Chapter 6
ELIAS
“I'm not letting you pay me.” Matty stands across from me in the living room with his arms crossed, and I don't think I've seen him this stubborn before.
“I'd be paying a sitter anyway.”
“Would the sitter have been living with you? No. If I'm not paying rent, then you aren't paying me to watch Cal.”
I sigh but can't stop a smile from spreading over my face.
“You're sleeping on my couch. It's not like you even get a room for yourself.”
It hadn't taken a lot of convincing to get Matty to agree to come stay with me, and it took us maybe thirty minutes to gather up anything he’d need in the short term. I promised we’d go back in a few days to pack him up, and he could store his stuff in my garage for now.
His eyes soften around the edges, and he gets that little wistful look in his eye I’ve caught a time or two. I'm not sure what it means, but it makes the butterflies riot.
Cal is in his room unwinding from therapy—he enjoys his combo of speech, physical, and occupational therapy, but they tire out his limited social meter. It’s not likely that he’ll care too much one way or the other about Matty being here, except when it throws off his routines.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I say, watching as confusion weaves itself into Matty’s furrowed brows.
“Cal isn’t violent, but he can get aggressive when he can’t figure out how to regulate.
He might not have reacted so badly if I’d been here because he knows what to expect from me.
He knows how I’m going to handle the things he can’t.
He didn’t know what to expect with you, and not having that emotional leaning post so to speak set him off. ”
Matty’s face crumbles to a crippling insecurity, but he reins it in with a tight nod.
“I mean it. It wasn’t your fault, and I’m sorry you got hurt.”
“I’m fine,” he says with a half-hearted shrug, and the half smile I get is more genuine. “I’ll watch you with him and try to emulate.”
It’s sweet how earnest he already is about all of this.
“In saying that …” My own posture relaxes, and I rub my fingers over my nape. “It’s not your responsibility to watch him while I’m home. If he wakes you up—and I’ll work on getting him adjusted to you being out here—come get me.”
Something almost like concern passes over his face, and he steps closer, cocking his hip on the back of the couch. “Does he always wake you up that early?”
“Most days, yeah. Some days he sleeps in.”
“So you don’t get home until two or three, wait for him to go to bed, and then you’re … just up and moving again by like eight?”
When he puts it like that, it sounds much more stressful than it is. “Oh, I catch up on my naps when he’s in tablet mode. He’ll even hang in bed with me if I’m not ready to get up yet.”
Matty chuckles and bobs his head. “I’d still like to help out some. Once I’ve got a grasp on your routine, I’ll entertain him when I can in the mornings.”
Even if I want to argue, the look he cuts me fizzles out any fight. “Fine. We have one more semi-important matter to discuss with you staying here.”
“Oh?”
“Oh?” I roll my eyes and grin. This man is too cute. “My couch isn’t really well suited for making your kind of content.”
I can see the moment Matty regrets having ever brought his activities up. His face turns beet red, and he squeezes his eyes shut like that’ll somehow make this conversation less awkward.
I don’t think it’s awkward, though. If people want to pay him for getting off, more power to them. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
“For starters, you can use my room when I take Cal to therapy, and if you need any privacy during the day, just let me know.”
The little “oh” his mouth makes draws my attention to his lips. How he licks them and traps them between his teeth.
“I just figured I’d lay off the physical stuff for a while.”
It does something foreign to my body, picturing Matty lying in my rumpled sheets, touching himself.
I’ve never been as insanely attracted to someone as I am to Matty. I don’t know what to do with that; where to compartmentalize it in my brain, because it comes roaring out with every little thought or touch.
“Up to you. I don’t mind it. As long as Cal isn’t exposed to anything.” I offer him a wry smile, and he laughs soft and deprecating. “Hell, the bathroom has a lock; feel free to get up to mischief in there.”
Those pretty, brown eyes widen and fill with mirth. “What exactly do you think I get up to, Elias?”
The way he says my name has a shot of arousal shooting through my veins.
“I’ve sort of tried not to think too hard about it,” I say with a breathless chuckle, ducking my head because there’s already a tsunami of inappropriate thoughts bursting alive up there. “But I’m guessing the answer is jerking off?”
With a strangled groan and a heavy sigh, Matty rounds the couch and plops down. “You’re welcome to think about—or not think about—whatever I’m doing as long as I’m under your roof. I’m at your mercy.”
