Chapter 32
Operation: Stop Being a Disaster
I stood on Niko's front porch like a man facing my execution, except instead of a guillotine, I was staring at a cheerful yellow door that seemed to mock my misery.
The sound of kids laughing echoed from inside.
My finger hovered over the doorbell for a solid thirty seconds before I finally pressed it.
I didn't want to be here. I wanted to sit in a dark room with nothing but Netflix and my wounded pride until I figured out how to win back the woman who'd stolen my heart and then rightfully kicked me to the curb.
I missed her. God, I missed her so much it felt like someone had rearranged my internal organs just for fun, and the worst part was knowing it was all my fault she was gone.
But after Niko's sixth call, I finally answered, and he refused to take no for an answer when I told him I couldn't come by today.
"It's about…" Niko's face lit up when he opened the door, but his smile did that thing where it slowly deflated when he got a good look at me.
"You look like you've wrestled a bear and lost." His brows pulled together with the kind of concern usually reserved for natural disasters. "What happened to you?"
I shook my head before stepping inside, bumping his shoulder with mine as I brushed past him with all the grace of a depressed rhinoceros.
"Nothing," I sighed, which was obviously a big lie.
I strolled into his living room, which looked like Barbie and My Little Pony had thrown the world's most colorful tantrum. "What did you need help with?"
"Hey, Matt," Leilani called from the kitchen.
Lilly and Rose rushed in through the kitchen door like tiny, enthusiastic torpedoes, wrapping their little bodies around my legs. "Uncle Matt!" they both shouted with the kind of pure joy that made my broken heart hurt even more.
"Hey girls," was all I could muster as I patted them both on their backs, trying not to let my crisis rub off on them.
"I have your and Brooke's invitation to Lilly's birthday party." Leilani appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She took one look at me and her eyes went wide. "Whoa." Her gaze raked over me like I was a particularly tragic before photo. "What happened to you?"
I huffed an exasperated breath, realizing I had to tell them. "Brooke broke up with me."
Her eyes went wide. "What did you do?"
Niko cut her a look that screamed subtle as a brick, and she shrugged like she was just asking the obvious question.
"Something really stupid," I admitted, because honesty was apparently my new thing now that I'd lost everything that mattered. All because I didn't just tell her the freaking truth.
"Brooke is broken?" Rose asked.
"Girls, Leilani called out. "Why don't we go outside to play and let Daddy and Uncle Matt chat?"
The girls whined as Leilani gathered them and led them into the kitchen.
"What happened, man?" Niko asked once the house was silent.
"I fucked up."
"Did you cheat on her because…"
"No," I shook my head so hard I probably gave myself whiplash.
I dropped onto his couch and screeched when I landed on a naked Barbie missing one arm.
"Shit." I ran a hand down my face as I blew out an exaggerated sigh.
"The night I met Brooke, I lost a bet inside the ring with Dallas.
The bet was that he got to pick who I took home that night. "
Niko's eyes widened like he was watching a car crash in slow motion. "And he picked Brooke."
I nodded, feeling like the world's biggest idiot.
"And she found out on her own."
Another nod. "But in all fairness, that bet evaporated the moment I started talking to her.
I didn't take her home that night. I didn't even kiss her or ask for her number.
She was all I could think about that night, like, obsessively think about.
So I found her the next morning and have pretty much spent every day together after that. "
"Did you explain that to her?"
"Yep," I said, drawing out the word. "She was so angry she couldn't hear anything I was saying. It was like trying to reason with a hurricane."
"So then you're not giving up."
"Hell no. I love this woman like head over heels in love. I can't picture my life without her. But I think she needs a few days to calm down before she'll let me grovel properly and explain that I'm an idiot, but I'm her idiot."
"Can we help with anything?"
"No. This is my mess, and I need to clean it up. Preferably with grand gestures and maybe a really good playlist."
"Have you tried calling her?"
"Yeah," I nodded. "An embarrassing amount of times. Like she probably thinks I'm-a-stalker amount of times."
Niko scowled, and I pulled out my phone. "I've texted her even more times." My phone lit up, and even though I had no notifications, I checked for a reply or missed call from her.
Nothing.
"Okay." Niko leaned forward and ripped my phone out of my hand with the grace of someone removing a bomb.
"Let's not do that anymore." He clicked my phone and the screen went black.
He forced a smile, but his eyes clearly said he thought I'd lost it, and I kind of had.
"Let's put away the phone and come up with a plan. "
"A plan," I repeated, nodding. "Yeah. A plan to win her back."
"Listen." Niko turned his nose up like something smelled bad, which, let's be honest, it probably did.
"I love you, but you currently smell like a man who's given up on personal hygiene and started a committed relationship with despair.
You need to shower, shave, put on clean clothes, and remember that toothpaste exists before doing anything else.
No woman wants to be won back by someone who looks like they've been living in a cave, eating nothing but regret and pizza. "
I lowered my head, sniffed my shirt, and scowled. He wasn't lying. I smelled like a gym sock that had given up on life.
Time to clean up my act, literally, and win back the woman who made me believe in happily ever after.