Maybe Holding Hands Wasn't Such a Good Idea

“Matt?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna be my boyfriend?”

The words tumbled from my mouth unbidden and I had absolutely no hope of sucking them back in and acting as though I never uttered them in the first place.

Matt’s eyes widen as he stared at me, as though he, too, was unsure that I had actually said those words.

“Wh-what? You have a boyfriend, remember? Tyler Vaughn. My nemesis.”

I looked forward, feeling heat blazing across my cheeks as I twisted my fingers together tightly in my lap. “Look, Tiffany already thinks we’re going out, hell, she caught us in bed together. You told her we weren’t breaking up anytime soon. And she said she’d be watching you, or us, and that really freaks me out. But who knows how long she plans on keeping tabs on you. Maybe it was an empty promise. Or maybe she’ll watch you for a week and then stop. Or maybe she’ll meet someone new and forget all about you entirely. Or maybe a meteor will fall out of the sky and completely obliterate her one day. Or maybe she’ll spontaneously combust from loving you so much, I don’t know,” I said quickly, taking in a much needed gulp of air. “All I do know for sure is that the game changed today. And if she sees you with someone other than me, she might question it. So I guess I’m really offering my help in going along with the façade we’ve had going all week. So, what do you think?”

Matt had crushed me tightly to his chest and I slowly wrapped my arms around his broad torso.

“You would really do that for me?” He asked quietly against my ear, making shivers course down my spine.

I nodded against his shoulder. “I already mentioned that I was scared for you. And I really can’t stand Tiffany. If you want, I can have a talk with my lawyer and see what he says about a restraining order.”

Matt chuckled and the sound reverberated against my chest. “I seriously hope we don’t need to bring lawyers into this,” he said slowly pulling away from me to smile at me, his hazel eyes shining brightly.

“So are we still fake going out?” I asked.

Matt sighed and then nodded. “Wait till Kara hears about this. I have a feeling I’m gonna get the talking to of a lifetime.”

“You and me both, pal,” I agreed, already hearing Kara’s lecture in my mind. It wasn’t a pretty thing, she was yelling at me, gesturing wildly with her arms and yanking fiercely at her dark hair. “Let’s go inside and I’ll make us some lunch.”

Matt and I both got out of his truck and I took my first stress free breath in the last hour, hoping against hope that things would eventually calm down.

And that Matt and I could pull this whole thing off without getting caught by either Tyler or Tiffany.

“I don’t get something,” Matt said after we took his stuff up into the guest bedroom.

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“Why do you spend so much time at my house when you can be spending your time here? I mean, you and Kara always have your movies nights over there, when you can spend them here and that huge plasma TV in the game room.”

My brows furrowed slightly as I thought about my answer, my teeth unconsciously biting into my lower lip. “I’m guess I’m always at your house because it’s always felt like home to me. I’m usually all alone here. I don’t like it.”

Matt’s face turned contemplative. “What about your folks and Carver?”

I smiled. “My parents are great and they’re here when they can be. They’ve never missed my birthdays or any major holiday. In fact, they’re flying in the day before my birthday and I can’t wait to see them.

“And Carver has his own life. He’s going to school and working at the same time. He has other things on his mind than just being here for me and that’s alright. He has to study, make time for his friends, find somewhere in his schedule to relax. He checks in on me and that’s as much as I can ask from him. But when he’s here, he’s here for me, I have his undivided attention.”

Matt was quiet, just staring at me with those hazel eyes of his and I squirmed under his intense gaze.

“What?”

“I didn’t realize how lonely you were,” he said finally.

“But I’m not,” I smiled softly. “I have Kara and Carver and Tyler.”

Matt snorted derisively at Tyler’s name.

I looked up into his eyes, a light blush rising to my cheeks. “And I have you,” I whispered, holding my breath.

Matt’s expression softened and a small smile was on his lips. “Yeah, you have me.” His voice was quiet and gravelly.

I finally tore my gaze away from Matt’s scorching gaze and took a deep breath to release some of the tension that had knotted in my stomach. “You hungry?” I asked my voice much lighter than it had been a few moments ago.

“Starving,” Matt smiled.

“There’s something I’ve been thinking about,” I said once we entered the kitchen.

“What’s that?” Matt asked taking a seat on top of the counter.

“Well it’s just you said you were friends with Tyler when you were younger up until middle school, right?”

“That’s right.”

I began to search through the fridge for lunch. “Then why did I have to introduce Kara and Tyler to each other? Shouldn’t they have already known who the other was?”

Matt’s face was reflective when I turned back to face him.

