32. Matty
Chapter thirty-two
Matty
I missed the innocent days when a person could go to the airport without having to pass through any security and wait for a loved one at their gate. Sitting in the main hall with a gazillion other families awaiting planes to take off or land sucked ass.
Eating a cinnamon-bun-pretzel thing coated in powdered sugar didn’t.
Washing said dessert down with a white wine from the duty-free store made everything better.
Two seats down the eternal row from me, two children played. They looked to be around three or four years old and were so strikingly similar there was no doubt they were twins. Their mother sat at the far end, half watching them, half staring at her phone. Okay, she was ninety percent staring at her phone. The children could’ve stuffed themselves in a passerby’s luggage and made it to Albuquerque before the woman would’ve stopped her doom scroll to notice she was one twin shy of a mirror image.
In the row behind the twins, an elderly couple held hands. A gray-topped woman in her eighties rested her head on her aged companion. Neither appeared annoyed by the children. In fact, the man smiled as they played, occasionally waving at one or the other, likely trying to tell them apart.
In a different section of mass seats, a large group of college-aged girls in matching T-shirts and skirts put finishing touches on a massive sign that read, “Welcome home, Jennie O, you bad bioch!” Whoever Jeenie O was, her fan club was so excited for her return that I wanted to hurl myself off the nearest rooftop. They were even more annoying than the wonder twins, all bubbly and giggly, clapping and laughing at some irreverent joke one or the other of the sorority—I assumed that was what they were—said.
Who was I kidding?
The only thing that annoyed me about those girls was that I wasn’t part of their pack. Their outfits were fun, and their twisted sense of humor was even more so.
Oh, to be young again.
At the ripe ole age of twenty-nine, I was one birthday away from advancing into another checkbox. That thought was depressing. For the rest of my life, I would have to scroll a little further on the Showcase Showdown of age selections when opening accounts or signing up for new websites. That was depressing.
Those girls were in the prime of their lives.
I was almost thirty.
Sweet goddess Estee Lauder, what was I going to do?
Just as a full-blown pre-midlife crisis was about to take hold of my soul, the plane train arrived, its doors opened, and a herd of sky-weary passengers flooded into the lobby.
Several things happened all at once.
First, a twenty-something man in a suit parted from the pack, disturbing twin mom from her TikTok by lifting her—body and phone—off the ground and spinning her around like in one of those old movies, but at a train station, in the rain, as he returned from the front lines of some terrible war.
Okay, maybe I dreamed some of that up.
He spun her around while the twins danced. The old couple behind them smiled so widely I thought their teeth might fall out. The woman slapped her man on the shoulder, protesting to be let down, only to lock lips with him in the longest, tonguiest kiss in airport history.
The old woman blushed and turned away.
The old man’s grin grew.
I felt heat rush into my cheeks.
That was when the other side of the lobby erupted, turning every head, even those attached by the tongue to another. Delta Delta Poontang leaped into action, holding their billboard high into the air, and chanting, “Bioch! My baby bioch! Get that bootie home!” over and over. They’d practiced the routine, as three of the girls broke from the pack to perform tumbling passes that ended in spinning flips that had the whole airport cheering.
The bioch—not being disrespectful, as that was the only name I had for the blondie who appeared—threw her hands high in the air, squealed something at a decibel level only a collie or college girl could hear, and performed a perfect backflip that ended with a polite salute to the non-existent judges seated behind her sisters.
To say the airport devolved into pandemonium was an insult to proper riots.
At least this one was happy.
“Matty?”
I’d been so fixated on the fangirl flash mob that I hadn’t even seen Omar.
I turned, saw his gorgeous smile, and screamed so loud the Delta Delta Poontang girls turned, like one massive beast with thirty eyes—or heads, or antennae. I was unsure of the biology of a sorority spider-beast thing.
Omar was in my arms before I could breathe. His kiss drew the life out of me.
Echoes of, “Aww,” bounded off the marble walls of the airport lobby.
“Everyone’s staring,” I muttered the moment Omar took a breath.
“Let them,” he said, pressing his lips back to mine.
Never in my life—not even once—had anyone declared their love for me so openly, before so many others, without regard for anyone’s opinion or objection or . . . anything. I knew I’d missed Omar like I might miss a limb if it had been cut off, but a tiny part of me—okay, a large part of me—wondered if his time away would make him lose a little of the magic he felt.
Holy Siegfried and Roy, I shouldn’t have worried. His kiss left no doubt how he felt, and the boner poking into me as he pressed against me spoke volumes for how he wanted to get reacquainted.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, his voice barely audible over the cheerleader chants that were now aimed in our direction.
“I get my boyfriend back, the best kiss ever, and a football player’s serenade. Could this day get any better?”
“I want to eat your ass until you come.”
I tripped over his roller bag.
“Take me home or lose me forever,” I said through a smirk.
“After you, Mrs. Goose.”
How could something as simple as holding hands while driving fill a person with such warmth and happiness? It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t as if we were making out or had been separated for months or years. Omar had been gone for ten days, which, when compared to how long we’d known each other, was a decent percent of our time together.
Still, feeling the heat of his hand atop mine as I drove was the closest thing to heaven I could imagine.
