by Noelle Adams
Evidently taking this sound as an invitation, Theodore jumped onto the bed in an ungainly sprawl, collected his legs and paws, and inched closer to where Matthew was lying, tentatively leaning down to sniff his face.
“Hey boy,” Matthew said.
Theodore sniffed again.
“Yeah. I don’t know what’s going on. I might have messed up. It was weird. It ended weird.” Matthew turned his head as the dog lay down beside him, his head up like he was uncertain what the expectations were for him in this moment. “What the hell did I just do?”
Theodore’s only answer was an anxious look.
“I was about to tell her how I feel. I wanted to. I was trying. But then it got... weird.” Matthew closed his eyes, remembering the stiff, fake smile on Skye’s face. He’d been taken off guard by her abrupt question. He’d had no idea what to say since the honest answer would have meant stripping himself bare. He wasn’t any good at dealing with difficult social moments. All his life, he’d only ever retreated from them.
But he loved Skye, and it seemed like it was important that she know that. So he’d been trying to get the words out.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Maybe she knew what I was about to say.” He stared through blurry eyes up at the ceiling. “And she didn’t want to hear it. I should have played it cool for a while so I didn’t scare her away. She’s the best thing to ever happen to me, and I blew it.”
This reality prompted him to action. He grabbed for his phone from his pocket and held it up above his face, staring at the screen, the digital lettering displaying the date and time and the profound lack of messages.
Unlocking it, he pulled up the text history with Skye. There wasn’t much of it. They’d never chatted in text. It was mostly a series of years’ old logistical inquiries about group outings with their mutual friends.
He tapped out a message. I’m sorry I made it weird. Thanks for tonight. I had a really good time.
He read it several times before he hit Send. It sounded okay. Nice and polite, but not overly needy.
He waited after he sent it. And waited. And waited.
She didn’t send a response back.
He dropped his phone and said to Theodore, “I really blew it, boy. I’m not sure what you were thinking, hooking up with me. You could have done a lot better. You should have made a better choice.”
Theodore understood his tone, if nothing else. He edged closer and gave Matthew’s face a big lick.
“Yeah. I’m glad you chose me too.”
“YOU GUYS REALLY DIDN’T have to come over,” Skye said the following morning. It was about the sixth time she’d said it since Ria and Madeline had shown up at her parents’ house at just after seven in the morning, twenty minutes after she’d texted them.
“Of course we did,” Madeline said, curled up in an old beanbag chair Skye had had since middle school. “You were upset.”
“My text said I was fine. You had no way of knowing I was upset.” Skye hadn’t slept much, and the truth was she felt better now that her friends were there.
“You know perfectly well that we can tell the difference between an upset I’m fine and a regular I’m fine,” Ria said. “Even in a text.”
“Well, I really am okay.”
“No, you’re not. You’re upset. And I just don’t understand what Matthew is thinking. I mean, what’s wrong with the big clueless boy?” Madeline scowled at what was clearly a mental vision of her brother.
“It’s not his fault. If he doesn’t feel the same way I do, it’s not his fault. He never led me on.”
“Oh please. Clearly he did. You wouldn’t have had so much hope if he hadn’t been... giving you ideas. And it’s not like him to do that. He’s usually so careful and responsible.” Madeline was still frowning. “I don’t get it at all.”
“I’m telling you it’s probably my fault. I was imagining things into his behavior. Girls do that all the time, and I’m sure that’s what I was doing too.” Skye was sprawled out on top of the covers of her bed. “I’m just so bad at this. I mean, it felt like he was acting differently. It seemed like... But how the hell am I supposed to know? How did you guys know? I mean, with Jacob and Ken. When did you know they really loved you?”
Madeline’s expression shifted thoughtfully. “I was picking up feelings from him for a while, but they were all confused and blurred into the mess of my own fears and hang-ups and insecurities. So the truth is I didn’t know he really loved me until he told me.”
Ria chuckled. “Jacob told me. He told me he loved me. But I still didn’t know for sure. I wasn’t sure of it. Not until he came back for me the second time.” She was sitting cross-legged on the foot of the bed. “Listen, Skye. Don’t beat yourself up. I know there’s this idea out there that a woman always knows when a man has feelings for her—or she should know—but that’s just not always the case. It’s confusing. Relationships are strange and scary and confusing. They mean making yourself completely vulnerable in a way that we’re just not used to doing. And we get it wrong a lot. So you haven’t messed up. You’re doing the best you can.”
“Thank you. I mean it. But I must have messed up or I wouldn’t feel this bad.” Skye picked up her phone and read for the thousandth time the text Matthew had sent her last night. “He says he had a good time.” The words came out with a little whimper.
Madeline scowled again. “Oh, he’s such a jerk!”
MATTHEW DIDN’T SLEEP very much. He lay in bed most of the night with his eyes open, replaying every moment with Skye the evening before, reviewing everything he should have said and done better. Then he imagined a hundred different things he could do now. Grand gestures and casual encounters and smoothly appropriate advances.
By morning, he was bone-tired and even more despairing than he’d been when he’d gotten home.
He took a long shower and drank three cups of coffee, but he was still feeling like hell when Madeline sent him a text and said she was coming up.
