Maybe Holding Hands Wasn't Such a Good Idea

“Whoa, whoa, hold on one freaking minute here!” Kara shouted. “What do you mean you almost kissed my brother?”

“What I said, Kara. I almost kissed Matt.”

“I knew it! I fucking knew you were still in love with him!” Kara shouted.

I pulled the phone away from my ear to avoid irreparable damage to my eardrum. “Relax, Kara. It was completely platonic,” I lied. “Part of pretending to be his girlfriend and all of that.”

Kara scoffed. “Platonic my ass. You can spin this any way you want, Liv, but you can’t keep your head buried in the sand forever. I knew this was a bad idea. I knew you wouldn’t be able to help yourself and fall in love with my brother. Again!”

I jumped up from my dream and glanced at my alarm clock at my beside. Four in the morning, I’d only fallen asleep an hour ago. That dream was a little too real for comfort, mostly because I could picture Kara reacting like she had in my dream when I told her about mine and Matt’s almost kiss.

I brought my hand up to my cheek. Even though several hours had passed, I could almost feel his lips still pressed there softly. A knot started to form in my stomach at the thought.

Not being able to anxiously lie awake anymore, I sent Matt a text, which I knew he wouldn’t read until later today.

Hey. What are we going to do about school on Monday?

After a few moments I knew that there was no hope in falling asleep again and I decided that my day was going to start incredibly early. I grabbed a change of clothes and headed for my bathroom for a quick shower. Hopefully, Matt would get back to me fast and there would be a definitive plan for tomorrow.

As soon as I was dressed, I went downstairs into the kitchen to make some coffee. I was grumbling under my breath about my stupid insomnia when I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket.

I was expecting the text to be from Tyler, so I was a little surprised to see Matt’s name on the screen.

I’ll swing by around noon and we can talk about it.
Cool?

I typed out my response and hit send.

See you then.

Turning my attention back to the now brewed coffee, I wondered what Matt was doing awake so early. I figured I would ask him later and began to slowly drink my black coffee.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I should and shouldn’t tell Kara about Matt’s plan for Tiffany, or if I should mention that we had almost kissed. As it was, I was feeling horrible enough about forgetting Tyler during those moments before Matt and I almost kissed, that I was seriously contemplating spending a day with Tyler this week and watching his game tapes. Something that he’s been trying to get me to do for a while now. Tyler figures that watching those tapes would help me understand the game more and hopefully help me develop an interest in football.

I couldn’t imagine what kind of ass backwards world would have to exist where I actually liked football.

True to his word, Matt knocked on my door at a quarter after twelve that afternoon. The smile on my face was incredibly wide as I opened the door to let him in.

Matt cast me a weird glance as he walked past me into the house. “Are you okay?” He questioned, a worried frown on his lips.

“Yeah, I’m doing alright. Why do you ask?” I asked him as we walked toward my room.

“Your smile is kinda creeping me out. Are you high or something?”

I laughed. “No, I’m not high, or medicated or anything like that.”

“Then what’s up with the smile?”

“It’s nothing really. It’s just you’re here at a quarter after twelve,” I said sitting down on the couch in my room, muting the TV.

“Yeah,” Matt said slowly, clearly confused as to why his being here a fifteen minutes after twelve would make me smile as widely as I was.

“Tyler’s got this OCD thing about always being on time. It’s really annoying. If he said he’d be here at noon, then he’d be here at noon on the dot.”

“So you’re happy because by Tyler’s standards, I was fifteen minutes late?”

“Yeah, I guess I am. I told you it was nothing,” I shrugged and then yawned widely. “Excuse me,” I said, my voice sounded very sleepy.

“Liv, I don’t mean to offend you or anything, but you look like—”

“Crap,” I interrupted. “Yeah, I know,” my hands went up to rub my tired eyes. “I didn’t get much sleep last night, even less than what I usually manage to get in a night.”

“Why’s that?” Matt looked at me, concern creasing his forehead.

I covered another yawn with my hand, my eyes misted up slightly. I looked at him before I started talking quickly. “Because I’m worried about school tomorrow. I don’t know how much you’ll let me tell Kara. She’s my best friend and I tell her pretty much everything and I don’t want to keep things from her. I don’t know how we can manage pulling off this whole cheating thing next Saturday. What happens if she doesn’t believe it? What if—”

“Liv,” Matt stood up and hugged me to him, his arms wound tightly around me. “Calm down, okay? We’ll work out a plan, but first, you just need to chill and not get so worked up about this.”

My arms curled around Matt’s waist as I rested my head on his chest. “Okay.” I mumbled into his chest and took a deep breath. The faintest hint of his cologne swirled up into my nose and helped to calm me down a little bit more.

Matt just held me silently for a few minutes, his hand smoothing out my hair gently as I managed to compile my rampant thoughts into more organized and orderly concerns that I mentally categorized into a list, with my most pressing questions right at the top in bold lettering.

