Chapter Twenty Mateo #2
I turn toward Harper and chuckle. "You're the bride. I think you get anything you want, even if you're only slightly nice about it."
"Perfect. Let's go."
My suit jacket is on my chair, but I'm otherwise still fully put together, most of the guests louder and tipsier than I'll be all night.
Harper is giddy as she leads me to the dance floor, but that's probably mostly her and not anything she's had to drink.
I look for Jamie because I don't know how to stop wanting him close, but he's been caught up in one conversation after another, and I'm guessing he's even more sober than I am.
His blue eyes are clear every time I catch him looking for me.
"Congratulations," I say as I sweep her into my arms. "And thank you for letting me be a part of your big day."
She shakes her head and makes a silly little face. "At the very least, you're like, colleague-adjacent now? Totally different districts, and I chose to teach history instead, but it still counts for something. I definitely didn't need any other reason to invite you."
"Even if you have one."
Neither of us looks away when I say that. There's no need for us to play dumb when we're far from it, and I twirl her just because I can, bringing her back to me in time for her to remember what I'd said just a minute ago.
"I'm the bride, and I can get anything I want," she starts.
"So, Mateo, tell me—what's the story with you and my dad?
Were you friends, and then together, and then not together, and then friends again?
You've been staring at each other all night, so it seems like you want to be together now, but if you are together now, you're keeping it a secret, even from me.
Why haven't we ever talked about this? Why aren't you years into an actual relationship already?
And please do not tell me it's because of his career. "
"Ironically, it's because of mine."
Harper lets the tiniest frown come and go.
"You guys became friends my senior year.
I understand the ethical issues of dating the parent of a student, but come on.
By the time you would've known you wanted anything else, I was about to grad—" She pauses and cocks her head.
"When I was about to graduate, he got the job in New Jersey.
Which means we're back to hockey and all of its bullshit. "
I don't disagree with her general point—I've been in a fight with hockey for years—but she's also steeped in privilege.
Her experience in locker rooms isn't the same as Jamie's.
Her level of fame certainly isn't comparable.
And whatever effect Danielle's apathy or Jamie's career might have had on her, I don't think she's known the pressure he's faced since he learned how to skate.
She can blame hockey's bullshit all she wants. I have. But it won't change how Jamie and I started, and how willing I was to wait as long as I knew where every line was drawn.
"He's never told you how we met?" I ask, curious how much longer this song will last.
"I was there. I introduced you. Back-to-school night, my freshman year."
When I look over Harper's shoulder, I see Jamie.
He sees me. I sigh. "The Friday night before your freshman year started, I went to a dive bar to order takeout.
Unbeknownst to me, the owner's best friend was there that night, too.
I didn't recognize him, but we talked a little, and I couldn't look away.
We got interrupted when a fight broke out, and he dragged me into the alley out back.
Talking there wasn't enough. Saying goodbye didn't feel like an option.
He asked me to drive him to a taco truck near the beach.
We went for a walk afterward and ended up on a bench in the dark. I stayed with him until morning."
"Holy shit. That's—a narrative."
"Our connection was indescribable," I say.
"I don't think I've ever believed in love at first sight, but after that one night?
We both wanted it all, and I had no idea what he would've gone through to make it happen.
I didn't realize what that would've meant for him, but hockey wouldn't have stopped him. Not then."
"It was me," Harper murmurs, and I hate that I can hear it over a ballroom full of her guests.
It hits me then how intensely unfair we've been to her, allowing her to know something without telling her everything.
We had our reasons when she was a kid, but no excuse in the years since.
Someone comes up to us then, and asks her for a dance, but she makes him wait one more song and turns back to me as she squeezes my hand. "I'm sorry."
She might be referring to the interruption, but I don't think she is.
"No, I'm sorry. We're sorry. And it was okay back then because we decided to wait for each other.
We figured out how to be friends, and we spent time together when people weren't looking.
By your senior year, we made the friendship more public, and we were close to being able to tell everyone.