A few times, when traffic would stall or we’d hit a red light, I would look over and catch him staring at me. A fit of preteen girl giggles overtook me, and I worried I might piddle all over my faux leather seats. He just grinned. The fucker knew what he was doing, and he loved every minute of my buckled-up torture.
I wouldn’t have traded those moments for all the feather boas in RuPaul’s armoire.
The interstate was a parking lot, which made our thirty-minute drive home take over an hour. By the time we rounded the last turn and my apartment came into view, Omar’s eyes were closed, and his breathing had slowed to a steady rhythm. God, he was adorable when he slept. I hated waking him when we pulled into the parking space, but I couldn’t leave him in the car overnight. His promise of nailing me up against the wall might not happen, but we could get some good snuggle time in. That was my favorite part of being together anyway.
“Babe, we’re home,” I said, nudging his shoulder.
He groaned as his eyes fluttered open and he struggled to gain his bearings. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to doze off.”
I leaned across and kissed his cheek. “You’ve had a long day. You’re probably exhausted.”
He nodded. “And hungry. Delta does their best, but unless you’re in that fancy section with the tube beds, the food’s still airplane fare.”
“I’m no Omar Gamal in the kitchen,” I said, earning a sardonic grin. “Why don’t I order us a pizza. There’s wine and beer, which should knock us both out.”
“Sounds perfect.” He glanced up, his brows bunching. “We are at your apartment.”
“Yep. You need a good night’s rest, and that isn’t going to happen without your Matty snuggle pillow. You don’t work tomorrow, right? I can drop you at your place on my way to work.”
He nodded, a weak, exhausted gesture, then turned and climbed out of the car.
Pizza arrived an hour later. Poor Omar struggled to stay awake long enough to eat a few slices. About halfway through an episode of Brilliant Minds , he was passed out with his head in my lap. I stroked his hair and relished the moment, daydreaming that this might one day be our lives for real.
Then it hit me.
This was real.
I picked Omar up from the airport just like the woman with the twins had done for her husband. He didn’t resist when I brought him to my apartment, and we immediately fell into the rhythm of a couple, sorting out dinner and settling into the comfort of my couch.
Holy shit. We were a couple . Omar was my . . .
What was he? What were we?
I’d called him my boyfriend in an offhand joking comment earlier that day, but had he ever used a term? Had he labeled us? He’d claimed me in every other way that counted. My ass was sore for days the last time he planted his flag in my homestead.
I giggled.
Right there in my living room with Omar asleep in my lap, I giggled.
I was so ready to be whatever he wanted us to be—as long as it meant we were that thing together. He told me he loved me, over and over. I’d done the same and was the happiest guy alive for doing so. Did that mean we’d already taken the leap to whatever step came with those magic words?
Fuck yeah, it did!
I giggled again.
This time he stirred.
“Did I miss something funny?” His voice was so cute and gravely and half asleep. If it was possible to swallow a voice whole, I would’ve gobbled his right that minute.
Then I giggled thinking of eating his voice.
He pushed himself upright and squinted at me. “Okay, weirdo, what are you giggling at?”
He called me weirdo.
I giggled at that, almost doubling over as a fit overtook the last of my control. Happy tears tumbled down my cheeks, and I suddenly worried my bladder might rebel again.
“Oh, shit. Gotta pee. Be right back,” I said, hurling myself off the couch and face-planting in front of the TV. I popped up faster than he could react and ran toward the bathroom, giggling all the way.
“Weirdo!” he shouted after me.
My stomach hurt by the time I got into the bathroom, and my bladder did, indeed, rebel.
I peed my pants.
And sat on the throne, the lid still closed, and laughed like a hyena high on crack.
A moment later, a tapping at the door snapped my head up.
“Are you okay in there?” Omar asked.
I thought a moment. The words I’d planned to say were replaced by, “What would you call us?”
Holy fucking fuckery. Where had that come from? Who asks about their relationship status through the bathroom door while sitting on a closed toilet with pee running down their leg?
Omar didn’t seem to mind. The door opened, and the most sincere eyes I’d ever seen fell on me.
“We are everything, Matty. You and I, we’re everything.”
My heart was so wedged in my throat no words could break free—but that didn’t stop a waterfall from pouring out of my eyes. I covered my face with my hands and bawled. Omar was on his knees by my side before I could look up again.
“I love you more than anything, Matty. I know it doesn’t make sense. We’ve only been together a few months, and we still have so much to learn about each other, but you’re my mate. I mean that in the British sense, not the animal kingdom sense.”
Fuck him.
The giggles came back with a vengeance.
He made a dramatic sniffing-the-air gesture, then wrinkled his nose.
“Is that . . . urine?”
“We are in the bathroom, thank you!” I crossed my arms and tried to pretend I made sense.
A smile formed on his lips. “You’re sitting on the toiled lid. I wouldn’t smell piss with the lid closed.”
He looked down. Both brows rose.
“Matthew Vance, why are your jeans wet?”
I covered my face with my hands again.
“You didn’t make it to the toilet in time, did you? Jesus, I feel like I’m back in the NICU. Do I need to change your nappy?”
I lost it. Or surrendered to the giggle gods. Whatever. The idea of Omar changing my nappy—that he used the word nappy—was more than I could take.
Right there in my bathroom, with him on his knees declaring his love, I laughed so hard I fell off the throne.
And a queen falling off a throne is a very, very naughty thing.