Chapter Eighteen
Matt had a girlfriend once.
She was called Serenity but she was in no way serene.
Serenity was an only child who got whatever she asked for as soon as she asked for it.
On her sixteenth birthday her parents bought her a shiny sports car that gathered dust for two years because she couldn't pass her driving test. When she did finally pass on her fourth attempt, her dad upgraded the never-used-car for the newer model.
They dated for eight long and painful months.
Serenity was in Matt's year, two years above me, but I already knew her by name before Matt brought her home. Everyone in our school did. You couldn't walk five paces down the hall without hearing her whiny, screechy drama-filled voice.
As soon as she began dating my brother she was sickly sweet to me, and so were her popular friends, but it was obvious that she didn't like me.
I found her spoiled and petty and bitchy. Matt was drawn to her like a moth to flame.
He didn't care that I didn't like her because my opinion didn't matter. Apparently neither did my mothers, who clearly hated her too.
Matt has always been the type to do whatever (and whoever) he wants no matter the consequences.
Serenity was his only relationship. He adored her but she kept him on strings because she was rich enough and pretty enough to do whatever she wanted.
She didn't break up with him outright, she just started sleeping with one of his friends.
Matt pretended the breakup was mutual, and that it wasn't cheating because really, they weren't even together. But they were.
Sometimes I wonder if Serenity is the reason he's so atrocious with women.
That one relationship is all that's on my mind as I cook breakfast for myself and Skye, who's nursing her hangover by persistently rubbing her temples on the couch. Every so often she groans and attempts a few sips of water.
Skye is the complete opposite of Serenity. The letter 'S' is all they have in common. Serenity was loud, selfish and annoying. She wouldn't have deserved Matt at his very worst and yet somehow he managed to put up with her, and be respectful of her, for eight whole months.
The thought of it makes me mad at him. Skye is so good for him, and obviously smitten over him, and yet nothing from Matt - nothing except an occasional allowance of a one night stand which obviously does nothing good for Skye's feelings. I grimace at his easy dismissal of her.
"I'm sorry about this," Skye groans.
"It's alright, don't even worry about it." She looks at me expectantly, as if I should tell her that this is a huge inconvenience for me. "We've all been there."
"Where did you even sleep?"
"Noah's room," I reply easily.
Her eyebrows shoot up. She shuffles into a more seated position, peering at me curiously. I press my lips together and shake my head.
"Noah and Matt shared his bed."
"Ah."
I finish serving up the eggs and carry them over to the living room, setting a plate down in front of her. She moans, squirts ketchup all over them, and eats like it's the best thing she's ever tasted.
She occasionally gives me a look that has me feeling self-conscious in yesterday's leggings and Noah's shirt. But then I remember that there's vomit in her hair, and figure she must just be curious about Noah's clothes on me.
We don't talk until we finish eating. She fixes herself up in the bathroom while I do the dishes, and doesn't come back downstairs for half an hour.
When she reappears she looks a lot fresher, with brighter eyes and no trace of the smudged make-up she was wearing last night. She sits back down on the couch as I warm my feet in front of the fire.
There's a small awkward silence.
"I feel really embarrassed," she states softly. "I don't usually get that drunk, or... text your brother. Or come back here and throw up."
I can't suppress my smile, which in turn makes her smile too.
"Honestly, Skye, we've all been there."
She nods, giving me a shrug. As she reaches for her phone I realise that this may be the end of our conversation about it, and lean into the table to signify that I still want her attention. She glances at me.
"So... Matt, huh?"
It's lame. So lame that she snorts, but it works.
"Uh huh," she admits.
"Can I be honest with you for a sec?"
She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and shrugs.
"I don't think Matt would be a very good boyfriend," I whisper. She smiles. "He's messy and gross and he fries everything."
"I know," she muses.
"No but seriously," my voice raises an octave. "You're gorgeous and you're fun to be around and I think you could- you could just be with someone who appreciates all that."
Her blank stare is a little unnerving; I can't seem to shut my own mouth.
"I mean could you really see Matt growing up and asking you out?"
