Intoxicated (17 page)

“If it means so much to you,” he said softly,
drawing out the words as though they pained him to utter them,
“then I will come for Thanksgiving.”

Without waiting for a response, he popped
open the driver’s side door and stalked to the elevator. Stunned, I
followed behind him.

I had won this battle, but could I win the
war?

The rest of the visit with Eric went as well
as could be expected. After he had conceded defeat, he retreated to
the bedroom. I trailed behind, unsure if I was reading his signals
correctly. I knew there would be no extracurricular activities
tonight, but wasn’t sure if I should assume I would be invited in
at all. I half expected him to ask me to bunk on the couch, but he
didn’t say anything to that effect. He gazed at me as I unzipped my
dress and changed into a pair of flannel shorts and a t-shirt. His
expression was unreadable. We both climbed into bed, lying as far
apart as the king sized mattress would allow.

When morning came, I made some flimsy excuse
about needing to return to the office to finish up some work I
hadn’t done on Friday. Instead of begging me to stay, he took this
at face value and nodded. He understood work and being busy; maybe
he didn’t think it was a lie. At any rate, he sat at the kitchen
table poring over the Sunday newspaper as I gathered my belongings
and prepared to leave. He barely addressed me as I returned to his
side, my overnight bag slung over my shoulder. I promised him I
would text him the directions to wherever Thanksgiving would be
held. He mumbled an acknowledgment and kissed me dismissively on
the cheek.

It felt like the weight of the world had been
lifted off of my shoulders as the elevator doors closed in front of
me and I descended to my Honda. I released a breath I hadn’t
realized I’d been holding as I unlocked my car door and climbed
inside.

Once I was on the interstate and headed back
to Fort Wayne, I pulled out my phone and dialed Gracie. She had
obviously had a pretty rough night; the hangover she was feeling
was apparent in the way she spoke on the phone. Because of this,
she didn’t question why I was wasting precious time with Eric
calling her. I quickly asked her to come to Thanksgiving. She
responded in the affirmative. Like with Eric, I told her that I
would finalize the details later. She seemed relieved when I ended
the conversation. I imagined she had hung up and gone straight back
to bed. I wondered if she would even remember that we had spoken
later.

The Mustang was parked in the driveway when I
pulled up to the house. Luckily, Matthew usually pulled in on
Blake’s side and today was no different. I opened the garage door
and maneuvered my car in beside the Miata. I tried to ignore the
fact that just the sight of his car had brought a smile to my face.
We were just friends, that was all. I was happy to be seeing Blake
again, too.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Matthew greeted the moment
the door to the kitchen swung open, “welcome home.”

I stepped completely into the kitchen.
Matthew was seated at the breakfast bar. Blake stood across from
him, loading the dishwasher. She twirled around as I shut the door
behind me, a surprised look on her face. Clearly, she hadn’t been
expecting me back yet. She narrowed her eyes with concern, studying
my face for signs of tears.

“Hey, yourselves,” I said as casually as I
could muster. I walked past them both and deposited my duffel bag
and purse on the kitchen table.

“I am so glad you’re back,” Matthew said.

His sentiment caught me entirely off guard. I
turned to look at him, meeting him squarely in the eyes. I felt
heat rise up to my cheeks. Out of the corner of my vision, I
noticed Blake stopped what she was doing. His comment hadn’t gone
unnoticed by her, either.

It took him just a split second to finish his
thought, but during that time you could hear a pin drop. Blake and
I collectively held our breath and waited.

“Blake’s cooking is horrendous.”

Oh. I giggled nervously. Blake returned to
her dishes. It was just like me to overreact. Again, an innocent,
friendly observation. He was happy to see me because of my culinary
skills, nothing more.

“Did you have a good time?” Blake asked,
effectively changing the subject.

I shrugged, and the siblings exchanged a
knowing glance.

“Parts of it were good,” I allowed, “and I
got him to agree to come to Thanksgiving.”

“Great.” Blake said, sounding like it was
anything but.

