Chapter Nineteen Jamie #2
Nothing that has ever been taken from me has been something I wished I could give up.
It occurs to me that Mateo must have talked to Logan while I was asleep. I'm not sure I want to know more about them than I already do. It's unfair of me to believe he's betrayed a relationship we never really had, but I feel it too deeply to do anything about it now.
The coughing comes and goes. My body aches everywhere.
My lungs feel less like they're about to end up on the floor.
I think the early dose of Tylenol has kept my fever away.
Even if it's only dulled the rest of my pain, I'm grateful that I'm no longer sweaty and freezing.
My bowl of fruit tastes fucking amazing.
I want oatmeal already, and I want to hate that Mateo knows me well enough to have prepped it so I don't have to wait long. We eat side by side and don't need to say much. My labored breathing is loud enough to distract us. When he cleans up, I move to a sectional I miss when I'm in New Jersey.
He joins me, and I reach for his hand. "Time for that nap?"
For a second, I think he's going to laugh or give me shit for wanting to sleep so soon after I woke up.
He only turns the tv on to something we'll quickly tune out and pulls a blanket from where Harper probably left it folded nearby.
We curve around each other, a sideways embrace that feels too natural for something I left behind long ago.
It's what should have happened at Taylor's—it's all that should've happened at Taylor's—but my hand has barely curled into a fist when Mateo is smoothing it into something he can hold again.
"I'm sorry," he says, his mouth warm against my head. "For the scars on your chest. I know I did that to you."
"I can live with scars. The memories are the harder part."
"And I did that to you, too."
"We did that to each other," I argue. "I could've said no to you that night. I could've told you we needed to keep waiting until the time was right."
Mateo sighs. "Was the time ever going to be right?"
"I don't know. Do you think I would've made us wait forever?"
"I don't know."
I cough over his shoulder. He doesn't let go because—aside from one stupid, reckless, beautiful night—he's been the one I can count on to keep me steady.
I don't understand everything that's happened between us, or where he and I can possibly go from here, but Mateo has been mine since the night we met.
I can't make that any less true this morning. I’ll look for a way to make it more true tomorrow.
For now, the deep breath I take is the best I can do with lungs that hate me.
As I drift off, I mumble against his cheek. "I'm sorry I said there was nothing for Harper to know. There's always been something."
Mateo sighs again. "Sleep, sweetheart."
I do. So does he. At some point, he wakes up to fetch the pill bottles and more water.
Before I fall asleep again, he adjusts us both so I can lie with my head in his lap and his hand in my hair.
Later, I get up to pee against my will, but he's still there when I return. I've lost all track of time.
"Stay here," he says when he finally stands again. "I'm making a late lunch. Or an early dinner."
I'm planning to ask what he's making when I close my eyes again, my body demanding the rest it's been denied for days.
The white noise from the tv blurs with the clatter in the kitchen.
I sleep heavily enough to be grateful when Mateo wakes me gently.
His fingertips brush along the side of my neck.
Then he kisses my forehead because we decided a while ago that it's something friends do.
He pulls away, and I see my late lunch or early dinner on the coffee table. "Looks delicious."
"My grandmother's tortilla soup," he says. "It's the first time I've made it since she died, but it's—I think it'll help with some of the congestion. She swore it was better than chicken noodle, and I—"
"You weren't gonna argue with her."
"Absolutely not."
As I sit up, Mateo drapes the blanket over my shoulders and ducks the next several coughs. I still feel like shit, but I'm more alert shit now. I wasn't lying about how good the soup looks.
My stomach growls. He smiles.
The bowl is hot in my hand, but the warmth feels good. I'm not shaking when I reach for the spoon. Mateo stays near me anyway, uninterested in babying me, but even less interested in keeping his distance while I take my first bite of his soup. Then a second, and a third.
"Jesus, this is really good."
"Why do you sound surprised?" he asks.
I frown because some of it's surprise, but more of it's regret—the reminder of missed opportunities. "You and I usually ordered takeout. Or hit Kai's. Or went out for Mexican with Sophie. Or drove up and down the coast on a dozen secret adventures. We didn't do any of this."