Then he got the job and moved away, and he asked me to keep waiting. "
"What did you say? Because the two of you were still in touch after he left.
He invited you to Taylor's one year. But then there were all those stories about him being out with different women, and you were with Logan.
The two of you weren't talking for a while, and then you started talking again, and you spent Christmas together. And you love him. A lot."
"I love him, and he loves me. I've never, ever questioned that," I tell her. "But waiting for so long got complicated for both of us."
"And you don't want to wait anymore?"
I reach down to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear and smile softly. "I don't think I can."
It's late, and the official reception will wind down soon, but the dance floor is still packed, and I've overheard plans to join Harper and Simon at the hotel bar for a party that could last another couple of hours.
I'll pass on the extra drinks. Eventually, I'll need to get some sleep.
For now, I lean against a wall and scan the room for Jamie, because I haven't seen him since he escorted his parents toward the lobby, and I want to make sure he's okay.
I don't have to wait much longer to find out.
"You're still here," he says, leaning next to me and into me all at once, his jacket gone too, and his bowtie hanging loose beneath the collar of his shirt.
"Hasn't that always been true?"
"I hope it never stops."
I take a deep breath and continue to watch the crowd on the dance floor. "You looked so fucking pretty tonight. Walking down the aisle."
"Yeah? You want to marry me?"
"I want everything. I've always wanted everything."
"You can have it," he says. "I'm not—we can have this. Anything. Everything. Tonight."
"Because I called you pretty?"
"Because right now, tonight is all we get."
There's a familiar tension between us, but as I roll toward Jamie, it licks at me like a flame eager to warm long before it burns. "You still have to leave tomorrow."
"Taylor called a press conference for Monday morning. There's a big announcement coming, and he needs me there."
"We're going to have to talk."
"Agreed."
"But you don't want to talk tonight," I say.
"I want loud and slow," he purrs, his pale blue gaze flickering down to my mouth and up again. "We deserve loud and slow."
As soft as his voice is, Jamie's fingers curl around my tie as if he's thinking of how to use it against me.
I don't know if this is romantic desperation brought on by the spell weddings tend to cast, or whether he's figured out one more way to say goodbye, and I can't make myself care.
Anyone could see us here, but I wrap my hand around his and hope nobody is watching.
"It'll change things between us again."
Jamie nods. "I hope so."
"There's a limit to how loud we can be in a crowded hotel."
"My house."
"What?"
"Grab your stuff and meet me at my house," he says.
I'm so aroused I think I'd meet him in the middle of the ocean if he asked me to, but—
"Don't you have a room here? And a flight in the morning?"
"Yes and yes. Grab your stuff and meet me at my house."
I take my hand off him, and he takes his hand off my tie, and when he rolls away from me, I leave without saying goodbye to Harper and Simon.
It's not my most polite exit, but talking to them like this would be worse, and I hurry upstairs while telling myself I'll take them out for another lunch.
I don't know where Jamie went, but I have an entire drive to think about how quickly I can get him undressed when I see him again.
A minute into it, I lower every window and pray the fresh air will make me think of anything else.
When I pull into his driveway, I think I've beaten him here, and I barely knock before I use my key to let myself in for the first time since I was summoned by his daughter.
I'm nervous, the thrum of it so different from when I stepped into Taylor's house.
I kick off my dress shoes and move to the kitchen to leave the rest of my things on the island.
My duffel bag is barely out of my hands when I hear the front door open, and I will myself not to shake.
Jamie's arms are around me before it matters.
I'm still facing the island, and he nuzzles the back of my neck as he pulls the hair tie free and tosses it out of my reach.
I moan when he drops his hands to my waist and rocks against my ass, and I almost ask whether he's been hard since we spoke at the reception or just since the freeway exit a mile or so back.
Instead, I turn to find his bowtie gone and his shirt untucked and half unbuttoned, and I move to remember what desire tastes like on his tongue.