The Making of Matt (11 page)

“That you are,” I said with a crooked smile, leaning in so our faces were almost touching. I didn’t bother to offer my name. She knew damn well who I was. There were only two reasons girls like her came to clubs like these – free alcohol and to get off with a celebrity. That suited me just fine.

“You’re even hotter in real life,” she whispered into my ear before nibbling on the lobe. I smiled inwardly at her eagerness. This was going to be an easy one. “How ‘bout we skip that drink?” she added, her tiny fingers walking along my thigh before settling on my crotch.

Oh fuck yeah. Easier than I thought.

“Take me to your place,” she asked as she ran her flattened palm over my dick through my pants.

“Baby I can’t wait that long.”

Taking her soft, manicured hand, I pulled her up from the couch and led her toward the private bathrooms. They were designed for fucking, despite the written policies on the door. Why else would there be a lockable foyer with couches, with a separate door that led to the stalls on the other side?

Her heels clicked against the silver-veined tile floor as she scurried behind me, giggling and gasping.

“Fuck you’re hot,” I said as I pushed her backwards onto the plush couch. She had everything I’d usually go for; long, silky curls that tickled my face as I kissed her, tan legs,
huge
tits and flawless skin. Not to mention the bright red lipstick she wore that I couldn’t wait to see staining my cock when I’d finished fucking her mouth.

There was just one slight problem that I chose to ignore for now. I wasn’t hard yet. I convinced myself the stressful evening was to blame and I just needed to work a little harder to wake the big guy up. So I tore the clothes from her body as if they were suffocating her, pulling her tiny red dress over her curves and above her head, discarding it somewhere on the floor behind me. Her lack of bra gave me immediate access to those bouncy breasts that caught my eye before her face did, and I wasted no time lowering my head and sucking one of her pert nipples into my mouth.

Her skin was smooth against my face.
Too
smooth. I found myself missing the sensations Alex’s skin created, the slight prickle from his hair that mottled my skin with goosebumps.

“You okay, baby?” The sound of her breathy voice woke my senses as if she’d just pulled me from a dream. Her nipple was no longer in my mouth, though I didn’t remember releasing it, and her hand was tucked into my pants, working tirelessly on my seemingly dead penis.

“I, um…” I climbed off her body, scratching at my head. “I think I’ve had too much to drink,” I lied. It wasn’t the alcohol clouding my mind. It was Alex.

Damn him.

She got up off the couch, first making sure I got a good glimpse of her immaculately waxed pussy as she placed one foot at a time on the floor. “I can make you feel better,” she cooed in that high, sweet voice chicks use when they want something. With her naked body, dressed only in heels, now pressed against mine, she slithered her hand between us and started fumbling with my zipper.

“No,” I said firmly, placing my hands on her shoulders and gently pushing her away. “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t, but I was trying to be a gentleman for once in my life. “You’re beautiful, I just need to go home.”

“Take me with you,” she said, batting her fake eyelashes as she reached out to touch me again. Taking her index finger into her mouth, she pulled it out slowly, molding her lips around it. “I’ve heard my mouth has medicinal properties.”

Taking a step back, I snapped curtly, “I said
no
.”

Her flirtatious smile morphed into a tight, angry line in a nanosecond. “Fuck you,” she spat, covering her tits with her forearm as she bent to pick up her dress from the floor.

Oh, so now you’re shy?

Her dress was on almost as quickly as it came off, and then she picked up her purse and bolted for the door, probably heading to sell her story to some shitty online magazine, outing my limp dick to the world.

I turned to the opposite door that led to the actual bathroom, but paused when I heard my rejected fuck talking to someone.

“Hey, beautiful. Wanna buy me a drink?”

Clearly I hadn’t scarred her ego too much.

“No,” replied a firm voice.

Sawyer’s
voice.

Great.
I’d turned my phone off before I left the house to prevent this situation from occurring.

“How’d you find me?” I asked Sawyer, refusing to look back at him as I strode over to the hand basins. I knew if I did I’d be met with his stern father face.

“Your name pinged on Jake’s Google account. There are photos of you arriving here all over the internet.”

“What the fuck, dude? You and Jake stalk me on fucking Google?” Turning the faucet on full force, I collected the cool water in my hands and splashed it over my face. It didn’t revive me as much as I’d hoped. “That’s fucking weird.”

“Someone needs to keep an eye on you,” he said, as if that made it any less creepy. “What’re you doing, Matt?”

“Drying my face,” I answered, patting my damp skin with a paper towel, even though I knew that wasn’t the response he was searching for.

