This Is Primetime

Markie left the day before Matt got home. She didn't want to have to face Josh after she'd accidentally exposed his secret to the one person that hadn't been meant to hear it. I didn't blame her. And I was actually glad that she hadn't been around to see how it all played out.

I was still sitting on Josh's bedroom floor, unable to think of anything to say. Matt was sitting on his other side. We'd been like this for twenty minutes, nobody speaking.

"I'm just going to go ahead and assume that your mom expected us to be of more use over this," Matt said suddenly, breaking the silence.

Josh laughed in an oddly hollow way. "Yeah, you're probably right."

I hadn't been able to find anything to say since Josh had made the reference to The Breakfast Club. I hadn't thought about that since high school. Since before he and I had broken up.

Why did this have to happen now? I was just beginning to think that things were falling into place, and now everything was just as jumbled up as it had been a month ago, if not more so. My head actually hurt from the mass of thoughts trying to force their way out.

"Matt," I whispered after another few minutes of quiet had passed. "Can you give us a second?"

Matt looked torn. I understood his concern; if Josh and I had kissed when Stacey had still been around, what would we do now? After a long moment, he nodded and got to his feet. He closed the door behind him, though I was sure he was pressing his ear up against the other side of it.

"Josh, I'm really sorry about all of this. But I don't think it needs to change anything between us right now. I still want to try things out with Matt."

"Good," he sounded a bit relieved. "I'm glad that you see it that way."

I had to admit, his acceptance kind of shocked me. "But I'm always here if you need to talk."

"Of course. Same to you. We'll hang out, okay?"

I smiled at him and gave him another hug. This time, he hugged me back. It felt nice. For some reason, I felt a strong urge to tell him that I loved him again. I suppressed it, knowing that it wouldn't help anything. I just couldn't seem to get over him, and the fact that he was suddenly single was making it worse.

"Call me, Josh," I whispered, then released him. "I want to help. Especially since I pretty much caused all of this. I really don't want to see you hurt."

"I will. And please, Becky, stop blaming yourself. I know that you feel bad, but it's not really helping anything to see you tearing yourself apart. It's over, and that's that. Yes, I'll miss her. A lot. But I'll survive. I've made it through worse."

"I can't help it. I feel guilty. Pretty much everytime that I know you're in pain, I've caused it," I frowned. "Or at least I feel like it's because of me."

"That's funny, I feel the same way about you."

I left his bedroom a few minutes later. Matt was giving me a curious stare, but I didn't say anything to reassure him. I simply took his hand in mine and led him upstairs and away from Josh's bedroom.

"Is he okay?" Matt questioned after we said goodbye to Josh's mom and left the house.

"I'm not really sure. But I think he will be. He promised to call if he needs anything. But I still think we should check in on him every now and then," I replied, climbing into Matt's truck.

"That's probably a good plan. I hope he gets better by the time we go into the studio," Matt murmured, appearing to be deep in thought as he backed out of the driveway.

"Which is when, exactly?" I had to admit, I was kind of excited for the boys to record. I would get a chance to hear their new music, and Matt would come home every night.

"I'm not really sure yet. We have a meeting with the label the day after tomorrow. We should find out then. I think it should be really soon, though. We've got a solid album worth of songs right now."

"That's cool."

We didn't live far from Josh's place, but Matt seemed to be taking a different route home than he'd taken on the way there. After all these years, I still recognized the road we were taking. A few houses had been torn down and rebuilt; apparently, the neighborhood was undergoing some serious renovations. But as Matt slowed the truck slightly, I saw that my old house was still there.

It had never been the nicest house on the block, but whoever lived there now had at least made an effort to make it look better. The front walk was now lined with beautifully groomed flower beds, and the dull tan outside of the building had been repainted to a bright white. If such small, yet noticeable changes had been made to the outside, I wondered what had been done inside.

"Stop," I whispered suddenly.

Matt seemed to have been ready for me to give him the command. He pulled over immediately and turned off the truck. I leapt out without another word and walked carefully by the house, never leaving the sidewalk. Matt followed as I headed around to the back, my curiosity getting the better of me.

The old fence had been removed completely and replaced with a low white picket one. I remembered kissing Josh in the shadows of the tall one we'd had. It was where he'd told me that he loved me for the first time. The backyard was filled with colorful plastic toys, and a sand box had been added in the far corner. Some little kid had my bedroom now, no doubt.

As I stood there, speechless, two years worth of memories washed over me. I reached for Matt's hand as I recalled the countless times he'd come to visit me. He gave me a comforting squeeze without saying a word. I remembered once, when I was in the ninth grade, when the two of us had sat out on the back porch as the sun was setting. We hadn't had any cares in the world; we'd just talked.

I turned to face him abruptly. "You've always been my best friend. Even when we lost touch. It was always you that I wanted to talk to when something went wrong, or when I had good news. It was always you."

