Chapter 15 #2
I want to sign back that it’s fine, that he didn’t do anything wrong, and show him that I’m not entirely useless here, but I can’t freaking remember something as simple as that.
My face burns with embarrassment, and I slip my hand out of his to tuck in a little more to myself. Cal is happily watching a video and munching on a plate of fries, and that at least makes me smile, even if it’s strained.
“You two talk,” I mumble, scrubbing a hand over my eyes. “I can’t keep up anyway.”
I know the words are barely audible; I fucking know, but when Matty taps my shoulder—likely to check on me again because he couldn’t understand me because I’m moping like a goddamn baby—the steam rising from my corked emotions finds its escape.
“Please just don’t fucking talk to me until we’re using words I understand again!”
Don’t yell at him, I want to tell myself when he adopts a shell shocked expression, but then it hardens and I just want to retreat as far away as possible. Which right now isn’t far enough.
‘Elias’, he spells my name. Clenches his fist. Scoots so close our thighs touch. ‘Elias.’ Each letter punctuated sharply right in front of my face.
My jaw ticks, and I refuse to look at him. This isn’t his fault.
I’m okay. I just don’t understand what you two are talking about, and it makes me feel bad.
Why can’t I just say that? Why can’t I just throw out the words that I want Matty to be able to let go like this with me?
‘Look at me.’ I can tell he’s reaching the same frustration point I’m at, and for the briefest of seconds, I want the two of us to crash through it together.
Brief but not brief enough. I raise my hand and sign ‘no’ once, and then fold my arms on the table to bury my face in them.
Just let me pout and get this bullshit out of my system.
There’s a hard shove to my shoulder, and I burrow in deeper.
“Elias.” It’s Miya who hisses at me, and when I shoot up to glare at her, Matty thumps his hand on the table.
I look at him, and my heart lodges straight into my throat. Hurt and fury fill the space of his usual patient kindness, and he makes one harsh, solid movement with his hands.
“I don’t know what that means,” I croak out, shame finally encasing me in its chokehold.
Matty blinks furiously against the tears slipping down his cheeks, and his voice is raw and pained when he spits out the words, “It means you’re an asshole.”
And then he’s stalking out the front doors of the diner, and yeah, I feel like an ass. The guilt is nearly suffocating when Miya leans over the table and thwacks me on the back of the head. Really freaking hard.
“What is the matter with you?” she grits out. “He was so freaking worried he was making you uncomfortable, and you had to go and act like that!”
I stare down at my lap and squeeze a hand over my nape. “I didn’t mean to. I just …”
Miya pinches the bridge of her nose and lets out a sigh, but at least the anger has simmered. “You’ve been like this since you were a kid. If any of your friends took an interest in me, you flipped your lid and threw a tantrum.”
I shoot her a glare. “I’m not throwing a tantrum.”
She quirks a brow. “Oh really? Sure looked like one. You made your boyfriend cry, Elias. Because you were freaking jealous. Argue all you want, but what it boils down to is that you don’t know how to share.”
Boyfriend. Share.
I want Matty to know that I can give him everything he needs, but that isn’t true is it?
“Ei. You can’t be everything to him. Just like Cal needs his therapists, and soon his teachers when he starts kindergarten.
You throw yourself, mind, body, and soul into your relationships, but you have to realize that you can’t exist in a bubble.
I like your boyfriend, Ei. He sure as hell likes you.
Do you want to know what we were talking about? Before you blew your lid?”
No. Yes. I huff and cross my arms, but all of my frustration at the situation has evaporated. Now, I’m only irritated with myself.
Her gaze softens, and she reaches over to ruffle my hair. “You, doofus. About how amazing you’ve been at taking care of Cal. About how sweet you are for taking care of Matty. He couldn’t stop gushing about you.”
The look on her face grows serious, and the rock in my gut sinks lower. “You hurt him. Getting mad at him for signing? This isn’t something he does for fun, Ei, it’s a part of who he is. You made him feel bad for that.”
Which is the last thing I ever want to do.
Have I really always had a jealous streak?
I was jealous of Miya for having a connection to Matty I didn’t realize I wanted. Jealous of both of them for excelling in something I failed miserably at.
“I’m the worst,” I mumble, dragging a hand down my face.
She takes a sip of her coffee and inclines her head to the door. “Go make up with him. Kiss his pretty little brains out.”
Not so sure how much kissing there’s going to be with Matty rightfully mad at me, but I at the very least owe him an apology. And an explanation for my shitty behavior.
With Miya turning her focus to Cal, I slip out of the booth and push the glass doors open into the biting Boston October air. I don’t have to go far, spotting a huddled up Matty crouched at the edge of the building.
His arms are hugging his knees to his chest with his face pressed into them. I can’t tell if he’s still crying, but the fact that it’s my fault he spilled any tears at all hits deep in my chest.
