’t know what’s come over me, but suddenly I’ve never felt more loved in my entire life.
By anyone.
I didn’t get an engagement. I didn’t get the wedding I always dreamed of.
But holy shit—I’m married to Matthew Grayson.
And I’m so damn lucky to call him mine.
I leave the ring on my pinky and pack everything else back into the box. I carry it to my closet, tip it onto the top shelf, then grab a suitcase.
I start packing, beginning with everything I love and use most. Once it’s full, I dump the two boxes of winter clothes onto my bed and pack a bunch of bathroom and kitchen stuff into them.
I don’t need any of it. I know Matt would buy me anything I want.
But this isn’t about that.
This is about me. And him.
And finally being brave enough to say, Fuck it. I’m doing this.
Because I don’t want Matt to second-guess this anymore. Or me. I don’t want him to be afraid to love me, to open up, or to say it.
And I don’t ever want him to have a reason to watch me walk away again.