Skye's mouth opens and closes again. Twice.
I may have taken it a little too far. Her eyebrows pull together and her lips press tight against each other, as if she's tasting the bitter reality of my words.
She shuffles slowly up the sofa, and pulls a blanket further around her shoulders.
"Madelaine," she sighs. Her eyes bore into mine. "I like you, so please don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think I'm comfortable discussing my relationship with your brother with you." I can't say I expected that one. "It's nothing personal! I'd just rather you didn't get involved..."
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Backtrack.
Panic.
"That's so okay - I'm sorry!"
Skye grimaces. At least this is just as awkward for her as it is for me. And duly noted for the future: Skye doesn't like to be warned off Matt, even if he is sleeping with half of this town.
She doesn't say anything in response to my apology nor does she start talking about anything else. Her phone appears in her hand when I next look up, but the tension around us is thick, like there's a poisonous gas entering the room slowly.
God, I wish Noah were awake.
"I'm gonna do the dishes," I announce, as if that will re-circulate fresh air into the room. I collect our plates and wash up as slowly as possible. When neither Matt nor Noah join us, I start cleaning all the surfaces in the kitchen.
I'm emptying out all the out-of-date condiments in the fridge when Matt and Noah finally walk into the living room.
They both have matching dark circles under their eyes and messy hair.
"Your brother kicks in his sleep," Noah huffs, leaning against the counter next to me. Matt rolls his eyes as he gets orange juice out of the fridge. "And he hogs the covers."
They push each other around, Matt eventually settling opposite the two of us.
Matt tilts his head back, eyeing Skye in the living room before looking back at me.
I shrug. "Seems fine."
"Great," Matt whispers. "Skye, do you need Noah to give you a lift home?"
Jesus Christ. Matt really is heartless with women. It makes me feel guilty that I want her to leave as well, just to take the awkwardness out of the room.
Noah and I meet eyes briefly before looking back to Skye. She looks taken aback too, but shrugs and nods. Matt doesn't wait around to bid her goodbye, he goes upstairs and the shower begins running. I wish I'd thought of that earlier.
As I'm still looking at Skye clicking away at keys on her phone, Noah suddenly appears in front of me, pressing me to the counter. He glances back at our visitor on the couch before leaning down to whisper in my ear.
"Please come with me."
My groan is audible.
"That's exactly why I want you to come with me."
I'm not sure what that means. Surely he can't find this awkwardness with Skye as uncomfortable as I do right now, unless they've had some drama in the past that I'm unaware of. Thinking back, I don't think I've ever seen Noah speak with Skye or with Sara. Maybe they aren't really friends.
"Madelaine," Noah whispers, pressing his body further into mine. I try to look past him, look to the sofa where I know she could look over any minute (maybe she's looking over at us already?) but his body blocks my view. "You're coming with me."
The authority in his tone melts my body against his.
When I look back up I get captured in his gaze. I can see in his eyes that he knows what he's doing to me, and I can see just as much that he wants to act on it too. He's hardening against me, and I can feel the heat pouring out of the pajama bottoms he's wearing through my leggings.
His head tilts towards mine, lip tucked under his teeth.
It dawns on me instantly. "Not here, not here."
He pulls away quickly, hands covering the tent that's appeared under his clothes. I quickly look to Skye but she's still, very thankfully, engrossed in her phone.
We collect ourselves quickly and prepare to take Skye back home. Matt doesn't show his face downstairs again so we leave without him.
Luckily, Skye gets straight into the backseat and pretends the two of us aren't in the car with her, so Noah and I chat casually about work. I try not to eye-fuck him the entire ride.
"Since it's Sunday we could do another driving lesson once Skye is home," Noah suggests casually.
I refrain from saying that I don't think I could cope being alone with him for more than five minutes without sitting on his face.
"Sure... I remember where all the gears are."
He smirks at my lame attempt at a joke, but says nothing. We pull up outside of Skye's house, the wheels of the car crackling over the stones on the driveway. She says goodbye to us both very quickly and practically jumps out of the car, running up to her front door.
