Chapter 17 Matthieu
SEVENTEEN
MATTHIEU
The blare of a phone woke Matthieu from a very good dream.
An insatiable Kieran had him pinned to a locker room shower wall, the two of them rutting like horny teenagers.
The memory of Kieran’s wet skin, the steam thick in the cubicle, the build of his orgasm rising higher and higher—it all felt too real.
Because it had been. Real. A memory. A little flashback to a time before all the bullshit tore them apart. A simpler time, just two boys falling head over heels, whispering forever and always into each other’s mouths like either of them actually meant it.
Except Matthieu had meant it.
He rolled over to check the time and missed call, groaning when his phone said it was barely past 6 a.m. He’d officiated back-to-back games the last three nights, and this was the first morning in weeks when he had truly nowhere to be.
Sure, he’d have to hit the gym at some point, but with the Inferno flying in late from an eight-day road trip, the coast was clear for whenever.
After what felt like the longest eight days in recorded history, he found himself caring less than he probably should about a potential Kieran run-in.
In fact, he craved it. He wondered if Kieran would think he’d been keeping tabs on the schedule if he texted to hook up tonight after he got back.
Of course, that was exactly what he’d been doing. Kieran couldn’t know that.
The phone rang again. Julie’s name and smiling face lit up the screen.
The photo was from the summer, not long before she’d left for Paris.
The dark hair she shared with Matthieu, from their mother, was tied in a messy knot on top of her head.
Her glowing, tanned skin—darker than his—came from her father, who’d stuck around for even less time than Matthieu’s.
Apparently, his mother and her moods weren’t compatible with healthy, lasting relationships. Matthieu, most days, felt cursed to the same fate.
“It’s 6 a.m.,” he grumbled, lifting the phone and wiping sleep from his eyes. He wasn’t a fan of early mornings, especially not surprise ones, but he’d answer Julie’s call no matter the hour.
“Thank God,” she snapped. “I was starting to get seriously worried something had happened to you.” Her tone was so unlike her usual chipper self that it had Matthieu sitting bolt upright in bed.
He checked the screen. One missed call.
“I was asleep. What’s wrong? Has something happened?”
“You should already know, Matthieu. Oakridge has been trying to reach you for hours, but said the calls wouldn’t go through. They finally called me because they couldn’t get a hold of Mom’s emergency contact.”
Shit. Matthieu’s heart skipped a beat. “Mom?”
“She had a heart attack yesterday evening. Mom had a heart attack, and I had to find out from strangers while I‘m stuck on the other side of the world.” The slight tremor in her voice hit like a punch to the gut. “She’s been lying alone in a hospital all night because no one could reach you.”
Matthieu knew what it was like being on the other end of those calls—the helpless ache of being thousands of miles away.
He’d taken his fair share of them while at college in Michigan.
Like back then, it was Julie making the call—sharing the bad news, carrying the emotional toll of their mother’s decline.
And she wasn’t even here. She was supposed to be getting a much-needed break, but once again, Matthieu had let her down.
“She’s… okay, right?”
“She had a fucking heart attack. Of course she’s not okay.” Julie paused, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out on a long sigh.
It was fucked up that Matthieu didn’t even know which answer he wanted more. A good son would be desperate to know his mother was alive, begging for a full recovery. So why did an overwhelming part of him hope for the complete opposite?
“She’s alive, if that’s what you were asking. Where have you been, Matthieu? What’s going on?”
Wasn’t that a loaded question?
“I… shit, Julie, I…” It was almost too shameful to admit. “I blocked their number a week ago.”
“Blocked? Why the fuck would you block their number?”
He untangled the sheets from his legs and slipped out of the bed, padding over to pull on a pair of sleep shorts and a T-shirt he’d left folded on the dresser.
This wasn’t a conversation he’d planned to have today, but there was no escaping it now.
Matthieu hoped Julie had it in her to be understanding.
“I’m a little late on this month’s payment.
I just needed them off my back for a few days—once I get paid again, I’ll square up.
” He tried to sound even, unaffected. The soft, broken noise Julie made on the other end cracked what little resolve he had left.
“I didn’t… I didn’t know this would happen. I didn’t think…”
“Didn’t think? Matthieu, you always think.” She let out a long sigh. “What do you mean you didn’t make the payment? I thought things were good. You said you’d handled it.”
“I have been.”
“Obviously…”
Matthieu cut her off. “Julie, I just paid thousands so you could stay in France an extra semester. Money doesn’t grow on trees. I had to move some things around to make that happen, and one of those things was Mom’s bill. It’s only a few days late. Not a big deal. It’s happened before.”
Almost every month, in fact. Matthieu really shouldn’t have admitted that. Now Julie would be in Paris, worrying, feeling guilty, wanting to come home, convinced she was a burden.
