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“Yes,” I insist, heat rising under the collar of my jacket. “I wish more friends did that for each other.”
When Matt meets my gaze again, I can see the teasing glint behind the darkness of his eyes.
“I’m just fucking with you, Bates, relax.”
I fold my arms over my chest, pouting, but Matt is still grinning. It’s a tired smile, but it’s there, and honestly? It’s one of the sexiest genuine smiles I’ve ever seen.
“What is this?” I drop my hands onto the table, keeping my steady gaze on his. “Why are you joking around now? Earlier today you were shooting daggers through me with your attitude alone.”
Matt shakes his head and his eyes finally drop from mine. He pretends to pick at a skin tag on his rough, calloused hands.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he says.
“Try me.”
He sighs, aggravated now, but I no longer care. I’m done screwing around with this guy and his shitty attitude.
“Look, Rowan,” Matt says with a small shake of his head, as if this whole exchange is the most annoying thing he’s ever had to face. “You bring something out in me, okay?” He pauses and takes a deep breath, and I stay silent, waiting for him to go on. “You bring out so much in me that sometimes I can’t control my emotions. When I saw you earlier this evening in our apartment with Dereck, I felt jealous. So fucking jealous. I thought that was it, that my chance with you was gone, done, and ruined. And honestly?” He runs a hand through his shaggy black hair and shrugs his shoulders.
“Honestly what?”
“Honestly, it killed me, okay? It shattered me.”
Silence settles over the table, a tense, awkward silence that feels so quiet I can hear my heart pounding in my ears.
“But then I saw you with Jason,” Matt continues. “At the restaurant tonight, and it brought out an entire new hurricane of emotions.”
“How come?”
“Because if you were on a date with Jason, maybe that meant that nothing really was going on between you and Dereck. That nothing was really serious yet.” He takes another deep breath and stops talking, focusing once again on his hands. “And I thought it might be easier, you know, to have a chance with you if I wasn’t trying to steal you from my best friend.”
Bestfriends, Matt, I think with an inward shiver. If only you fucking knew what sweet little Rowan has been up to.
But I don’t say this. I don’t say anything. I watch him instead, noticing how the tired lines in his face dance with his many changing expressions.
“Matt, is your mom okay?” I ask finally, hoping we can avoid the best friend conversation all together. “She looks … well, she doesn’t look good.”
Matt hesitates, and for a second I’m sure he’s not going to tell me anything, like maybe I’ve stepped into something far too personal, but then he rubs the back of his neck and shakes his head, defeated.
“Cancer. Lung cancer. Stage two.”
“Jesus.” My hand flutters over my mouth, shocked, and Matt looks away, unable to hold my eyes. I can’t blame him. Forcing my own shock to the sidelines, I reach over without thinking about it and place my hand over Matt’s, squeezing. I expect him to pull away at once, but he doesn’t. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Yeah, well, that’s life, right?”
“What is her treatment plan? Her chances?”
“She’s been in chemo for over six months now,” Matt says. “The doctors think it’s working okay, but it makes her super sick, too. She’s nothing but skin and bones now.”
“The cigarette,” I say, remembering something suddenly. “You said it was a metaphor. You never lit it.”
“Yeah. My mom smoked the majority of her life. I used to as a teenager, as well. When she got her diagnosis I just started doing it as a comfort thing. It stuck.”
I don’t say anything to this. There is nothing to say. I don’t ask about Matt’s dad, either, because I already know the story. Most of our senior high school class did, actually. Matt’s loser dad had taken off when he was little, after beating his mom unconscious and trying to load Matt up in his truck to take him away. I don’t know the details, but I don’t need to. It’s a horrifying ordeal, and if I’d ever given myself reason to feel bad for Matthew Nelson, that would have been it.
“Look, Matt …” I start to pull my hand away, figuring it’s starting to make him uncomfortable, but I’m shocked when he grabs hold of it to stop me, squeezing it gently. I relax and leave it there. “I’m sorry you found me in the apartment with Dereck. We were just talking.”
“They like you, too, you know,” Matt says, chuckling darkly. “Both Dereck and Bryce. I guess we all do, really.”