"No, I guess we didn't."
"But you loved making this soup today. I can tell."
Mateo nods, wary. "Yes, I loved making it."
"Do you cook for Logan?"
"Jamie. Don't."
"Do you love—"
"Stop."
I obey him, mostly because his fingers are against my lips, and all I can think about is the night I came with them in my mouth. Instead of wrapping my lips around them now, I move to swallow another spoonful of soup. I hate that it doesn't taste the same as it did a minute ago.
"Are you going to spend the night again?"
He'd implied as much when he was worried about living out of my suitcase, but I was weaker and quieter then.
If I keep eating, he'll be able to leave without dragging a guilty conscience behind him, his work here done.
We'll exchange a few texts about how I'm feeling.
If I'm lucky, I'll see him another year or two from now.
When I start to cough—the pneumonia to blame more than anything—he takes the bowl away and returns it to the coffee table.
I don't know whether it's enough to undo the trouble I've just borrowed, but I help myself to water and wait for him to answer.
My dramatics aside, he doesn't need to stay, and we both know it.
I want him to, and we both know that, too.
My chest is almost clear for now, and it makes the tv suddenly loud. I turn it off just as Mateo walks away.
He's in the kitchen before he speaks. "When are you flying back to New Jersey?"
"Not before bedtime."
It's a poor attempt at a joke, but I see the disappointment on Mateo's face when I turn to look at him.
I push myself off the couch and chase him because it's all I know.
He waits because he's done what I've asked for far too long.
He attempts to busy himself with dirty dishes the closer I get, but I just shake my head and he gives up.
I watch him rinse and dry his hands as I step around the island, and he uses the blanket I forgot was around my shoulders to pull me into him.
"You're going back soon, right?" he asks.
"I have to. It's my job."
"The season's over."
"Sure, for the guys on the team. You know I have more responsibilities than that."
Mateo snorts. "Yeah, I also know you need to take it easy for a while, but you're gonna push yourself past this no matter what you should do."
"I gotta say, it's nice to have something I can push past." I'm referring to my fucked up leg, but it sounds a little like I'm talking about falling in love with him, and he flinches. "No. Wait. That wasn't—"
"It's fine."
I drop my head onto his shoulder. "Why do we keep doing this? It's always so easy with us right up until it's not. We should know how to be friends by now. We still love each other. I know we do. Nothing has changed, so why is this still so hard?"
"Because nothing has changed," he says, too fucking tender when he reaches between us to tilt my chin upward. The tears in his eyes are almost unbearable. "It's so easy when we're alone, but we've never learned how to let the outside in. We've never really been allowed to try."
"And we can't try today."
"No," Mateo agrees. "But I'll go home and get some clothes and anything else I need, and then I'll stay here until you leave. I think it's your turn to walk away."
It's strange, the specific way those words sting.
He's not putting all the blame on me, even if I think that's where most of it belongs.
Mateo's acknowledging the hug on the dock and all the times he's held lines I would've crossed for the chance to love him and wreck us.
He's telling me now that he'd stay even longer if it weren't for the fact that I've chosen hockey over him every time.
He's also being loud about his choice to watch me go.
I won’t let it happen for a while.
Most of that night is spent in the comfortable silence around my uncomfortable coughing fits. My fever is gone, and neither of us is left sweaty when we share my bed and keep bare skin against bare skin.
The next few days are filled with Mateo’s home-cooked meals, comfort movie marathons, and several trips to the backyard to soak in my hot tub.
We talk about a hundred different things while we avoid details that could give the wrong things away.
He's brought me a stuffed penguin from a spring break everyone else has probably forgotten, and it’s softer than I remember.
We're not nobody anymore, so I can tell him when Harper texts me about several interviews she's lined up for teaching positions in the L.A.
area. I understand little about Simon's job, other than it being some super techy app programming thing, but I know he's been willing to move to Southern California if that's where Harper ends up.
The implications of that remain clear enough—even if Simon doesn't propose, he's incredibly committed to their future.
When I catch Mateo's smile, it's as genuine as mine.