“And you’ve got yourself a host,” Matthew
added. “Blake worked on me while you were gone. I find it hard to
tell her no.”

“But he gave a valiant effort.” Blake
laughed.

“So, how about tomorrow after work we go over
to my place? I’ll come and pick you up. Blake has a client meeting,
so it’ll just be the two of us.”

The way he presented it was so ordinary, like
it was no big deal. And logistically, it made sense. Thanksgiving
was fast approaching, and if I was the hostess, I needed to feel in
my element. There was no possible way I could do that in a foreign
kitchen. It was just prudent to get a lay of the land. But to my
ears, his words had a double meaning. It almost sounded like he was
asking me out.

“Sure, whatever works for you,” I tried my
best to sound noncommittal.

“Then it’s settled. We can stop somewhere and
pick up dinner on the way. I have nothing at my house, unless you
like cereal.”

“He likes to mooch off of his baby sister,”
Blake said with a grin.

“My baby sister knows how to pick a
roommate.”

At that, I turned bright red. No matter what
the topic at hand was, he always seemed to twist it around in a way
that left me blushing. I wondered how much of it was intentional
flirting, and how much was just his charisma. I had watched him
interact with Blake so many times; none of these comments appeared
out of the ordinary. I was just taking things out of context. If he
was saying these exact words to his sister, there would be nothing
wrong with them.

Damn Eric for putting these thoughts into my
head. Damn him for suggesting that Matthew would inherently want
more than friendship. His comments had me subliminally creating
examples of flirtatious behavior. He was intentionally feeding me
reasons to have a guilty conscience.

Not that I needed any help with the guilt. My
dream on Friday night had succeeded quite well on its own, thank
you. My thoughts flashed back to the image of Matthew naked in my
bed, my comforter draped conveniently over him to avoid exposing
too much. If I hadn’t already been the color of a beet, I would
have turned crimson.

Matthew slid down from his barstool.

“I hate to eat and run,” he announced, “but
Chris is coming over in an hour. I need to get back home.”

At this news, Blake stuck out her tongue. He
didn’t look offended. Instead he crossed the kitchen and gave her a
big hug.

“Bye, dork,” she said, pulling away from his
embrace, “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

He made his way back to me. I stood frozen in
place, watching as he approached as if he was moving in slow
motion. He placed his hand on my shoulder, giving me a big
smile.

“And you,” he said, squeezing gently, “I will
see tomorrow.”

I nodded dumbly. All I could think about was
his hand on me, how his touch was warm even through my sweatshirt.
He bent down, his lips just inches away from my ear. I could feel
his breath on my neck. Despite my desire to keep cool, I
shivered.

“Are you okay?” he whispered. Obviously, he
didn’t want Blake to hear. He held me at arm’s length, his blue
eyes searching my face for clues.

“Yes,” I said under my breath, “I will
be.”

“Really?”

I nodded, attempting to convince myself. He
shook his head in disbelief, then squeezed my shoulder once more
before he left. I stood still, staring at the place that he had
just vacated, even after I heard the front door close behind him.
Tears sprang to my eyes as I heard the Mustang roar to life and
pull away from the house. With a deep breath, I wiped the moisture
away with my sleeve and went to join Blake by the breakfast
bar.

Blake either hadn’t heard our exchange, or
she did a good job pretending she hadn’t. She glanced up as I took
a seat on the stool across the counter from her. Finished with her
cleaning, she set her dish towel down and came around to join
me.

“Can I ask you something?” I questioned
hesitantly. I felt embarrassed even bringing it up, certain it was
nothing.

“Sure.”

“Who’s Chris?”

She smirked, stifling a laugh. “Chris is his
best friend. Also my ex.”

“Oh.”

I couldn’t help but feel relief. The
sentiment was surprising to say the least. When he had mentioned
the name, as gender neutral as it was, I had felt some apprehension
about him possibly having a date. This made no sense at all. Him
dating someone was none of my business. None of my concern.

“Jealous much?”

Blake was perceptive, that much was sure.

“I was just curious. He never talks about
anyone around me. And you obviously had a strong opinion about this
person. It was intriguing.”

