He was sitting on the couch, twirling Quinn’s pacifier on his pinkie finger, rather amused. He obviously heard me coming down the hall. “Is this yours?” he asked without looking up.
“Very funny.” I crossed my arms over my chest as I came into view, trying to look insulted and failing miserably.
Matthew turned to face me, his eyes sweeping over my entire body. When he did finally meet my gaze, his appreciation of my time spent was apparent. Never before had anyone looked at me with the same reverence, the same desire.
Now that I was seeing it with new eyes, I realized that Matthew had always looked at me that way. I had just been too blind to notice. Or just too caught up in the myth that Eric was the one for me that I couldn’t bring myself to accept what it meant.
“You look nice,” he said unnecessarily.
“Thanks. So do you.”
A stupid grin broke out on my face as I regarded his appearance. The tousled hair, yesterday’s wrinkled clothes, those bedroom eyes. I could stare at him forever.
“No I don’t,” he laughed, “I’m dirty.”
Images of last night flashed before my eyes. “Yes, you are,” I agreed.
I had offered him use of my shower – with or without me in it – but he had declined, instead saying that once I was ready, we would stop by his house where he would get clean and change before we went to lunch.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I answered, walking over and snatching the pacifier from his hand. Our fingers met and that all too familiar electricity flowed between us. “If Regina’s home, I want to drop this off first.”
“Okay,” he shrugged. He turned off the television and stood up. “Whatever you want to do. Honestly, the later we can have lunch, the better. Blake’s cooking might have improved marginally, but it’s still horrible.” He shuddered for dramatic effect.
“Then why do you submit yourself to the horror of it?” I asked as I snatched up my purse.
“Because that’s what you do when you love someone,” he answered simply.
“I hardly think that subjecting yourself to the possibility of food poisoning qualifies as a selfless gesture, but whatever.”
With pacifier and purse in hand, I turned to the front door. I was just assuming that we would take Matthew’s car; it was the logical choice. Besides, I was parked in.
“Wait,” he said, digging in his pocket.
I spun around and paused, my lips about to form a question until I figured out what he was doing. He tossed his keys to me and my hand shot outward in an attempt to catch them. My fingers made contact with them, fumbling ungracefully. They jangled to the floor in a heap and I stooped down to pick them back up.
Regina was outside tending to her flowerbeds, so I ran across the street to return Quinn’s pacifier before we left. She saw me coming and was waiting for me when I finally arrived. It took a while in those heels; they weren’t made for sprinting.
“So, who’s your guest?” she asked in a stage whisper. Matthew had stayed over on my property and was well out of earshot, but she was enjoying the gossipy nature of the question way too much to care.
I blushed as I handed her the reason I had really come over. Of course she had noticed; she had a bird’s eye view of my house. And she was continuing to notice from the way her eyes were fixated over my shoulder. I turned to see Matthew leaning against the Mustang, waiting for me.
“He’s someone I haven’t seen for a while,” I demurred, “but I guess it’s safe to say that we’ve reconnected.”
“I’d say.”
“I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Sure thing. Have fun today and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
I laughed. I wasn’t sure what Regina would or wouldn’t do. Even though we were relatively the same age, she was playing on a whole other level. She and Brian had been married for quite some time and had a baby. There were no unexpected overnight guests on her schedule ever. I wondered if that’s how their relationship had begun. I really wasn’t privy to what her life had been like before him; they were two halves to a whole in my book. Never one without the other.
“Well, I’d better not keep him waiting. I’ll see you later.”
“Don’t forget – I want details.”
I excused myself and trotted back across the street as quickly as I could without falling on my face. Even though I had unlocked the car for Matthew before I ran over to see Regina, he was still standing in my driveway. As I approached, he opened the driver’s side door for me. Once I was successfully inside, he rounded the car and climbed in the passenger seat.
It took me a moment to adjust everything to my specifications; the seat and the mirrors were set for someone much taller than myself. When my position was to my liking, I turned the key in the ignition and closed my eyes as the engine roared to life. Memories of the only other time I had driven this car flooded my head. I briefly wondered if he would care if we took the interstate back to his house, then decided that wouldn’t be a good idea. I wouldn’t be able to go as fast as I wanted to in broad daylight, radar detector or no.
He laughed as he lowered the convertible top, reading my mind. “Maybe later.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“I won’t judge. Hell, I’m the one that bought the thing. Trust me, I understand.”
Regina watched me pull out of the driveway, a smirk across her face as we passed. Yes, she was going to have a field day with this the next time she saw me alone. I’d never really thought about the hidden meaning that everyone else seemed to read into a girl driving a guy’s car, but apparently everyone else had. Maybe my interpretation of things was different due to the fact that Eric had always been so possessive about his car, even when he wasn’t among the ranks of BMW owners.
I drove the Mustang like a pro this time, shifting gears effortlessly. Matthew settled back in the passenger seat, an amicable silence falling between the two of us. The sunshine beamed down on us and the breeze kissed my bare shoulders. I had been thinking this morning when I had gotten ready and secured my hair in a headband so it wouldn’t get too windblown. There was no way I’d trade the heavenly feeling of a drive with the top down for a good hair day.