“When Vaughn and I were friends, I was always over at his house, he never came to mine. And I think he may have met Kara once for about ten minutes like eight or nine years ago or something. Why do you ask?”

I shrugged. “Just curious I guess. I don’t know, I just thought they would have known each other or something seeing as you and Tyler were best friends.”

“Yeah, well if I recall this correctly, you and Kara were always lost in your own little world and weren’t paying any attention to me or my friends,” Matt said.

My smile was sheepish. “I guess that’s true. “ I buried my head in the fridge again, hiding my blush from him. How wrong he was. I was always paying attention to him, but I had to admit, I never knew about Tyler until a few months ago. And I certainly didn’t know he and Matt used to be friends until a few days ago. Maybe I wasn’t paying as much attention as I thought. Then again, it was always Matt at the forefront of my thoughts, not his friends.

Matt and I spent the rest of the day eating junk, watching movies and talking a bit. Things had stayed light between us and I was glad that they hadn’t gotten too heavy again.

I had called Tyler and before I could tell him that I wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t go out that night, he began talking about our date and I could hear the excitement in his voice. So when he said he’d see me in a couple of hours, I said I couldn’t wait to see him.

I ended the call and sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. Nothing was going according to plan today.

“Guess you’re going out tonight,” Matt said.

I turned around. “Didn’t know you were standing there,” I said. “And yeah, I couldn’t tell him that I was sick or anything,” my voice was apologetic. “He sounded really happy about tonight.”

“Hey, Liv, it’s alright. Vaughn is your boyfriend,” Matt said with a face, “after all. Going out and spending time together is all a part of that.”

“I know,” I nodded. “I better get ready. Tyler said he’d be here in a couple of hours.”

“I better head off then,” Matt said quietly.

“What?” I stopped mid-stride and turned back to face him. “I thought you were staying here tonight.”

“That was before you were going out.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t stay,” I said.

Matt crossed his arms over his chest. “Alone? What if Carver comes by when you’re out on your date tonight?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll call him and ask him what his plans are for the night.” My phone was already up to my ear and the other line rang twice by the time I finished my sentence.

“Hey, Carver,” I greeted once he picked up.

“Hey, baby girl, listen I can’t talk right now. I’m fucking swamped with my study load and I have to be at work for a twelve hour shift in three hours and I’m running on two hours of sleep and bad caffeine. Gotta go. Love you. Bye!”

He hung up before I could tell him goodbye. My smile was triumphant when I looked over at Matt. “Carver is studying and then going straight to work. You’re safe for tonight. Now, I‘m going to go get ready. Stay here.” I headed upstairs to my room and quickly got into the shower.

As I showered, I mentally went through my closet, trying to decide what I was going to wear. Tyler had told me to dress nicely so I figured my ivory colored silk sleeveless dress with lavender sash would do for tonight. Not only that, but the dress would cover up my still purple bruised shoulder completely.

I quickly dried myself off and wrapped my robe around me and started to towel dry my hair. Glancing at the clock, I realized that I’d taken longer in the shower than I thought and I needed to hurry in order to be ready on time.

When I finally left my room, an hour and twenty minutes later, completely dressed—hair done and make-up on—and found Matt in the game room watching a movie that was on TV.

“Hey,” I said gaining his attention.

Matt’s eyes widen slightly as he took in my appearance.

“Do I look that bad?” I asked playfully when he didn’t say anything.

Matt blinked. “What? No, Liv, you look really gorgeous.”

My cheeks blushed when I registered the sincerity in Matt’s voice. “Thanks.” I checked the clock on the far side of the wall. “Tyler will be here in a few minutes. Feel free to do whatever you want and eat anything in the kitchen. I should be back by 10:30.”

“Why so early?”

“Coach has the guys on a curfew and with the first game coming up on Friday; Tyler doesn’t want to break it. He has to be 100% for game day,” I said with mock enthusiasm.

Matt chuckled at the same time the door bell rang.

“Tyler’s here. I’ll see you when I get back, Matt.” I waved at him before heading back upstairs to answer the door.

I opened the door to see Tyler standing beyond the threshold in a cream colored shirt and a pair of khaki pants, holding a single red rose in his hand.

“Hey, Liv. You look beautiful,” he said and me a quick peck on lips and then leaned forward again to kiss me a little longer.

“Hi, Tyler. You look nice tonight, too,” I said taking the rose from him with a smile.

“You all ready?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Great,” Tyler said grabbing hold of my hand and leading me out, closing the door behind me.

“So where are we going tonight that I had to dress up for?” I asked once we were both buckled up in his Mustang.