“And you thought Chris might be a girl.
Classic.”

“First Eric and now you.”

Her eyebrow arched, begging me for an
explanation.

“Eric told me to be careful. That guys can’t
be friends with girls. He said that eventually Matthew would end up
wanting more even though I am spoken for.”

“Which is why you’re home early?”

“Partially.”

I proceeded to go into great detail about the
weekend. I made sure to highlight the good parts: the pizza, the
conversations, the shopping, my new necklace, the intimacy. But no
matter how much I raved about the fun we had had together, the
fairy tale still ended the same way. We still wound up arguing over
my move to Fort Wayne during a very expensive dinner. I edited out
the dream I had about Matthew, not sure that needed to be shared
with anyone, especially not his sister.

“I’m proud of you,” she stated when I had
finished, “for standing up to him the way you did. I mean, I’ve
only known you for a few weeks now, but already he has put you
through a lot of grief. I can’t imagine the smaller things that he
has done during your relationship. Anyone who would ever ditch you
like he did, that’s not their first offense. Maybe now that you’ve
removed yourself from your comfort zone you are starting to realize
that.”

I shrugged. “He promised me when I left that
we would make things work. I believed him. And now I’m not so
sure.”

“He’s coming to Thanksgiving, right? That’s
progress. I know it didn’t come as smoothly as you intended, but he
is giving you that.”

“He hasn’t shown up yet. He could still
ditch.”

“And face your wrath? If you mean anything to
him, that is extremely doubtful. Especially not when your dad will
be here, too. And Matthew. If he is so worried about my brother,
he’ll definitely come to size up the competition.”

“There’s no competition.”

She smiled knowingly. “I know, you have a
boyfriend, right? Who is very jealous of a new friend you’ve made
who also happens to be a guy. Trust me, Eric wouldn’t miss this for
the world. He’ll come just to put a face with the name.”

“We should probably call the police and put
them on notice.” I said, only half joking.

She giggled. “I know that Matthew flirts with
you a little bit when it’s just us, but he will be on his best
behavior in front of Eric. In fact, he’ll be nervous as hell in
front of your dad.”

“I’m asking a lot of him, aren’t I?”

I hadn’t really thought about it in that
context before. I was attempting to help Matthew by having him talk
with my father. My intentions were good, but I had set my plan into
motion with little regard to how he felt about the whole thing.
Matthew had been hurt deeply by the two people who were supposed to
love him unconditionally, and I was asking him to spill his darkest
secrets to a stranger. He was intensely private about the whole
turn of events, and I wanted him to put everything on display. He
hadn’t even sat down to tell me about it in his own words. I only
knew what I did because of Blake and her scrapbook.

Blake thought for a moment before saying
anything. “Yes, but it’s not a bad thing. He needs to face his
demons before he can get rid of them. He’s been broken for a long
time, Lauren, and I wasn’t sure that anything would ever begin to
fix him. And then you came into our lives and something happened.
Sometimes you don’t understand why you meet certain people, and
other times you do.”

“I always thought it was a huge coincidence
that we were all affected by drunk driving. I answered your ad for
a roommate on a whim. I never really considered it was fate.”

“Call it what you want, but it happened. And
he thinks the world of you. And so do I. So whatever it is, it’s a
good thing.”

“I know it may be a convoluted scheme, but my
intentions are good. I feel so bad that he only has a handful of
people that he considers to be on his side. If I can show him that
most people don’t think like his parents, then maybe he’ll start to
feel less guilt over everything.”

“We all have skeletons in our closet. His are
just available for everyone to read about on the internet.”

“Because if it’s on the internet, then it’s
got to be true.” My words were laced with sarcasm.

“Most of it is in this case.”

“I haven’t looked. I don’t know if I ever
will. If he wants me to know, he’ll tell me.”

She smiled. “I think he will tell you
everything. In time. He’s never had to do that before, so it’s all
new territory. Chris and I already know. We lived it with him. And
he pushes everyone else away before they get too close. But you,
you’re different.”