It only took about fifteen minutes to get to his house from my place. I might have moved, but it wasn’t far. Still, the last time I had been over here had been back in February when Gracie had forced me to make the pilgrimage. Though the scenery no longer was touched with the ice and snow that it had been then, it felt as if no time at all had passed since I had last driven down this road. Despite the driveways being indistinguishable from one another and the houses not visible past the heavily wooded lots, I instinctively guided the car down the correct driveway and up to his house.
“Just park out front,” he instructed, “we won’t be here long.”
I made a conscious effort not to park in the same exact spot that the Sonata had occupied when I had walked out on him. I wondered if he noticed. I settled instead for pulling into the circular part of the drive and parking as close to the door as possible. We left the top down and the doors unlocked – this was his own little sanctuary and no one would bother it.
Given Blake’s phone call this morning, I had half expected her to be here waiting on him to arrive home. I was glad she wasn’t. Pulling up to his house like I owned the place, driving his car was not exactly the way that I wanted to reintroduce myself into her life. Matthew might be convinced that there would be no bad blood between the two of us, but I needed a few more hours to prepare myself nonetheless.
I handed him back his keys, not wanting to be as forward as unlocking his own front door for him. He took them without protest and ushered me inside, his hand brushing the small of my back. I jumped at the warmth, goose bumps instantly rising over my bare skin.
“I’d invite you to come join me,” he said huskily into my ear, referring to the shower, “but you’re far too beautiful right now to ge
t wet. And if you got wet, I doubt we’d ever leave to get lunch. And I’m really hungry.”
His breath was hot against my skin, causing me to shiver. His lips slid down my neck. I wanted to dissolve into a puddle at his feet, but instead I spun around, meeting his mouth with my own. I grabbed handfuls of his shirt to support myself. All too soon he pulled away.
“I’ll be right back,” he promised with a smile, “make yourself at home.”
With that, he disappeared down the hallway that led to his bedroom and I was alone. It felt odd to be back in his house considering all that had happened here the last time. I knew it was just a place filled with inanimate objects, but memories swirled in my head just being here. I stared at the couch, remembering our ill-fated first kiss. Then my eyes swung over to the front door as I remembered slamming it in his face.
I wondered if he saw the same things I did when I looked at this room. If things had been even a fraction as difficult for him as they had been for me, it must have been excruciating to have these constant reminders staring at him. Or maybe that was just me, attaching emotion to stuff. The me that had run away instead of facing the truth.
Instead of sitting down, my nervous energy prompted me to remain standing. During one of my laps around the perimeter of his living room, I noticed the picture. Displayed on his bookshelf was a copy of the same photograph that Gracie had taken at Thanksgiving, the one that was currently shoved in my desk drawer at work. He hadn’t hidden it away like I had. Until now, I didn’t even know he had one – looking at his decorations had been the least of my worries the evening I had come over. But here it was all the same.
I bit my lip, suddenly feeling childish. I had been so quick to discount him, to assume that he had forgotten entirely about me the moment I had left. Sure it was just a picture. But to know that my image had stared back at him for the past five months – taunting him in the same room where I had screamed at him – filled me with a strange mixture of guilt and excitement. Surely he had to have realized it was there. He had kept it out on purpose. I doubted it was because he needed a reminder that he and his sister were insanely photogenic; there were enough photos of just the two of them to prove that point. He had held onto the only picture he had of me.
While I pondered that deep thought, I moved over to the couch and plopped down. I might as well leave him with the impression that I had relaxed the entire time he was showering and getting ready. In all likelihood I wouldn’t even bring up the picture in conversation; it was now a moot point, right?
Before long, Matthew returned from his bedroom and my thought processes stopped as I took him in. Whereas I had taken upwards of forty-five minutes to get ready, he was breathtaking in under fifteen. He was dressed in khaki shorts and a button down shirt. His blond hair was still damp and tousled, but the messy look suited him well. Instead of opting for the contacts, he was wearing his glasses. For whatever reason, I loved him in those black rimmed frames. He had only worn them in front of me one other time that I could recall – early on Thanksgiving morning, when he had just woken up.
I may have done a double take when I saw him, for he reflexively apologized.
“Sorry, I slept in my contacts and they were bugging the hell out of me.”
“I guess I’ll just have to suffer then,” I said with a shrug. If he wanted to believe that he was inconveniencing me, so be it.
“I want to show you something,” he said as he rounded the couch to stand in front of me. Once there, he stretched out his hand to help me up from my seated position. I took it, fully expecting him to let go the second I was upright, but he laced his fingers in between mine and squeezed.
I returned the gesture. “Okay.”
He led me back down the hallway, past the guest bathroom and into the bedroom that was situated across the hall from Blake’s old room. I remembered from my tour long ago that this was where he housed the majority of his sports memorabilia, most of it hockey related. He flipped on the light and I stared straight ahead at the large panoramic photograph I had given him of Joe Louis Arena, prominently displayed on the wall.
