Page 51 of Fall Into You
I walk over to the door and take a deep breath before unlocking and opening it just a little bit, enough for Danielle to see my eyes and desperate plea. “Dani…I may have…fucked up?”
“Gawd, what did you do?” Her hands fly to her hips, eyes narrowed.
“So…Matt may have come up last night and fallen asleep, and now he’s kind of stuck in my bedroom.”
A pause. “You are both such idiots. It’s like you want to get caught. Are you serious?” She’s not laughing or teasing me, which honestly has me kind of concerned. Is it the stress from Thanksgiving, or is she genuinely upset?
“Please, Dani, we need your help,” I plead.
“Fine, I’ll distract your brother, and you distract your mother. I don’t know how you’re going to get her out of the kitchen onThanksgiving morning,but whatever.” She rolls her eyes at me. I frown. Shit. The door to the basement is in the kitchen. She’s right. “I’ll just tell Vinny one of the toilets is clogged. Gimme a minute.” She walks away, screaming for my brother to come and help her in the bedroom bathroom.
While I wait to hear Vinny come up the stairs and go into his bedroom, I turn to Matt. He’s checking his phone, completely carefree, and something about his body language makes me suspicious of him.
“So what’s the deal? How am I getting out of here?” He sounds bored, completely uninterested.
“It’s like you want to get caught.”
“Oh my God.” I stare at him in horror. “You did this on purpose.” My hand flies to my mouth.
He looks up to meet my gaze, and for a split second, I see it in his eyes before he controls his expression. “Did what on purpose?”
I groan. “You are such an idiot.” He leans back slightly on the bed as if I’d pushed him.
“Excuse me?” His brows furrow, his anger from the previous night returning easily. But what did he expect? That I would just be okay with this exhibit of childish behavior? “I didn’t do anything on purpose. Plus, would it really be so bad? If we were publicly dating, this wouldn’t even be an issue. So we come clean. So what?”
“Even if they knew we were dating, this would not be cool by my mother’s standards, Matt! I dated Jeremy forthree years,and he was never allowed to stay in my room whenever we were over here. He always slept in the basement or the study. And he certainly did not try to sneak into my bedroom at night.” My mother is incredibly conservative, and though she knows I am not a virgin, she definitely does not want any of that in her own home.
“You’re gonna fucking compare me to that loser? Seriously? I’m at that level in your eyes?” He’s angry, raising his voice.
“Shh, Jesus! Vinny’s on his way up.”
“No, seriously, I want to know. Is that what I am to you, then? Another Jeremy? Less than that?” I know he’s hurt, but right now, I couldn’t care less. What I do care about is the fact that he’s pretending he doesn’t know what I’m talking about by deflecting. But still, I have to defend myself. I don’t ever want him to believe that what I feel for him is similar to what I felt with Jeremy, because it is absolutely not true—not even close.
“Youknowthat’s not true, Matt. Youknowthat. Youknowthat I—”
I’m cut off by the sound of Vinny coming up the stairs, complaining to Danielle about her inability to unclog a toilet and how simple it is.
I sigh, exhausted all of a sudden and feeling much older than my years. “We need to go,” I say when I hear the door to their bedroom close. “I’m going to lure my mother away from the kitchen so that you can go back into the basement through there.”
Matt gets up, scoffing, shaking his head. He rolls his eyes at me and says, “Whatever,” and I hate this right now.
We proceed to sneak down the stairs, tiptoeing like cartoons, until we reach the door just outside the kitchen. I tell him to hide in the guest bathroom while I speak to my mother and make something up to pull her out of her Thanksgiving meal-prep station. I tell her I need her help in picking an outfit, and she gives me a look like I’ve lost my goddamn mind, because I have never asked my mother for help with a look since being able to dress myself, and we both know it. My mother and I get along swimmingly, but something we do not agree on is fashion. I aim for trendy-casual, and my mother is more classic—she hates trends.
She looks up at me with wide and hopeful eyes and says, “Ma certo.” But of course.
I catch Matt sneaking into the kitchen from the corner of my eye as my mother and I make our way up the stairs. I’m so angry at him I don’t even want to speak to him. I’m having to control the fire building in my chest, the absolute indignation, but it’s tricky. Yesterday, I had to put all my focus on stifling how much I loved him. Today, I’m going to have to pretend like I don’t want to kill him.
Who would have known that it would be easier to hide love than to hide a lovers’ quarrel?
I’M SUCH AN ASSHOLE,I know. But it’s like I couldn’t control it. Like it was word vomit.
I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. I know I’m not like Jeremy. I know that she’s never felt this way before. That what she felt for him doesn’t even come close—because she’s told me so, and I’ve felt it.
But we haven’t even been here for twenty-four hours, and already it’s been absolute torture. I don’t know if she feels the same, but it’s been driving me crazy. I’m on edge, having to think carefully every time I address her in front of people, wondering whether what I want to say is too flirty or intimate for a brother’s best friend who doesn’t happen to be secretly dating her. I’ve had to pretend like I didn’t know certain things about her life and restrain myself from answering things like, “Yeah, she told me” or “I know.” Like I don’t know her or spend almost all of my free time with her, talk to her every day, have had my hands all over her body, memorized every inch of her skin.
It’s frustrating and hurtful, and frankly, I’m tired of it. I want to be able to say that she’s mine and I’m hers completely out in the open.
She was upset that I was being too flirty behind everyone’s back, but honestly, I wasn’t doing it maliciously orbecause I wanted to get caught. I just wanted to cheer her up since she looked about ready to have a panic attack all night (and now I know that I was making it worse). I was just trying to relieve some tension but also feel close to her. All night, I felt like she was slipping through my fingers. So, yeah, I guess I overdid it. I guess I was a little too handsy or forward. I guess sneaking into bed with her might not have been the best fucking idea ever.