“So what, you’re over Alex now?” Sarcasm saturated Sawyer’s voice as he used his thumb to point toward the door the brunette had just left through. I’d forgotten her name already. “I thought you were gonna talk to him?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Come on, man. I’m immune to your bullshit attitude remember? What happened?”

“He blew me off.” Sawyer’s neck snapped back, his eyes widening.
And they say
I’m
immature.
“Not like that, dickweed. He tried to sugarcoat it but the truth is he’s just not interested. He doesn’t trust me.”

“What’d he say?”

“He…doesn’t matter.” I stopped myself revealing the part of Alex he clearly wanted to keep hidden. “We’re through. Even as friends. I’m better off without him.”

“If you believe that, you’re an even bigger twat than I give you credit for.”

“Excuse me?”
How the hell is any of this
my
fault?

“Putting the whole, are you, are you not, attracted to him thing aside, the guy is the best thing that ever happened to you. You’ve changed since you’ve been friends. You’re happier. More settled. In a lot of ways he’s been the making of you, Matt. Are you really gonna throw all that away to go back to expensive booze and cheap women that you don’t even remember the next day?”

“Why am I getting the blame here?” I barked, my blood beginning to simmer. “You don’t even know what happened.”

“Because I know
you
. I know that you turn into a jackass when you don’t get your own way. Because that’s what
she
was, right?” He pointed toward the door again. “Fucking her was you proving a point. Having a tantrum. Throwing your damn dummy outta the pram.”

“I didn’t fuck her. I tried but…I… well I couldn’t.”

“Because of Alex?”

“Yes, okay? I couldn’t get it up because she wasn’t Alex. Happy now?”

“No I’m not happy. And neither are you! Fucking
talk
to him, Matt!”

“I did!”

“And you ran away when things didn’t go how you wanted. You need to stick it out. Be a fucking adult.”

“He’s not interested!” I yelled, turning my back to him and slamming my hands down onto the sink.

“I’m not buying it. I spoke to him just yesterday and that wasn’t the voice of a man who didn’t care. What the fuck happened to you two? This has gone way beyond a fucking kiss by a washing machine.”

Suddenly feeling too hot, I wound my fingers into my hair, pushing it back off my face with so much force I almost ripped it from my scalp. “I don’t know. I feel like I don’t know anything anymore.” Tipping my head back and staring blankly at the white tiled ceiling, I huffed through my nose. “I wish my mom was here. She’d tell me what to do.”

Since she died there wasn’t an hour that passed where I didn’t think of her. It felt like the moment I got the call someone tied a boulder around my neck and threw me into the ocean. Most of the time I was a good swimmer, strong enough to keep my head above water despite the heavy rock of grief, but sometimes the struggle weakened my resolve, pulling me under, drowning me. Losing a parent is a kind of grief you can’t possibly imagine or prepare for. Losing both, despite the fact I didn’t remember my dad, is insufferable. I felt lost. Abandoned even. Like I was all alone in the world now with no one to guide me.

In the most random of places I’d slip away into a daydream, remembering the way she used to laugh, sing me to sleep when I was a kid, even the way she used to hiccup. She always sounded like a little yapping dog and she would get pissed whenever I made fun of her for it.

“I knew your mum well, and I know right now she’d tell you to go home, cool off and think things through. She’d also tell you to pull your head outta your ass and stop acting like a prick.”

Yeah,
I agreed in my head. She
would’ve
said that, although a little more eloquently.

“When did life get so fucking complicated?”

“When you finally grew up,” Sawyer teased, half grinning. “Now can we get out of this bathroom? I’m sure there’s a queue of people outside waiting to have sex.”

Laughing, I nodded. Sawyer clapped my back and we left the club. Unsurprisingly, Neil was waiting outside and he drove me home, where I stripped to the waist and flopped backwards onto my couch, cursing Alex, myself, and my mom for leaving me as I drifted to sleep.

I couldn’t have been out for more than an hour when I startled awake in a cold sweat, my mouth arid and my heart pounding as my subconscious abandoned the nightmare of Alex’s funeral. Gasping for air, I scrambled off the couch and walked in a daze to the kitchen, grabbing myself a bottle of water from the fridge and letting my face linger in the cool air for a moment before closing the door.

It was the first time it’d hit me – what a selfish cunt I’d been. Alex had told me he was HIV positive and the thing I’d focused on was my bruised ego. My nightmare was a realization. Alex, my best friend, was sick and I didn’t know a thing about it, least of which the answer to the question that tortured my soul from the second I woke up…

Is he going to die?