“Sorry for freaking out on you,” I said quietly. “I had some coffee this morning and when you combine that with the little amount of sleep I got last night, it kinda made me all spazzy.”

Matt pulled away from me with a small chuckle. “It’s fine, Liv,” his eyes scanned my face. “You really do look tired though. Maybe you should try to take a nap.”

“I’ll take a nap later, after we talk about tomorrow,” I said sitting back down.

Matt crossed his arms and looked down at me, a smirk on his lips. “What if I said that we’ll talk about tomorrow after you take your nap?”

My eyes widened slightly in surprise. “Why would you want to wait? And what you would do when I nap? Leave and then come back? That doesn’t make any sense. Let’s talk about it now.”

“Well, I could hang around instead of leaving. I’m trying to dodge Tiffany. She thinks that I’m spending the day with my mom running errands,” he sat down next to me.

I laughed at that. “Come on, Matt. Can we just please talk about this now? It’ll make it feel a lot better to know what’s gonna happen. Hell, that’s the reason why I couldn’t sleep last night,” I yawned again. “I couldn’t stop thinking about all things that could go wrong on Saturday and I just really need to know now. Please?”

“That’s why?” Matt asked seriously. “So if we talk now, you’ll take your nap straight afterwards?”

I nodded in confirmation.

“What do you want to talk about?”

Not wasting anytime, I started talking. “Well, about tomorrow, you know we can’t...be overly affectionate, right? I don’t want Tyler or one of his friends to see. It would just create a problem that I don’t want to deal with.”

“That’s not an issue. I was thinking we could take it slow and build Tiffany up before knocking her down on Saturday.”

“That sounds perfect.” I sighed in relief. “How are we gonna do that?”

“Well, Tiffany is the jealous type, so it won’t take much,” Matt said. “I was thinking that I could accidentally bump into you tomorrow between classes and give you a side-hug.”

I raised a brow. “A side-hug?”

“Yeah, like this,” he said standing up and pulling me with him. “I’ll stand on your side and just wrap my arm around your shoulders like this,” he said as he slung his arm around my shoulders.

“And that’s it?” I asked.

Matt removed his arm and nodded with a smile as we both sat down again. “Tiffany probably won’t say anything about that, but I’ll do it again after school that way she knows that we’re friends and it wasn’t just a onetime thing.

“And on Tuesday, we raise it up a notch,” Matt continued. “I’ll give you a real hug that lasts a little too long for people that are just friends.”

“Okay, this doesn’t sound too bad,” I admitted. “When will you do this?”

“You have English third period right?” Matt asked.

I nodded. “How did you know that?”

“I’m not blind, Liv,” Matt smiled. “I do notice you in the hallways at school. Tiffany has English fourth period, I figure it’s the perfect way we could run into each other between classes. So long as your boyfriend isn’t there.”

My cheeks warmed slightly when Matt said that he’d noticed me, and I looked away from him. “Tyler has Chem which, of course, is on the other side of the school, so he won’t see anything. What about Wednesday? How do you plan on raising the bar?”

“Well, I think you should flirt with me on Wednesday, we’ll hug again and then you ask me if I could give you a ride home. When I say it’s no problem, you kiss me on the cheek to thank me,” Matt smirked, his hazel eyes shining brightly. “By this point, Tiffany will be fuming and asking me all about you, which I will make sure results in a fight about her not trusting me or some shit.”

I laughed.

“And I figure on Thursday and Friday, instead of walking Tiffany to class, she’ll see me walking you to class. And if I know Tiffany like I think I do, she’ll follow us so we have to keep up the flirting. So, do you feel relieved now that you know?”

“You have no idea,” I said with a smile. “I think we can manage to do all of that without raising any questions.”

“Don’t worry, Liv. To everyone else, we’ll just look like friends, but because Tiffany is crazy jealous, she’ll read more into it, which we need her to do for Saturday.”

“Saturday, right.”

Matt heard the catch in my voice. “Are you okay? About Saturday, I mean?”

I nodded. “Y-yeah, I’m fine.” My fingers started to twirl pieces of my hair nervously, a habit that I’d never been able to shake.

Matt looked over at me skeptically. “Right.” He reached over and took my hand in his. “Follow me.”

My eyes widened in alarm as I walked behind Matt, my hand clutched tightly in his as he walked around the couch.

“What are you doing, Matt?” I asked, taking two steps for every one he took to keep up with him.

“Going to your bed,” he said simply.

“Why?”

“I have to show you something.”

My face blanched and my jaw dropped with a loud, distinct popping sound at Matt’s words and he looked over at me and chuckled.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Masters,” he winked at me. “We’re keeping this strictly PG-13.”

Despite my pink cheeks, I managed a small smile at Matt’s words. When we reached my bed, he let go of my hand and proceeded to make himself comfortable on my bed, his hands tucked behind his head.