Tyler flashed a smile at me. “It’s a surprise. So how was your movie night with Kara yesterday?” He asked as he started to drive.

“Good. Saw a lot of movies, ate a lot of junk. Pretty much the usual. How did your practice go?”

That’s all I needed to ask and the floodgates opened. Tyler kept talking about football during the twenty minute ride until we reached the restaurant. After we parked he opened up my door for me and led me inside.

The Italian restaurant was quaint and cozy and the smells that were in the air were absolutely mouth-watering.

Tyler went up to the maître d' and exchanged quiet words with him that I wasn’t able to hear.

“Ahh, yes. This way please,” the host said in a faint Italian accent.

Tyler grabbed my hand. “Let’s go, babe,” he said following the balding grey-haired man toward the back of the restaurant.

When we entered the back room, I saw only one table set up in the center of the room. Tyler walked toward it with me following and he pulled my chair out for me, gesturing for me to sit down.

“Thanks,” I said once I was seated.

Tyler sat down across from me and covered my hand with his.

“What can I get you drink?” The maître d' asked.

“I’ll have some water,” I answered.

“Same here,” Tyler said.

“I’ll be right back with your drinks.” The maître d' bowed his head slightly before leaving me and Tyler alone in the room.

“Did you reserve this room for us?” I asked looking around. The lighting was dim and there was soft classical music playing in the background.

“Yeah. On Wednesday night, after our fight. Luckily, they’d just had a cancellation. So this is my official attempt at an apology,” he said as he laced his fingers with mine. “I am sorry and I really didn’t mean to go all caveman on you like that. It was a bad reaction from seeing Sanders again. All this time I’ve known Kara and I had no idea she was his sister.”

“Yeah, it’s a small world,” I said absentmindedly, holding back a sigh.

The maître d' returned with two glasses of water and a couple of brown leather menus. “I will give you a few moments to go over the menu,” he said handing the menus to us before moving discreetly to stand at the door waiting to take our orders.

I scanned the menu and decided to just get plain old spaghetti and meatballs. I wasn’t too hungry anymore and my hunger level kept dropping with every passing minute. While Tyler’s gesture was nice, I felt it was just too much. I would have been happy with a cheese burger and strawberry milkshake from Nicky’s.

A few moments later the maître d' took our orders and left us alone again.

“Something wrong, babe? You’re quiet tonight,” Tyler said as he ran his thumb over the back of my hand.

Matt was right, I had to tell Tyler to give me a little bit of space and to relax a lot with his romantic, yet overbearing tendencies. I just couldn’t do it right now. Maybe tomorrow, when I managed to find a way to tell him to back off without coming off as a total bitch.

“No, I’m fine, just a little tired is all,” I smiled at him. “I still can’t believe you did all of this just to apologize. Don’t you think it’s a little too much?” I made sure to keep my voice from sounding accusing or annoyed.

“Well, I messed up big and figured I needed to do something big to fix it,” Tyler smiled widely at me. “Did you know that the homecoming dance falls on your birthday?” He asked suddenly.

I shook my head.

“Liv! The posters have been up for a week, how can you not have seen them?”

“Temporary blindness?” I suggested.

Tyler smirked. “Yeah, well, it’s gonna be a great night for us. The team will have won two games in a row. That you will be at, right?”

I nodded. “Kara’s not too happy about it, but I’ll just have to remind her that I’m going to all of the home games on Fridays and having movie nights with her when you’re playing away games.”

“I wish you would go to all of my games, Liv. But I get it, you and Kara have always had these movie nights and me getting you for half of my games is better than none.”

I smiled. “Glad you understand.”

Tyler squeezed my hand slightly and smiled. “As I was saying, we will have won two games and then we’ll go to the dance and celebrate not only our win but your birthday. It’s gonna be perfect.”

The maître d' arrived fifteen minutes later with our food and I felt my appetite returning as I gazed down at my dinner.

Tyler and I were eating our meals quietly with the occasional comment on how great the food was. After we were done eating, the maître d'—whose name was Antonio—who’d been checking up on us every ten minutes or so, cleared away our plates.

“Come on,” Tyler said standing and taking my hand in his.

I was about to walk out when Tyler pulled me back to him and started to sway us back and forth to the music.

“The night’s not over just yet, Liv,” he whispered before spinning me in a circle. “There’s still dessert left,” he said when he wrapped arms back around my waist.

My lips turned up in a smile and I kissed Tyler’s cheek. For fifteen minutes we just danced silently, moving with the music and I had to admit it was nice just to be with Tyler and dance.