“I like where Blake decided to put it. How about you?” he asked.
It took a moment before my mouth was able to form a response. “It looks really nice,” I whispered.
“I thought about putting it in the living room,” he continued, “but Blake wasn’t on board with that idea. She thought that made my house look too much like a bachelor pad. So here it is, relegated to the man room, but somehow it still works.”
“It works because all of your other hockey stuff is in here,” I said, still dumbfounded.
I really didn’t know what I’d expected him to show me, but it hadn’t been that. Again he’d shocked me by keeping another memory of me visible the whole time I’d been hiding in plain sight. As much as it was a nice piece, if I had been in his shoes I doubted I would have been able to do the same. The picture would have gone in a closet, or the attic, anywhere but staring me in the face.
He laughed as if nothing was peculiar about it. Maybe nothing was. “Exactly what she said. And one day, I’ll have some tickets from a game I actually went to framed and put underneath it. Chris offered to give me back the one he used, but it didn’t feel right. It sort of felt like lying. Sure, it would look cool but I would always know I didn’t really go that night.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Going would have been lying to myself, too.”
“What do you mean?” I turned my attention from the wall back to his face.
“I would have driven all that way to be miserable. Sure, I would have pretended that I was having fun, but it would have been an act. One that Chris would have seen right through. Even though I could tell that you never intended to go with me, I wouldn’t have been able to use the tickets without thinking about you all night. I would have wished you were there with me.”
“So you wouldn’t have gone with Chris anyway? Even if none of the stuff that happened had happened?”
“If we would have still been friends at that time, I would have gone. Then I would have bored you with all of the minute details about it. But since I couldn’t share it with you, even in that way, it just wasn’t worth it.”
“I never meant to lose you as a friend,” I admitted, “but I just didn’t see how it could work.”
“I know,” he said softly, “we both misinterpreted things. You pulled away and I stopped trying because I thought you were happy with Eric.”
“So why did you keep reminding yourself?” The words just slipped out as if beyond my control. Instantly I wished that I could reel them back in, but once they had been said, I needed to expound on them to get the answer I was looking for. “This picture,” I gestured, “the one of us in the living room taken on Thanksgiving, why didn’t you take them down?”
He stared at me for a brief moment and I could see the wheels turning in his head. I waited while he formulated his response, afraid of what he would say. He didn’t release my hand the whole time, which was a good sign, but I still held my breath in uncertainty.
“Because they reminded me of you. You made me happy, and that’s not something that I’ve experienced much. You made me feel like there was still hope for me, that I wasn’t the person that my criminal record said I was. That my parents think I am. And maybe if you thought that, possibly lightning could strike twice and someone else would think that, too.”
“Other people already think that. Blake, Chris –“
“But they knew me before. You didn’t.”
“Gracie and my dad didn’t think badly of you, either.”
“Because you campaigned on my behalf. Hell, you even tried to get Eric to like me.”
I snorted. “So that wasn’t the brightest idea I’ve ever had.”
“No,” he said as he smoothed my hair with his free hand, “but it goes to show you how stupid he was to let you go.”
I stared up at him, confused.
“Laur
en, you see the good in everyone. You stand behind the people that you love unconditionally, even when they don’t deserve it. Eric had that for who knows how long before he realized it and tried to atone for it. And I was no better. Even if you get past the whole DUI thing, the whole time I was coveting what wasn’t mine. I was so wrong to be attracted to you in that way and I knew it, even if you didn’t see it.”
“I saw it,” I admitted, “I just pretended it wasn’t true. Or enough people saw it that I started to doubt my own interpretation of events.”
“When you left -“ we both winced at the bluntness of his word choice, “I tried to convince myself that I was happy for you. I tried to convince myself that you were happy. I imagined you with Eric house hunting. I thought about you and Gracie going wedding dress shopping together. I thought about you marrying him and having kids.”
He swallowed visibly, and I felt my eyes fill with tears.
“But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make myself believe it. And I hated Eric because of it. I hated him for setting your expectations so low that you would think it was okay for him to treat you the way he did. I hated that I didn’t break his nose when I had the chance, or key his car or something. Most of all I hated myself for what I had done, or what I hadn’t done.”
A single tear escaped my lashes and slid down my cheek. I made a move to wipe it away quickly, but Matthew’s thumb was already there taking care of it. He bent down and kissed me on the forehead, his lips brushing against the scar there.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered.
I took a deep breath to regain my composure. “You still didn’t answer the question.”
“Because the few short months that I knew you were the best of my life, Lauren. And even though they had ended, pretending they had never happened would have hurt ten times worse than acknowledging that they had. I was never meant to have you, not like that.”
“I beg to differ,” I whispered, “I think you were always meant to have me. Why else would I have ended up here, living with your sister? It just took both of us a little longer than it should have to end up on the same trajectory.”
Shattered Page 13