I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled from my lips. Matt looked so out of place as he lay back on my bed.

“So what did you want to show me?”

“Come here,” Matt patted the bed with his right hand in invitation.

“PG-13?” I asked.

“Maybe more like G,” Matt nodded and patted the bed again.

I took a deep, calming breath and crossed my room to lie beside Matt on my bed. I turned to my left and locked eyes with Matt. “So what was I supposed to see?”

Matt smiled. “That being in bed with me isn’t scary.”

“Oh.”

“Well, was I right?”

“Yeah, I guess I just...what I mean to say is...that...” I mumbled the rest of my sentence so low that even I couldn’t hear what I was saying.

“What?”

I looked at my hands that were clasped tightly over my stomach feeling my cheeks heat up slightly. “I’ve never been in bed with a guy before,” I said clearly. “And it made me nervous.”

I saw Matt smiling gently at me from the corner of my eye. “Well, not to make you more nervous, but on Saturday we’re not going to be lying side by side like this.”

I turned to look at him. “I know.” I cleared my throat before speaking again. “So how much can I let Kara in on?”

Matt thankfully went along with the subject change. “You can tell her everything if you want. I don’t see a problem with it. As far as my friends go though, it’ll be easier if they think this is real,” he gestured between us. “Less chance for them to screw something up and say something they shouldn’t. At least until Saturday. Is that alright with you?”

I nodded, biting my lip. “Don’t they know that I’m with Tyler?”

Matt’s brows creased together in thought. “I’m not sure. Maybe. Why?”

“Won’t they think it’s messed up that we’re ‘hooking up’ when they know I have a boyfriend?”

Matt was silent for a moment. “Maybe it’s best if I just don’t mention it to them at all.”

I cracked a small smile. “That’s probably a good idea.”

“Speaking of your boyfriend,” Matt’s face crinkled slightly. “Do you two have plans for today?”

“No, he’s spending the day with his family. They’re fishing today and since I get motion sick from a simple car ride,” I glanced sideways at Matt. He smiled apologetically, his dimples showing prominently in his cheeks. “There’s no way I’d last five minutes out in a boat with all that choppy water,” I stretched a bit as I yawned again.

“Feeling tired?” Matt asked.

I was having a difficult time keeping my eyes open. “Mhmm.” I sat up in the bed in an attempt to wake up a bit, my hair tumbled around my shoulders in loose waves. “Thanks for letting me tell Kara everything. Honestly, I don’t think I would be able to keep it from her.”

“Yeah, well, if you could do me a favor though?”

“What’s up?”

“Don’t tell Kara about Saturday until afterward, please? I don’t need to have her going off on me again.”

“Why would Kara go off on you?”

“Because you’re her best friend and I’m her brother and apparently our fake relationship is grossing her out.”

I laughed. “Nothing’s even started yet.”

“You see my point?” Matt smirked. “And after yesterday, I definitely want to avoid another lecture from her.”

“She was really...vocal on what she thought about me helping you out.” I yawned again and Matt pulled me down so that I was lying closer to him than I was before. When I looked over at him, he just shrugged, his shoulder rubbing softly against mine.

“We talked, it’s time for your nap.”

“Let me walk you out,” I said sitting up again only to have Matt pull me back down next to him.

“Actually, I was thinking that a nap sounds pretty good right about now,” Matt said quietly as his eyes closed. “I was up until pretty early this morning, too.”

I swallowed past the lump that formed suddenly in my throat, my heart started racing in my chest. “I could show you to a guest room?”

Without opening his eyes, Matt said. “Nah, your bed is pretty comfortable and I don’t think I could move from here.”

I chewed on my bottom lip nervously as I thought about taking a nap with Matt. A year ago if you told me Matt would be in my room, lying on my bed with me, I would have thought you were on drugs or psychotic and run quickly away from you. But now, with him here, with me, both of us on my bed...

It’s not a big deal, I told myself. We’re just gonna sleep. I scoffed at myself.

No big deal? Then why is my heart thudding harshly in my chest?

“I was gonna ask you about that,” I whispered as I turned onto my side to face him, tucking my hands beneath the pillow under my head.

“About what?” Matt asked, his voice sounded sleepy.

“What were you doing up at five this morning?”

He glanced over at me through half-open lids. “I was finishing up a song. You know that feeling when you know you’re so close to getting something done that you can’t stop until it’s finished? So you push yourself to get it done?”

I nodded.

“Yeah, well, that’s what happened to me last night. And I couldn’t stop because I didn’t want to lose my momentum,” his eyes closed again.

“Good night, Matt,” I said quietly as my eyes fell shut. I turned until I was laying on my right side with my back to Matt.

“Night, Liv,” he mumbled sleepily.

Fifteen minutes later, I was almost asleep when I felt Matt pulling me toward him, his arms wrapping securely around my waist as his chest pressed against my back.