Chapter 30 #2
She followed him to their apartment in silence. Matthieu unlocked the door and held it open. He nearly walked into her when she stopped inside the threshold.
“Oh. Hi,” came Kieran’s voice.
Shit. Another one for the list of difficult conversations to be had.
“Who are you?” Julie asked, her tone implying she knew exactly who stood in front of her. She just couldn’t figure out why.
“Julie, this is Kieran. My… boyfriend?” Was that even the word they were using now? Judging by the smile spreading across Kieran’s face, he was very pleased with that designation.
“Kieran Lloyd,” she repeated.
“It’s…” Matthieu began, not knowing how to finish. New wasn’t the right word. “We worked things out.”
Julie only nodded.
“I’ll let you two talk,” Kieran said.
Matthieu wanted to tell Kieran to stay. That he needed him. That the only thing he’d thought about all day was getting to crawl back into Kieran’s arms. He needed to talk to his sister more. If he didn’t take the olive branch she was offering, there might not be another chance.
“I’ll call you later?”
“Take as long as you need, Matty.” Kieran slipped on his shoes, gave Matthieu a chaste kiss on the cheek, and left. The door clicked shut behind him.
Julie turned, one brow raised. “Matty?”
Of course that was the thing she got caught on. He shrugged, laughed a little at the bemusement on her face. To his surprise, she laughed too. It hung between them, slightly awkward, definitely strained.
“I’m sorry,” Matthieu started. At the same moment, Julie said, “There are some things I need to say.”
Matthieu gestured for her to go on.
“I might’ve been a little unfair.” She pushed her tongue into her cheek, like she had a whole speech prepared and was now debating whether to give it.
“I know your relationship with Mom was very different from mine. I’ve recently realized there were a lot of things you felt you had to protect me from.
I wish you’d been honest, but I understand why you weren’t. ”
“I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Hell, Matthieu still believed that. If he could go back, he wouldn’t change a thing. Julie’s mental health and well-being had always come first, even if it led them here, even if she never forgave him. The choices he’d made were to allow her chances life had taken from him.
“You’ve made a lot of sacrifices I never would’ve asked you to make.
Please know, I don’t take them for granted.
We can’t change the past, but going forward…
can we at least be a team? We’re all each other has left.
Let me be there for you, the way you’ve always been for me.
I’m not thirteen anymore, Matthieu. I can handle the hard stuff. ”
She was right. Of course, she was. The woman standing before him was confident, strong, and so smart it sometimes scared him.
Even back then, barely a teenager, she’d been wise beyond her years.
She’d had to be. She was the one holding their family together while Matthieu was away at school.
He wasn’t sure when that sense of duty had taken over, but he couldn’t deny that the last ten years would’ve been easier if he hadn’t insisted on carrying it all alone.
“I can do that.”
Julie pulled him into a warm, comforting hug, one that was a decade overdue. “I’m holding you to that, big brother.”
He knew. God, did he know.
“So, want to tell me about this handsome hockey player of yours? Last time you mentioned him, you called him ‘the bane of my existence,’ unironically.” He should’ve expected this. Julie was an insatiable gossip.
“He’s a newer development,” Matthieu hedged.
“Also known as my future brother-in-law?”
“I’m not sure he could ever be that,” no matter how badly Matthieu wanted it. “If the league ever found out… well, it’d be a huge conflict of interest. I shouldn’t have let it get this far.”
“Do you love him?”
Desperately. “Yes.”
“Does he make you happy?”
Unbelievably. “Yeah, Julebug. He really does.”
“So dammit, Matthieu, why won’t you let yourself have a good thing?
Fuck the league. If they’re going to be close-minded about this, walk away.
They spout all this ‘Hockey is for everyone’ bullshit and parade Kieran around like a poster child for inclusivity.
You really think they’d cause a scene if he announced he was in a serious, committed relationship? ”
No, the league would have a field day. Their token out-and-proud player, finally committing and settling down?
The NHL would turn it into a media circus.
There’d be ESPN features. A damn TLC show, probably.
Multi-page spreads in Sports Illustrated.
A fucking parade. That is, if Kieran were settling down with anyone but him.
“The part they’d have a problem with is me being a league official.”
“Because he doesn’t make enough for both of you?” She hadn’t said it unkindly, but it still stung.
“And what? Become his house husband? Expect him to pay all my bills.” Kieran would do it in a heartbeat. Matthieu knew that. “That’s not something I can ask of him. Not when I’ve got over two hundred thousand dollars in medical debt stuffed in my kitchen drawer, Julie.”
Her mouth fell open in visible shock. He shouldn’t have told her, even if he’d promised her, minutes ago, to stop hiding things like this.
“Matthieu,” she whispered. “It’s that bad?”
He just nodded. “I’ll figure it out.”
“No, we’ll figure it out. I’ll drop out of school, get a full-time job. I’m sure they can set up some kind of payment plan.”
“Absolutely not.” He didn’t use his older-brother-knows-best voice often, but he was using it now. Matthieu wouldn’t let Julie make the same sacrifices that had been forced on him, even if he’d made them willingly. He’d made them so she wouldn’t have to.
“Matthieu.”
“No, Julie. I dropped out of school with less than eighteen credits left for my diploma. You graduate in May, and your semester’s already paid for. I’m not letting you throw that away to start working a few months early.”
“But…”
“We’re not discussing this further. Once you graduate and have a full-time, steady job, I’ll let you help with the repayments. Until then, you stay in school, and I won’t take a single penny from you.”
She rolled her eyes, but Matthieu knew he’d gotten through.
“Until then, just… try not to worry about it.”
Julie gave him a look that said, Easier said than done.
“Now, can I please drive you to Melissa’s to grab your stuff? You belong at home.”
“Fine. But after that, you need to go enjoy some time with that hunk of yours and let him pound you into next week.”
His sister was widely off base, but Matthieu wasn’t about to correct her. “You’re ridiculous. Let me get changed out of this monkey suit real quick, and then we can head out.”