Matt smiled softly at me, then reached up with his free hand and ran his fingers lightly across my forehead, brushing away a chunk of hair that had fallen over my eyes. "You're my best friend, too, Beck. Obviously time hasn't changed that."

I looked back over my shoulder at the house I used to live in. "Everything around here is so different."

"Yeah, they're changing a lot of the neighborhoods in this area. Josh's family is talking about moving. I think that he'll finally move out when they do. I mean, he'll have to move all of his shit somewhere anyways, and he's been talking about getting an apartment for quite awhile."

I smirked suddenly as I remembered a conversation Josh and I had shared once. "He promised he'd be out of there by the time he's twenty-five."

Matt raised his eyebrows a bit. "There's a lot that I didn't know about the two of you, isn't there?"

I nodded, then shrugged my shoulders. "Yeah, maybe. Just the little things, though. I'm pretty sure I told you all the big stuff."

I neglected to add that with Josh, the little things had been the best part. Of course, Matt had always made me feel just as good as Josh did, just in a different way. But maybe something different was what I needed now.

"Can we go home now? I don't really want to hang out in my old backyard all day."

Matt smiled in agreement. "Sure, let's go. Hey, did I mention that I really like what you did with the place while I was gone?"

I felt my cheeks flush. "I can't actually take the credit for that. Markie did it one day when I was at work. She said that it needed to feel like my house, too."

"She's right. You didn't take up any space before. Now it's like more than one person actually lives there. Oh, I almost forgot, did you actually sleep in my bed? It doesn't look like you touched anything at all in my room."

"I didn't want to mess anything up. But I did sleep in there. Surprisingly, I think I slept better in there than I do when I'm in my own bed."

Matt flashed me a coy grin. "You know, you can totally sleep in there anytime. I wouldn't mind in the least."

I punched him on the shoulder, adding a little bit more force than I normally would have. "One day at a time, okay?"

He exhaled in a dramatic sigh. "Fine. So what's today, then?"

I chewed lightly on my bottom lip, considering his question from every possible angle. "Today is the day that my best friend finally came home. I don't want to predict where it leads, because I don't want to be wrong. So for now, let's leave it at that."

"You're the boss," he joked.

I hit him again. "Don't start that shit already."

"Sorry, I couldn't resist." Matt climbed back into the truck.

We headed back home in near silence, listening only to the sound of the music playing quietly in the cab of the vehicle. I tried to forget the incidents from earlier that day, choosing instead to focus on the first night in awhile that I would get to spend with Matt.

It was quickly becoming a ritual for us to spend entire nights curled up on the couch watching movies. Tonight, however, I cuddled up against his side, smiling as he draped his arm around my shoulders and then held me close.

"I missed you, Beck," he whispered, his lips brushing gently against my hair.

"I'm so glad you'll be here for awhile longer. I don't know what I'll do when you actually have a full-length tour. Once the album is finished, you're not going to be home much, are you?"

"Probably not. But you can always come along for part of it, you know."

I looked up at him, ignoring the images flickering across the screen. "Do you think that's a good idea right now?"

"I think that everyone will make due. I know I would be happy."

"Yeah, but Leilani doesn't go with Mike on tour. I don't think I'd like to be the only girl along for the ride."

"We'll worry about it more when it gets closer, okay?" I could tell that my arguments hadn't fazed his determination in the slightest. "For now, let's finish watching Wayne's World. This damn movie will never get old."

I sighed in momentary defeat, facing the television again. Just to annoy him, I sang along loudly when the characters began belting out Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Matt laughed and melded his voice smoothly with mine.

I started giggling uncontrollably when he brought his voice to a falsetto tone during the song.

"What?" He asked, interrupting the tune.

"Nothing. You're just cute, that's all." With some effort, I stopped laughing at him.

He paused, looking as though he was considering my words carefully. "Thank you?"

I burst into another fit of laughter at his confused response. "Anytime."

When the movie ended, Matt stretched. It was getting late, and I could only imagine how tired he was after driving home. He looked down at me with an exhausted smile.

"Time for bed?" I asked, grabbing the remote and turning the TV and DVD player off.

"Yeah, I think so. Do you work tomorrow?"

I shook my head. "Nope. I'm all yours."

"That's what I like to hear. What do you think about just hanging out all day? Or do you think we should pop in on Josh?"

"Maybe we could do both. It's not like we have to spend the entire day at Josh's place. I just want to make sure that he's really okay. I didn't really believe him today when he acted like everything was good."

"Yeah," Matt sighed. "Neither did I. Alright, I'm off," he squeezed me tightly, then kissed the top of my head before getting up from the couch. "You're sure you don't want to sleep in my bed?"

I laughed. "I think I'm okay for tonight. It'll be nice just knowing that you're home."

"It's good to be home."