I had no option but to abandon my earlier stubbornness. I’d been behaving like a spoilt child and the worst part is I knew it all along but did it anyway. I’d never had to take life seriously before. Never needed to make decisions of any real importance. All my life I’d had people to do that for me; my mom, my manager, even Sawyer. I wasn’t sure I knew
how
to be a grown up. But I needed to learn because I missed our friendship. I missed
him
.

I
loved
him.

I stopped trying to convince myself I didn’t need him. I stopped trying to believe I could forget about him. Most importantly, I stopped trying to talk myself out of the fact I’d fallen in love with him. But before I talked to him again I needed to know what I was dealing with. I needed to know about his illness, how it affected him, and how it could potentially affect
me
. So after showering to rid myself of the smell of the club, alcohol, and women’s perfume, I went to my laptop and pulled up my favorite search engine.

I’ve been such a dick.

~Alex~

I
paced up and down my hotel room for almost an hour after Matt left. Then after sitting on the bed, knotting my fingers together, I paced some more. I’d made such a royal fuck up of everything. I’d spent years making the effort to keep people at arms length. I’d been attracted to Matt since pretty much the beginning, but most of the population was, too, so it was okay. I felt safe with him. He wasn’t just straight, he was the straightest guy I ever knew. Just thinking of the number of women he’d been with made me shudder, so of course my initial reaction to his kiss was that he was messing around.

Now I knew different I didn’t have a clue how I was supposed to feel. The only thing I was certain of is that I missed him. I felt hollow without him. For the past three weeks I hadn’t been living, just existing; eating to survive, talking to be polite…there was no joy in anything anymore. Everything became mechanical and mundane.

There was only one person I went to when I needed a kick up the ass - Alan, also known as Miss Martina. He was the only person I trusted to give it to me straight, and the only person, aside from my parents and Ryan, who knew about my HIV status. He knew my reasons for not allowing myself to get too close to anyone and although he didn’t agree with them, he supported me regardless. Alan was my oldest friend. I met him when I took the bartender’s job at a small club eight years ago and we clicked instantly. I was new to the city, and to bar work, and if it wasn’t for him saving my ass I would’ve been fired in my first week. After that we stuck together. If I took a job in a new bar, so did he, and vice versa. Apart from Alan, I’d never connected with anyone so effortlessly.

Until I met Matt.

Alan’s knock came just half an hour after I called him, despite the late hour, and when I opened the door he greeted me with a sympathetic smile and a large bottle of cloudy liquid.

“Hey, sugar,” Alan said, kissing both of my cheeks in turn before pushing the bottle he held into my hands.

“What’s this?” I asked, eyeing it up curiously.

“My homemade lemonade, of course. It fixes
everything
.”

Retreating back into the room, I set it down on the nightstand and sank down onto the bed. “I’d have preferred vodka.”

“A hangover is the last thing you need right now,” Alan chided, kicking the door closed behind him and joining me on the bed. “Your problems might disappear this evening, but they’ll still be there in the morning, only you’ll have a pounding head to accompany them.”

“You’re probably right.” I sighed, picked up the bottle of lemonade and remembered I didn’t have any glasses.

“Sorry, I’ve nothing to drink this out of.”

“Girl, we’re no strangers to locking our lips around a sweet rim. The bottle’s fine.”

I laughed, probably for the first time in weeks. Then I felt sad, because I usually laughed the most when I was with Matt. “Thanks for coming around so late.”

Alan wore his glasses rather than his contacts so I suspected I’d woken him up. “I’m here for you any time. You know that. Besides, I knew it must be serious if you’re here,” he noted, looking around the small room.

“I needed to feel close to him. Guess I hoped he’d give me the answer. Send me some kind of sign. How stupid is that?”

“Not even a little bit,” Alan assured, placing his hand on my knee. “Now, tell Momma all about it.”

Crossing my legs Buddha-style, I exhaled a long, regretful sigh. “I saw Matt earlier.” I paused, the words getting lost between my brain and my lips. Alan didn’t interrupt; he simply waited until I was ready. He was good at that. Listening. It was one of the traits I valued most about him, and why I went straight to him after Matt kissed me for the first time. “I told him about the HIV.”

“How’d he take it?”

“He left.”

“He
left?
” Alan repeated, disbelief making his voice higher. “That surprises me.”