It wasn’t even eight in the morning yet, so he wasn’t sure what she was doing there. But this was her place, so he could hardly tell her to go away—even though he wasn’t in the mood to socialize.
He assumed she was just in the neighborhood or maybe she needed something out of the storage closet. She’d just come and go quickly with a few friendly words.
So he wasn’t prepared for what happened. She stormed into the apartment and glared at him stretched out on the couch with Theodore on his feet. “You asshole!” she bit out. “You absolute asshole!”
Matthew sat up so quickly that Theodore let out a disapproving grunt. “What?”
“How could you? How could you do it?”
“What did I do?” He was genuinely baffled—too surprised to be annoyed by her unprovoked attack.
“I don’t know what you did!” she wailed. “I have no idea. I don’t know how you could have... I thought for sure that you were really... What did you do?”
Matthew suddenly understood where this was coming from. It must be about Skye. “I didn’t... I don’t think I did anything.”
“You don’t think—” She made a sputtering sound. She’d sat down on the couch beside him, in between him and Theodore, who looked highly disturbed by the angry vibes in the air. “She’s been crying all night! She’s still crying. If you didn’t do anything, then why the hell is she crying right now?”
Matthew raised a hand to his throat. It felt like his heart was pounding there. “She’s crying?” he breathed.
“Yes, she’s crying. You told her you had a good time. A good time! And I can’t believe you would have done that! I thought... I mean, I know you’ve got a few issues in getting close to people, but I never dreamed you would use my best friend like that. Make her feel like she’s not... she’s not...”
“She is!” Matthew burst out. “She thinks I don’t care about her? How can she possibly think that?”
Madeline must have read the truth in his horrified expression and achin
g tone of voice. Her outrage faded quickly. She searched Matthew’s face urgently. Then she made an impatient sound and gave him a couple of light swats on the arm. “You idiot! She thinks that because you haven’t told her anything! She was expecting you to say something, and you basically said she was a good time.”
“She... she... I did?”
“Oh my God! How can a man as smart as you be so completely clueless? Yes. What did you think would happen? That she would read your mind and just know how you feel about her?”
“Well... yeah. I thought it was obvious.” Matthew looked around, seeing again the stilted conversation from the night before. “I thought... I wanted to say something, but then she seemed to... I wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. She seemed like she wanted to get away from me.”
“Look at me, Matthew.” She held his gaze when he turned his head. Her face was serious. “It’s never going to all fall in place with absolute precision. It’s never going to feel perfect. It’s never going to be absolutely safe. You’re giving someone else the chance to hurt you if they want. But you do it anyway. You have to do it anyway. It’s the only way to really live in this world. It’s the only way to love someone.”
The lump in his throat threatened to strangle him. He stared at an empty spot in the air a long time. Then he finally nodded.
“Do you love her?” Madeline asked softly.
Matthew nodded stiffly. He wasn’t meeting her eyes.
“Then tell her that. It doesn’t matter whether or not you do it well. It doesn’t matter if it feels safe and comfortable. Just tell her. I think it’s going to be enough.”
He nodded again.
It went against everything he was—everything he’d always been. Putting into words the deepest and messiest of his feelings. The only thing in the world that could push him into doing so was the knowledge that Skye was crying right now, and he was the one who had done that to her.
He had to fix it. No matter what it took.
If it meant stripping himself of everything he’d always believed made him himself, then that was what he’d do.
She was worth a lot more than that.
MATTHEW CHANGED INTO decent clothes—tan trousers and a black crewneck—before driving over to Skye’s parents’ house. Fortunately, Madeline had volunteered to take Theodore over to play with Marlowe, so he didn’t have to worry about the dog.
He was nervous enough as it was. Almost paralyzed by the pressure to say something.
Only the vision of Skye crying pushed him forward.
He parked on the long driveway and walked toward the house, distracted when he heard his name called out from a distance.
It was Tyler, who’d been outside his converted apartment. He’d seen Matthew and called out a greeting, so Matthew had to wait for his friend to appear.
“What are you doing over here?” Tyler asked, looking casual and friendly and a little confused. “Kind of early to pay a visit.”
“I know.” Matthew cleared his throat. “I know.”
“You want to come on over?” Tyler asked, gesturing toward his place. “I was planning to start working on a front deck today.”
“Oh. Uh.” Matthew realized that his friend had absolutely no idea what he was doing there. “I’d actually... like to, uh, talk to... Skye.”
Tyler frowned, visibly bewildered. “Skye? Why do you need to talk to her? I’m not sure she’ll be in the mood anyway. She’s been kind of upset this morning, I guess, although I don’t know...”
Matthew could see his friend—never the most observant or intuitive of human beings—finally put the mental pieces together.
“Wait.” Tyler was frowning again but in a different way this time. “Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. Is something going on?”
That was the last thing Matthew had imagined he’d have to face when he went over there this morning. He wanted to see Skye. Talk to Skye. Not deal with this. But Tyler had been his friend since he’d moved to Azalea fourteen years ago, and he couldn’t just toss that friendship aside because he was distracted by other things. He said, “M-maybe.”