Maybe if Julie hadn’t woken him at the crack of dawn.
Maybe if he hadn’t been paralyzed by indecision about whether or not to rush to his mother’s side.
Maybe if he didn’t hate himself for even questioning something with such an obvious answer…
maybe then he would have told Julie anything but the truth.
Instead, he’d come right out and said it, tarnishing the first taste of freedom Julie had ever had.
“You could have told me no. If I’d known things were difficult, I never would have asked to stay longer. You should have been honest with me.”
“I could have. But we both know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make you happy, Julebug.”
“Even if it meant sacrificing Mom? That’s fucked up, Matthieu.”
I'd sacrifice literally anything for you. “I’m doing my best…”
“Well, it’s not good enough.”
“Fuck off.” The words tore from Matthieu’s chest before he could shove them back down. He gripped the phone harder, fingers aching, thumb twitching against the plastic case as he forced himself to keep it steady.
Anxiety clawing at the edges of his mind, slithering up from his gut and cinching tight around his chest like a vice, stealing the air from his lungs.
He closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing—it only made the sensation worse, more suffocating.
Years of guilt, worry, and stress simmered beneath the surface, a storm he wasn’t sure he could hold back much longer.
He had to get off the phone before it all boiled over.
Before Julie was forced to take the brunt of it.
“No, I mean it.” Julie’s words crackled through the phone, distant and sharp.
Every word ground through gritted teeth, each one cutting deeper than the last. “Your priority should have been taking care of Mom. If that meant I couldn’t stay in Paris, you should have told me.
I’m a big girl, Matthieu. I would have understood. ”
Matthieu wanted to scream—no, needed to—but he swallowed it down. Bile burned the back of his throat.
It wasn’t Julie’s fault. He knew that. Hadn’t it been his life’s mission to shield her from the worst of who their mother really was?
To cover the tracks, the evidence, the scars she’d left on him.
He’d spent their entire childhood carefully sweeping the mess that was his mother under the rug, hiding the signs of her unraveling.
Tending to the late-night breakdowns. Taking the blows, both physical and emotional, so Julie wouldn’t have to.
He’d smiled through the pain, pretending everything was fine, even as he slipped further away. If anything, it was his fault for doing such a good job.
“My priority will never be taking care of that woman.” His voice cracked, bitterness bleeding out like poison. Heat surged through his veins, sharp and sudden. “She never gave a damn about taking care of me.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“No, Julie. I do. The shit she put me through growing up. The physical abuse. The emotional blackmail. Always having to tiptoe around her moods…”
“She was sick.”
The words snapped him in two. His stomach twisted.
For a moment, the world closed in around him, walls pressing against his chest. Matthieu inhaled sharply, held his breath, then counted down from ten as he exhaled slowly, trying not to shatter.
The anger was already surging up, spilling over the fragile dam he’d built. He couldn’t hold it back any longer.
“No, she is sick. She wasn’t always. If she’d loved her children, she would’ve gotten help before things got this bad.”
“That’s unfair.”
“No, what’s unfair is that she gets to forget all of that.
That she hurt her child every single day and never has to face it.
What’s unfair is that we’re the ones stuck caring for her when she never gave a damn about us.
That I have to pour thousands into medical care for a woman who either doesn’t remember me or can’t stand the sight of me.
What’s really not fair is how much guilt I feel for even saying that. But I can’t do this anymore.”
The silence on the line made Matthieu wonder if Julie had hung up. Every second stretched like an eternity, the quiet pressing against his ears until it felt like space around him had folded inward.
Finally, she said, “So what? You’re not going to look after her anymore?”
“No. We both know I’ll keep paying for the center. But I’m done pretending to be the doting son. I can’t do the visits. I can’t take the memories they bring up. I can’t be that person anymore.”
“So she’ll just be alone?”
“She has the staff, the other residents… and you, if you still want to be in her life when you get back. I’m done with it.”
That realization should have felt freeing.
Instead, it felt like slipping on another mask: the estranged, heartless son.
The man who walked away from the only family he ever had.
Because while his mother might have been a bad one, at least she stayed.
His father hadn’t wanted him at all. Hell, Matthieu didn’t even know if the man was dead or alive, and now here he was, doing the exact same thing.
Walking away from his mother when she needed him the most.
“Matthieu, she almost died,” Julie pleaded.
He might as well lean fully into this version of himself. It didn’t matter if Julie hated him—he already hated himself. Maybe things would be easier if she knew him for what he truly was: a complete and utter failure.
So he said it, the most ruthless thought clawing through his chest. “It would’ve been better if she had.”
He heard Julie’s breath catch, then a choked noise, like she was trying not to cry, not to scream. “It’s like I don’t even know you at all.”
The call ended with a click.