And then Antonio came back in with dessert, which happened to be a plate with two cannolis on a layer of drizzled chocolate.

“These look amazing, Antonio, thank you,” I said.

Antonio merely bowed his head again in response. “I hope your evening has been lovely,” he said and then left me and Tyler alone again.

“You know, this really has been a nice night,” I said before picking up one of the cannolis and placing it on a napkin.

“Yeah, well, as nice as tonight has been, I hope I don’t have to see you with Sanders again.”

I looked away and rolled my eyes. “We’re just friends, Tyler. Don’t you remember what a good friend he can be?” I quickly covered my mouth with my hand when I realized what I had said.

Tyler’s cannoli fell from his hand at my words.

“How did you know that Sanders and I used to be friends?” His voice was quiet.

“He told me,” my eyes locked on my hands in my lap.

“You asked him.” It wasn’t a question.

I nodded.

“Did he tell you why we’re not friends anymore?”

I wanted to nod, but found myself shaking my head. I wanted to know, but didn’t want to know at the same time, if his story would be the same as Matt’s.

“Back when we were in middle school, Sanders stole my girlfriend and we got into a fight that got real physical, real fast. After I beat him up, I never spoke to him again. Almost ten years of friendship washed down the drain all because I couldn’t trust him around my girlfriend. So I hope you excuse me when I get upset when I see him hanging around you.”

“I didn’t know,” I said quietly, not quite meeting his blue eyes.

“Yeah, well it was a long time ago. I think we should leave now. I have that curfew anyway.”

I nodded and stood up, leaving my half eaten cannoli on the table. And just like that, my night turned to crap.

Tyler and I didn’t speak as he drove me home, not even the radio was on to break the silence. Once we got to my house. He walked me to the door and kissed me once on the cheek and left without saying a word.

I leaned back against the front door as soon as I had closed it, my eyes fell shut and I sighed loudly.

“You look a little worn out,” Matt said quietly.

My eyes flashed open and I saw Matt standing a few feet away from me, I hadn’t even heard him walk toward me.

“Rough night?”

I nodded. “I accidentally let it slip that I knew about your past with Tyler at dinner tonight. And he wanted to know how I knew about that.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you told me that you used to be friends, but I didn’t mention why you stopped being friends with each other.”

“Why didn’t you ask him?”

“I don’t really know,” I shrugged and moved away from the door. “I think it was because I was afraid that he wouldn’t tell me what you told me. And he didn’t. In his version of events, it was you who stole his girlfriend and he kicked your ass,” I shook my head.

“Do you believe him?” Matt asked quietly from behind me. “Or me?”

I let out a breath of air and closed my eyes, not saying anything. I was hoping that Matt wouldn’t ask me that question.

“I guess that’s my answer then,” Matt said.

His voice sounded a little bitter. I turned around to face him. My eyes meeting his angry ones.

“I didn’t say that I didn’t believe you,” my teeth bit into my bottom lip. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to say it.”

I took a few steps toward Matt, my hand reaching out to his and he moved his hand away from my reach, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away from me.

The rejection stung and my eyes prickled with oncoming tears. I really didn’t want to get into another fight tonight, especially with Matt.

I wiped at my eyes before my tears could spill over, but I couldn’t keep my voice from trembling when I spoke, giving away how upset I was. “I do believe you, Matt.” My voice was just a shaky whisper. “And I hate that I do, because it means that I know Tyler is lying to me. And if he can lie about that, what else is he lying about?” My voice broke and I felt a lone tear trail down my right cheek.

“Liv,” Matt’s voice was quiet and no longer angry. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean... Please don’t cry.” His thumb wiped the wetness from my cheek.

“I didn’t mean to get all girlie on you. God, I’m such an idiot,” I let out a soft, watery laugh and cleared my throat as I wiped my fingers under my eyes. “I’m just going to get some water and then go to bed. Good night, Matt,” I said walking toward the kitchen, my heels clicking loudly along the floor.

“Good night, Liv.”

I didn’t see Matt on the way to my room and figured that he had either gone to bed himself or was back in the game room watching TV. I closed my door and removed my dress, hanging it back up in my closet so it wouldn’t wrinkle.

I changed into my pajamas and got ready for bed.

Once I was lying down in my bed beneath the covers, I closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep. I didn’t want to stay up half the night thinking back on tonight and how it ended badly. At least I wasn’t fighting with Matt. I wasn’t entirely sure if I could say the same about me and Tyler.

I really couldn’t wait for Kara to get home so I could talk to her about everything.