Page 8 of Chasing After You
Matti starts strolling in to meet me where I stopped, but he doesn’t have a chance to answer.
“Who’s Matti?” Oliver’s voice rings out, his footsteps following me down the steps until they come to a stop behind me.
I’m about to explain when Oliver and Matti’s eyes meet. After that, Oliver doesn’t need an introduction anymore.
“You’re Matthias Benning!” He brushes past me to reach my ex-husband. “You play bass with The Wilds. Wow!” He looks back at me. “Do you know who this is? He’s a member ofKnox Marley’s band.”
I twist my mouth uncomfortably. Apparently, my being in the dark about our being set up for this trip wasn’t the only thing my sisters neglected to mention to Oliver. “I know who this is.” I leave it at that and address Matti instead. “Why are you here? Is everything okay at home? Are the kids alright?”
Out of my peripheral vision, I can see Oliver’s face scrunch up in confusion, but I ignore it for now. Matti wouldn’t be here for no reason. Something is going on.
“The kids are fine. Still in Charlotte visiting my sister and her kids as planned,” he assures me quickly. His mouth opens to say more, but the words seem to stick in his throat.
“Then what are you doing here?” I laugh. I can’t help it. Things were already nuts. But this, Matti, standing here, in Hawaii, on a dude ranchwith horses, is absurd. “Surely, you didn’t come all this way just to seeme.”
“Of course not,” he laughs too, like he’s trying to brush it off as an utterly ludicrous suggestion. But something about the way he says it and the way his complexion seems to dance back and forth between pale and flushed, makes me wonder. “No, as it turns out, I'm staying here for a quick bit of R & R myself.”
“You are?” Even if I didn’t know the man was terrified of horses, I’d find this hard to believe. Taking off to Hawaii during the four days he has off while on the east coast portion of their U.S. tour doesn’t exactly sound like the obvious or most convenient option for a quick dose of R & R. “By yourself?”
“Yeah.” He shakes his head. “No, no. Not by myself. We’re all here. The whole band.”
I’ve never known Matti to ramble, but that’s definitely what he’s doing. So, I repeat his statement to him. So he can hear for himself how unlikely it all sounds. “The whole band is staying here. On the ranch.”
“Yeah.” He nods, gaze drifting back and forth like he’s listening to his own words to rate their level of believability. It’slow. It’s non-existent. “Everyone. Knox. Cass. Jason. Oh, and Kenley.”
Kenley? Who the fuck is Kenley? She can’t be coming with Jason. He and Cass have been together for two years now. And I just talked to her a couple of weeks ago. Everything was going great between them. And obviously, Knox isn’t bringing a woman.
Which just leaves...no. Can’t go there.
“And you just happened to come and knock on my door?” I continue, mostly just to push past my onslaught of panic, but also to see how far he’s willing to take this story.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I saw you. Outside. Unloading.” He’s grasping, but he’s committed, which I suppose is commendable even if it is all bullshit.
“And you thought you’d just come by and say hi.”
“Yes.” He nods, smiling with the relief of someone who wasn’t sure they would make it out of their lie alive. “Exactly.”
“Great.”
“Great.” He starts to fidget, his initial relief passing again now that we’re still standing here, and nothing real has been said. “So, hi.”
“Hi.” I refuse to help him out of the hole he’s digging himself into. “Was that it?”
“I guess so.” He peers past me, curiosity and discomfort growing in his eyes the longer they linger on Oliver still standing next to me. Finally, he bites the bullet and reaches his hand out toward him, “I’m sorry, we haven’t been officially introduced. I’m Matti.”
“Oliver.” Oliver looks torn between being delighted and painfully confused. So, I add to the mess.
“Oliver’s here with me,” I blurt out. “We’re here together.” Because two can play the bullshit game around here. And ifthere’s a Kenley, I’m damn sure letting him know there’s an Oliver.
Matti looks like he just got two shades paler. An impressive feat while on a trip in sunny Hawaii. “That’s so great.” He practically chokes on the words. “Wow. I had no idea you were seeing someone. The kids never mentioned it.”
“The kids don’t know.” I dare a glance in Oliver’s direction just to make sure he’s not on the verge of outing me. Mostly, he still seems too stunned by his proximity to a rock star to say much of anything. So, I go on, “Yet. This is our first big trip away. I figure if he can survive my siblings, he’s solid enough to meet the kids.” I hook my arm around Oliver’s. It feels weird but no weirder than anything else I’ve experienced in the last twenty-four hours or so. “Obviously, I was planning to talk to you about it first.”
Matti nods. “Of course.” We agreed when we split. We’d always share serious relationships with each other before telling the kids. “How convenient then, that I just happened to be here as well.”
Convenient wouldn’t have been my choice of words but fuck it. “Yeah, convenient.”
“Did you want to come in and sit down?” my brother offers from back inside the cabin where he’s been standing in the hallway just watching this shitshow unfold.