For a long moment, Tyler’s expression was torn between surprise and disapproval and something that looked like skeptical distaste. “Seriously? Skye?”
Matthew shrugged. “I don’t... I need to talk to her.”
In resigned astonishment, Tyler’s face cleared and he gave a dramatic shrug. “Whatever, man. Just sort it out quick. I could really use your help with the deck.”
More relieved than he would have expected, Matthew waved and mumbled something noncommittal as he headed once again for the main house.
The gauntlet he had to run to get to Skye wasn’t over. Her mother answered the door. She gave him a sober, disappointed frown as she let him in without comment.
Matthew couldn’t remember anyone looking at him with as much disapproval as Mrs. Devereaux was right now.
“Let the boy in, Sharon,” Mr. Devereaux said from around the corner. He was at the table, drinking coffee and finishing a plate of what looked like eggs, bacon, and biscuits.
Mrs. Devereaux sniffed. “I am letting him in, but if he’s going to cause more trouble, then he’s not welcome.”
Evidently they knew that he was the source of Skye’s current mood. Matthew’s cheeks warmed. He wanted to cringe. But he pressed on. “I’m not going to cause more trouble,” he said. “I promise.”
“See that you don’t.” Skye’s mother was a high school principal. She knew how to glare.
“Give him a chance, Sharon.” That was Gran, speaking from the rocking chair where she always seemed to sit. She smiled at Matthew. “Skye’s upstairs. I’m glad to see you here, young man.”
“Uh. Yeah.” Shit, this might have been the most awkward and exposed that Matthew had ever felt in his life. Every one of these people knew his business. His most intimate secrets. They could see his entire heart.
He stood stiffly, unsure of what to do.
“Well, go on,” Mrs. Devereaux said impatiently, waving him up the stairs.
Relieved and embarrassed and just a little amused by the malevolence of her glare, he took the steps two at a time until he reached the second-floor hallway. Then he realized he had no idea what room was Skye’s.
There were four rooms off the hallway, plus one that was obviously a bathroom. Since only one door was closed all the way, he decided that was probably Skye’s.
He tapped on the door lightly, his heart starting to race again.
“Go away. I’m not in the mood.”
He opened his mouth, but his throat was too dry to get a word out.
“I said go away, Mom. I’m fine. I feel like being alone.”
The voice through the door broke just slightly, and it pushed Matthew into action. He knocked again. “It’s me, Skye.”
“What?” she squeaked.
“It’s me. Matthew.”
He heard some scuffling from the room. After a minute, the door opened slowly. Skye peeked out at him through a crack. Her hair was messy, and her eyes were puffy. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk.”
“Did someone tell you to come? Because I’m fine. And if you’re going to feel sorry for me or patronize me or pat me on the head, then I swear to God I’ll kick you in the ass.” She glared at him, nearly as malevolently as her mother had at the bottom of the stairs.
It was then—exactly then—that Matthew knew it didn’t matter how unused to this kind of thing he was. How bad at it he was. How inexperienced he was with real feelings, with intimacy, with giving himself to another person.
Because he loved this woman more than anything, and he simply had to tell her.
So he did.
“I love you,” he blurted out, right there in the hallway of her parents’ house while she was holding her bedroom door open a crack.
She froze. “What did you say?” she whispered after several tense moments.
“I love you!” That time he said
it too loud. They might have been able to hear him downstairs. With a quick look over his shoulder, he asked, “Can I please come in?”
She opened the door wider and stepped out of the way. She was staring up at him with big blue eyes as she closed the door.
Her room was cute and slightly messy with some clothes draped around furniture and a collection of tossed shoes in one corner. Matthew took it in with one quick glance and then met Skye’s eyes again.
“Did you say...?” She bit her bottom lip as she trailed off.
“I love you. I really do. I’m not sure when it happened or how or anything except I do. I’m not any good at this. I’ll never be good at this. But I love you, and I’m here to tell you that.” He cleared his throat. “That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“Well, it might be nice if you have some sort of answer for me,” he said, glancing down. “But it doesn’t have to be the same thing. I mean, I’m not expecting anything. It’s fine if you don’t feel the same way. I just had to tell you. And maybe you could let me know if there’s any chance in the future for—”
“You big idiot!” she burst out, hurling herself into his arms with such force that she nearly knocked them both off their feet. “I love you too! Don’t you know that?”
He wrapped his arms around her immediately, but it took a few moments to process what she’d said. He pulled back. “You do?”
“Of course I do. I’ve spent years following you around adoringly.” She was beaming. Glowing. Spilling over with joy and heart and laughter.
“Well, yeah, but I didn’t think... I mean, that was a crush. It didn’t mean you actually wanted... me.”
She hugged him hard, and the knot in his chest—the one that felt like he’d lived with forever—slowly started to soften, unwind. “Well, I do want you. I love you too. Maybe I’ve grown into this, or maybe it’s always been there. But I love you too, Matthew. I really do.”
With a helpless groan, he took her little face in his hands and kissed her. She wound her arms around his neck as she kissed him back. They were both too overwhelmed to be particularly smooth or skillful about it, but it didn’t matter.
