Will It Be Forever

Addeline looked around and she couldn’t see him. Maybe he had decided not to come after all? She shook her head and went back to restocking the shelves with different booze bottles. Matt seemed to look a little more happier than usual after their moment in Starbucks. Talking to him had been nice, it had given her a chance to get to know him better and she could definitely see that there was still a little part of him there that wanted to be happy again.

All AJ had to do was make him happier and go through this deal with Brian. She sucked in a deep breath and felt a small pain in her chest. She could never tell him about the whole deal. She could just imagine how… Well she could just imagine how he would react to that and she didn’t know if she could handle it.

She bit her lower lip for a moment and put the last bottle on the shelf. The music was blaring, the sound of pool sticks hitting the little balls so they’d go in a side pocket resonated through the air, and the smells of alcohol and smoke was a scent that she’d never be able to get rid of from her clothes.

She picked up the empty bottles and turned around to throw them away when she heard, “Hey,” and Matt appeared out of no where. AJ let out a sound of surprise and all the bottles that she was holding in her hands had dropped to the floor, crashing and breaking at her feet.

She brought a hand to her heart and sucked in a deep breath. “Jesus, Matt, you scared me,” she told him. He made a face and shook his head.

“Let me help you clean that up,” he said.

AJ shook her head. “It’s just glass… I’ve got it,” she told him and he raised a small eyebrow. Was she missing something? She leaned down and started to pick up the larger pieces of glass when one of the pieces cut her palm. “Shit!” She exclaimed and saw the blood there. She stood up and then felt hands over her own. Her eyes widened slightly as she felt the electricity surge from his skin. She knew whose hands those were…

She looked up at Matt and his eyebrows creased together for a moment. “Well at least let me help you clean that up,” he said. AJ swallowed hard and nodded slightly.

“There’s a first aid kit in the back,” she told him. She glanced to her side. “Jessica! Clean this up please!” She gave the girl a smile before disappearing in the back to her office where Matt helped her clean up her cut. He took some gauze and put some hydrogen peroxide on it before dabbing it on her wound. AJ winced slightly and looked at him. “Thanks…” She said in just above a whisper.

Matt shook his head. “It’s no problem,” he said and then tossed the gauze in the trash before getting more and putting it on her cut. He grabbed a bandage and wrapped it around her hand. She smiled at him and then looked down at the ground. “You know…” He started and AJ briefly began to wonder if this was going to go anywhere good. “I haven’t been this close to a woman since…”

His voice trailed off but she knew where he was going with it. She sucked in a deep breath. “You miss her a lot don’t you?” AJ said, wondering if she would dance along the line with appropriateness soon enough.

Matt nodded. “I do,” he told her honestly. She looked at his hazel eyes for a moment. They looked a bit more green and deeper in color than they had been before. AJ could see the sorrow embedded deep within his irises.

“It’s been two years, hasn’t it? Since the day you walked in the bar?” AJ watched for his reaction as he used medical tape to keep the bandage together. She already knew the answer but maybe him talking about it would do some good for him. She had always been told talking about your problems helps you feel better. Had he talked to anyone about Val’s death after it had happened? She watched Matt nod slowly.

“Yeah,” he replied and she wondered if he noticed that he was still holding her hand. Their eyes met and AJ did everything she could to keep the eye contact. “She had been my everything since we were kids.” She felt a twinge in her chest. Oh God, she just wanted to melt and tell him everything. She couldn’t take the money from Brian. She couldn’t do that to him. “It’s just hard, you know?”

She bit her lower lip and nodded. “I understand,” she told him. It was hard losing someone you loved. The last time that had happened to her was when she was a kid. It had been her parents, who died in a car crash and her grand mother raised her until she was seventeen and out of the house. She died a year later. AJ understood the pain of loss and that was why she wanted to help him.

Could you blame her?

“But…” He started up again. Oh there was always a but… “You’re going to think I’m crazy…” She shook her head.

“What is it?” She asked, swallowing hard.

“I’ve been hearing her voice and she’s been telling me to move on.”

“Well what do you want to do?”

Matt seemed to hesitate for a moment. He didn’t look like he knew how to answer that. She sighed a bit and looked down at their hands. She looked back up at him and watched him blush for a moment. Even that was adorable. “I don’t know,” he said. That seemed to be an honest enough answer.

“What does your heart tell you?”

“To ask you out on a date.”

AJ gave him an amused look but the vulnerability he must’ve been feeling made the amusement go away. He was being serious. She opened her mouth to say something to him but then closed it, not knowing what to say. She licked her lips and swallowed hard. “Matt…”

“Come on say something otherwise I’m feeling pretty ridiculous…”

She sucked in a deep breath. “We tried one already? That didn’t work out so well,” she told him. Matt shook his head.

“This one’s real. It’s me asking you… What do you say?”

AJ gave him a small smile. “I’d love to…”