The space around us immediately fills with an invisible electricity.
We set off towards what I presume will be an empty car park to practice driving in.
Or maybe we could finally utilise the back seat of this car.
God, I would love if Noah would just throw me into the backseat and do whatever he wanted - or told me what to do to him.
Maybe I'd just like him to tell me what to do full stop.
It must be how he looks. He looks like a dominating type, and maybe that's why I found it so attractive earlier when he took that do-not-fuck-with-me tone. It's the tattoos too, dark and scary like he's someone who could get me into a lot of trouble.
"If we don't talk about Matt I'm going to do something I really shouldn't," he says suddenly, rushing the words as if they're burning him. His driving is faster than usual, but maybe that's because his grip on the steering wheel is white knuckled.
He's right, though.
"Matt gets around way more than I thought he did." I say. Noah snorts. "He was incredibly unpopular in high school, maybe he's making up for lost time."
"He's not the settling-down type."
Are you?
"I tried to warn Skye again, but she shut me down this morning."
He turns into the same empty car park we drove in the last time he gave me a lesson.
"And how did that go?" Noah's tone is knowing.
"She told me to stay out of it."
He laughs and I laugh too, because it sounds utterly ridiculous really. How am I supposed to stay out of something so obviously in front of my eyes? Especially when Matt keeps trying to enlist me to do his dirty work for him with Skye.
"I'm serious," I almost whine. "She said she'd rather if I just didn't get involved because I'm Matt's sister and apparently that's weird."
"She just doesn't want to hear what she already knows - he's sleeping with other girls. He won't ask her out."
"I know," I sigh. "It is bad that I'm kind of glad I don't have to live with the pressure of warning her off him now?"
He grins, "Definitely not."
He pats the steering wheel and gets out of the car, so I maneuver myself into the drivers seat. It feels incredibly unfamiliar to have the wheel in front of me once more. Clutch. Accelerator. Brake.
Gears - reverse is at the bottom right.
It's overwhelming trying to remember all the rules of driving a car. How people do this everyday astounds me - it's an incredible skill if you really think about it.
Noah falls into the passenger seat and closes the door, immediately leaning over towards me to adjust the rear view mirror. I glance into it as he does, seeing the vast car park space behind us as well as in front, empty of cars.
Luckily my only obstacles are street lights cemented into the ground intermittently, and a few curbs here and there.
"Ready?"
"With you as a teacher? Obviously."
I receive an eye roll. I place my hand on the handbrake and look at the empty parking space a few paces ahead of us.
"Clutch down, Madelaine. Before you fuck up my gear box."
"Right," I smile, as if I remembered that I needed to put the clutch down to change from neutral into first gear. As if heavily practiced, I press down the clutch, change into first gear, and press the handbrake down. "Lift the clutch slowly, I remember."
"And you thought I was a bad teacher," he smirks.
"You're a distracting teacher."
The car begins pulling forward.
"Yeah?" There's another smirk in his voice. "How so?"
My lips press together. He knows exactly how he distracts me.
"Hm?"
"I am trying to drive, Noah." I glance briefly at him as the car rolls into the space in front of us. I move my hand to the handbrake but his appears over mine, leading me back to the steering wheel.
"Carry on," he mutters. "Through the parking spaces. Try to go in a bit of a square around the car park."
"I can't do that," I panic, leaning up to look through the windscreen as we drive through and over the parking space. The car continues forward at a snails pace. I look around at the bushes that frame the large car park and try not to imagine myself driving straight through one.
I can feel the eye roll radiate off him. "Yes you can." His hand hovers over mine. "Put your other foot over the accelerator."
My mind screams.
"That rumble of the engine you can hear is the bite, remember? So when you hear that you can press the accelerator down slightly as you lift your foot off the clutch at the same time."
What?
I do exactly as he says (probably not) and we jolt, the rumble of the engine dying immediately.
My eyes widen. I lift my hands off the steering wheel like that will undo whatever damage I just managed to do. My foot still hovers over the clutch as if that will fix whatever situation I've just gotten myself into.