The smile is a little strained, a little forced, and I shake my head curt and firm.
“That’s not funny, and we’re not doing that. I asked you to come here because you’re my friend, and I want you to be safe. Seriously, I’m fine with whatever you choose to do with your body. It isn’t my business, even while you’re here. You deserve comfort and privacy.”
Matty’s eyes fall to his lap, to his clasped hands, but I see the mask slip out of place. “I’m going to cry again, and you’re going to pretend you don’t see it.” His voice wobbles, but I don’t argue.
I cross a few feet from the doorway to the couch, and when I take up the seat beside him, Matty leans into the arm I hold open. His shoulders shake with quick sniffles and broken laughs, and I do as he requests.
I don’t ask him to tell me why he’s crying, why my sappy self makes him so emotional, and instead I just hold him.
Because with the way he seeks contact—a hand clenched in my shirt, the other trembling on my knee as he rubs his face into my shoulder—I get the feeling no one has in a while.
It’s sometime after midnight when I hear a shout. My first instinct is Cal, but when I sit up, I find that he's still taking up half of my bed where he passed out a couple of hours earlier.
Thinking it was maybe too vivid of a dream, I rub at my eyes and move to lay back down, but then I hear it again. More muffled. Followed by a sob.
The wood floor is cold beneath my bare feet, but I stay quiet and steady as I traverse into the darkness of the living room.
There’s little, wet noises coming from the direction of the couch, and when a pained gasp comes out, I reach for the switch on the lamp nearby.
The room is bathed in a soft, yellow glow, and I find Matty curled up with the blanket I lent him, shaking, but his eyes are still shut tight.
I kneel on the floor beside the couch and reach a hand up to stroke his hair. “Shh. Matty. You’re okay.”
A harsh cry makes its way past his parted lips, and I tuck some of the hair behind his ear to cover his cheek with my hand.
“Matty. Matty, sweetheart, you’re safe.”
Finally, the whimpers recede, and so very slowly his eyes flutter open. Wet and unfocused, until they finally land on mine, and the recognition seems to wake him up.
“Elias?” His voice is small and raw, and when he props up on his elbow, looking at me with utter terror in his eyes, my heart clenches painfully in my chest.
“Right here, sweetheart.”
It’s instant. He hooks an arm around my neck and draws me to him, burying a fresh set of tears into my t-shirt.
“I’m sorry,” he hiccups, grip almost bruising. “Please stay.”
I wrap my arms around him, letting him get it all out of his system. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got you.”
Eventually, I work my way onto the couch, pulling Matty against me as close as I can without putting him in my lap. He holds on like he’s at risk of falling, of being flung from a vehicle going recklessly down the highway.
We stay like that until his sobs settle, until they dissolve into uneven, heavy breaths hot against my neck. Matty’s arm slowly loosens and slides down my back, resting around my waist.
“Sorry,” he says again, voice weak and dull, eyes pressed into my shoulder. “Christ, I haven’t had one that bad in a while.”
I rub his arm slowly and gently, leaning my cheek on the top of his head. “Nightmare?”
He nods, and I feel more than hear his sharp intake of breath. “I was drowning … suffocating … and he just walked away from me.”
The words are barely a whisper, and I tighten my arms around him almost protectively.
“Riley?”
His laugh sounds more like a whine. “I’m doing a great job of convincing you I’m over him.”
“No convincing necessary. I just … wanted to know where you stood. And I do. You don’t want a relationship.”
He pulls back just enough that I can look down and see his gaze boring into me. “Do you? Want a relationship?”
I scratch at the side of my neck with my free hand, letting my head fall back against the couch cushion.
“I’m not there, I don’t think. I’m … curious. I like you, Matty. I think you’ve known that since we ran into each other at the park.”
He hums, and makes no move to extract himself, just lays his head on my chest and sighs.
“You are infuriatingly easy to like.”
I grin at his half-hearted complaint. “That makes this easy, doesn’t it? Neither of us has to be nervous or embarrassed about our attraction to one another.”
He seems to think about it, pushing off my chest and scooting away just enough that I drop my arm. Those eyes search my face in the dim light, and whether they find what they’re looking for or something entirely different, they soften along with his smile.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had this open of a conversation with anyone before.” He wrinkles his nose, and a laugh rumbles from my throat.