Not wanting to startle him, I stop a foot away and sit down on my knees. His posture shifts, and though he doesn’t speak or lift his head, he holds out a hand that I instantly latch onto. He squeezes my fingers, and I slowly inch closer until I can hold our joined hands in my lap.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, stroking my thumb along the back of his hand.
The space between us is quiet, the moment dragging on and only rippled by sniffles Matty tries to stifle with his other hand. When he lifts his head, a raw pink rims his eyes, and I tighten my hold on his fingers.
“You’re so special, Matty,” I say when his gaze is steady on me. “I am in awe of you every single day. Your dancing. Your signing. The way you are with Cal. I look at you and can’t fucking believe I get to be in your orbit.”
He sits up, eyes trained on me as he chews on his bottom lip.
“You make me nervous,” I push on, swallowing the dry lump in my throat. “You make me want things I’ve never wanted—or haven’t wanted in years. Falling in love with you would be effortless. That scares me a little.”
“It scares me, too,” he says in a wobbly, shattered voice. “How is it possible to want someone so much yet be so terrified of having them?”
I chuckle softly and pull his fingers to my lips. “I wish I knew.”
Slowly, Matty’s expression starts to open.
His breathing evens out, the little tremors rolling through him vanish, and a palpable tiredness comes over him.
I adjust to sit down properly and unfurl our fingers to wrap my arm around his shoulders.
He doesn’t hesitate to fold into me, head nestled into the crook of my arm, pressed tightly to my side.
A sigh leaves his lips, and he reaches for my other hand, threading our fingers together. A soft affection rolls through me, and I rest my cheek on the top of his head.
We simply exist in this moment together, holding and breathing each other in, but there’s too many things I want to say. Too much I need to get off my chest. Reassurances I need to make.
“Matty.” His hair tickles my mouth. “Can you hear me?”
No reply at first, but then there’s a slow bob of his head. I pull back so he can peer up at me, the softest, most fragile smile aimed my way.
“I want you,” I say, stroking a finger along his arm, “to be your most authentic self at all times with me. If that means you need to shut off and sign for a while, then I’ll learn or you can make fun of me while I try.”
“I’d never laugh at you for trying. Not for me.”
Oh, Matty.
“Princess.” I drop my forehead to his and rub our noses together, making him chuckle. “I’d do anything for you.”
A half-laugh, half-sob cruises past his lips, and he white-knuckles my hand so hard he begins to shake.
“It’s so dumb how much I like it when you call me ‘princess’.”
I tug him closer and brush my lips to the edge of his mouth. “My beautifully handsome Princess.”
It’s a quick shift: Matty’s hand on my chest lifting him out of my arm, his leg swinging over my hip, and his ass planting in my lap.
His hands clasp behind my head, and there’s the smallest moment where we’re looking into each other’s eyes, where there is a world of conversations collected on the tips of our tongues, but this isn’t the moment to voice them.
Matty attacks my mouth with all the fervor of a man on a mission, and that mission is to leave me completely and utterly breathless and drowning in the waterfall of feelings I have for him.
He holds me tightly to him, thighs squeezing my hips as his fingers tug so hard in my hair it has me gasping into his open mouth. Matty tastes like salt and chocolate, a slow trickle of tears collecting from his lashes and the remnants of his hot cocoa.
My hands dig into his hips, sliding up his back to grasp onto his shoulders and urge his body down, guide it closer. I want him to be a part of me, a permanent fixture in my life and in my bed.
“I'm sorry,” I say again as Matty’s hair curtains our kiss from the world. “How can I make it up to you?”
With his eyes closed, Matty pants into the sliver of air between us, his fingers sliding down my neck in slow, sensual strokes until he fists them in my shirt.
“Take me with you tonight.” The words are spoken with pure sex. “You’re not the only one with a jealous streak.”
That steals what's left of the breath in my lungs.
“What do you have to be jealous of? If you want something from me, just take it.”
Those eyes are molten lava brimming with lust, and when his pretty, pink tongue flicks out to wet his lips, I press into him and stroke it with my own.
Matty kisses me hard. Harder than he ever has. Harder than anyone ever has. His body hovers over mine; my fingers press into his thighs. He rips away to drag my face to his heaving chest.
Our hearts hammer to equally erratic drums.
I turn my face into his neck and kiss him softly. He shudders but doesn’t loosen his hold, and I give in to the pleasure of being in Matty’s arms.
“I did say I’d do anything for you,” I say, tilting my lips up to his ear. “If you want to come … you can come.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, Matty shoves me back with a look that says my mouth is writing a check my ass can’t cash. A lot like those teasing texts.
What was it again? Relieving him.
I grin, and he growls—full out fucking growls!—surging forward to take my lips in another tongue-numbing kiss.
What I feel for Matty is nothing short of infatuation. Obsession.
Another word we can’t be ready for.
It would be so easy.
So easy to carve him a permanent spot in my soul, to tie our heartstrings together and promise forever.
We aren’t trying for forever, I’d told him, but I can’t picture an ending between us where he doesn’t walk away and take my heart with him.