My scared eyes meet his barely contained grin.
"You've stalled it." He licks his lips. "It's fine, it's gonna happen quite a lot while you learn."
"You know, I actually like walking to work. I even think the bus is quite peaceful."
He smiles wide and flops his head against the headrest. I pull the handbrake up and flop too, grinning over at him.
There's a small moment, a glance between more-than-friends that might turn into a kiss, and for a second I think he might start talking about Matt again to stop it from happening, but he just gets out of the car. The door closes behind him.
I'm dumbstruck in the drivers seat, still frazzled as he opens the drivers side door.
He leans in to undo my seatbelt for me, which is incredibly sweet.
I think this is the end of the driving lesson again for a brief minute. I'm tragically wrong.
Instead, once he's sat back in the drivers seat, he reaches out of the car and places a large hand on each of my hips, pulling me towards him.
"What the fuck, Noah?"
"You're shit at this," is his only excuse.
It's not a good excuse, especially not a good enough one to pull me onto his lap. We don't fit in the car at all, we're both too tall and there are legs everywhere. I have to lean drastically over the console so we can close the car door.
I'm hyper-aware that I'm wearing leggings. I'll be able to feel everything through these.
"It's a good excuse to get you on top of me as well," he mutters, the car somehow rumbling to life despite us being squeezed into it at this awkward angle.
One of his arms slips around me, trapping me in place so my body shields his eyes from the car park.
"I'm going to do the peddles and the gears, you're steering."
"No-"
The car lurches forward so I grip the steering wheel with both hands, turning it so we don't drive straight through one of the bushes in front of us. Noah laughs behind me as we speed up.
"This is psychotic-"
Turn right. Keep turning. Turn it more than you expect you even have to. He keeps speeding up; I notice we're already in third gear and squeal as I keep turning us around the corners of the car park. He doesn't go too much faster, but the tyres spin underneath us whenever I have to turn the wheel.
"Not so scary, huh?"
His voice is soft and collected - a little cocky edge teasing me under the guise.
The car slows dramatically, his legs shifting under and next to my own.
I'm so focused on keeping the car straight as we park that I almost don't notice the appearance of his free hand on my waist. It's all I can focus on when it slides over the curve of my torso, settling around my thigh casually.
His fingers are dangerously close to my pussy. So close I wish they'd keep move and cup it, feel the heat radiating from me as if I'm some kind of animal in mating season. Instead they squeeze the meat of my thigh and travel further down my leg before sliding back up with ease.
He pulls the handbrake up but I'm entirely distracted.
Driving lesson over.
I squirm in his lap, his hand dipping between my thighs so his thumb brushes against the middle seam of my leggings. My hitch of breath is obvious, but so is his hardening cock underneath me.
"Tell me you want it," he murmurs, mouth close enough to my ear that he could start licking it.
Fuck. Fuck. I want it. I want it so badly I squeeze his hand with my thighs.
"Tell me, Madelaine." He rasps. His fingers press into the fabric between my legs, pushing my underwear into the wetness gathering at my entrance. "Tell me how easy you'd be for me right now, where anybody could see us."
My body blazes.
"I want you," I manage, strained.
His fingers press harder. I wish I was naked. I wish I was wearing a short skirt and no panties, and there was nothing between us stopping his cock from pushing its way into me.
Goosebumps litter my neck as his breath caresses it. His lips brush against my skin when he speaks.
"Tell me you're desperate," he whispers.
"I'm desperate," I return in the same hushed tone.
His hand disappears momentarily, appearing almost instantly at the seam of my leggings.
He doesn't hesitate this time, he doesn't even pause to think of the consequences; his hand slips into my underwear like it's not even there, and two fingers slide between my lips and past my clit, dipping into my pussy effortlessly.
I release a breath that feels a lot like relief. I realise within a second that I was worried he wouldn't go through with it, that he'd find another way to talk about he-who-shall-not-be-named and drive us home horny and helpless.
Instead, those two fingers push into me.
"Only because you're desperate."
He smirks against my neck as I moan.