“It’s nothing to do with the HIV,” I said, feeling a powerful urge to defend Matt. “It’s because I didn’t tell him sooner. And because he thinks I’m using it as an excuse to avoid taking things further with him.”

“Well you
are
.”

It took a few seconds for my brain to register what he’d said, and when it did my mouth dropped open, stunning me into silence.

“It’s not a death sentence anymore, Alex. You take your meds, you work out, look after yourself…you’ve got a long and healthy life ahead of you. Why do you insist you need to spend it alone? It’s like you’re punishing yourself.”

“You don’t understand.” Nobody did.

“I understand completely. But you can’t compare what happened with Corey to what’s happening now.”

“I didn’t mention Corey,” I snapped.

“You didn’t need to. I know you, sugar, and I knew Corey, too. He wouldn’t want this for you.”

“It’s too big a risk,” I protested, saying the words I’d forced myself to believe for so long. But my desire for Matt was weakening my resolve… and I hated myself for it.

“Sure it’s a risk, but shouldn’t Matt get a say in whether he’s prepared to take it?”

“I…I don’t know anymore.”

“That’s better than a no.”

“I miss him, Al. Corey. I miss him so fucking much.”

“You always will,” Alan said, kneeling up and bringing me in for a hug. “I miss him, too.”

“It feels like I’m forgetting him. Some days I have to look at his picture just to remind myself what he looked like. What I feel for Matt…it feels like I’m betraying him.”

“You didn’t die with him, Alex. You were given the chance he didn’t have - the opportunity to
live
. Don’t waste that. He wouldn’t want you to. In fact, if he knew you were throwing away this chance to be happy, I’m pretty sure he’d kick your ass.”

I chuckled weakly, before lifting the bottle of lemonade to my face and pressing the cool glass against my flushed cheek. Exhausted, I brought it to my lips and took a refreshing sip, nodding in approval as the sweet drink flowed down my throat. “I think I need to talk to him.”

“Now that’s the most sensible thing you’ve said all night. Told you my lemonade fixes everything.”

Smiling, I took another mouthful. “It’s late. I should probably leave it till tomorrow.”

“He’s a freakin’ rock star, sugar. A creature of the night. No more excuses.”

“Maybe I’ll-”

“Nope,” Alan cut me off, removing the bottle from my hand. “Go
now
before you talk yourself out of it.”

“I-”

“Right
now
.”

I didn’t have time to entertain the fear that pooled in my belly as Alan pulled me from the bed and ushered me toward the door. “I need my shoes dammit!” I said, steadying myself on the doorjamb to stop myself being pushed out of my own freakin’ room. Using his arm as a barrier to prevent me from moving, Alan bent down, grabbed my shoes and shoved them into my chest. I opened my mouth to say I didn’t have my keys but saw them flying out of Alan’s hand and through the air toward me. Before I could thank him, I was out of my room and the door slammed behind me.

He’d better still be here to let me back in,
I thought as I made my way to the elevator. Still barefoot when I reached the ground floor, I paused by a fake potted palm tree and pulled on my shoes. My heart raced as I made my way to the parking lot. A small part of me wished my car was still in the garage so I could use it as an excuse not to go. I was about to make either the best or worst decision of my life, and as I slipped inside my car, I was certain if I hit just one bump in the road I would literally shit my pants.

Don’t fuck this up, Alex.

**********

When I reached the gates securing Matt’s condo I stuck my arm out of the car window, my fingers stuttering over the keypad, unable to decide if I had the right to let myself in anymore. There was also a slight fear nibbling away at my subconscious that if I walked in unannounced I would find Matt drunk and balls-deep inside some woman. That was, after all, his default response to stressful situations and it was one of the main concerns preventing me taking this, whatever
this
was between us, further.

Eventually, I decided to open the gates myself but then buzz when I reached the front doors instead. A fire erupted inside my chest as the huge, ornate gates began to part with a soft whir. I drove up the long, winding path to his house trying to imagine the different scenarios I could be about to walk into.
He’ll have been drinking, for sure.
Drunk Matt, I could cope with. Matt fucking someone else? Just the thought forced a little crack to form in the center of my heart. Even though I’d pushed him away, something I was still trying to convince myself was the right thing to do, it would still sting to know he’d moved on so quickly after all the things he’d said to me. Actually, screw
sting
. It would’ve broken me.

As I put the car in park, the images rolling around in my head were almost enough to make me turn around, but as I contemplated taking the easy way out and running away, Matt’s front door began to open.

It hadn’t occurred to me when I opened the gates that he would’ve got an alert inside the house. It sparked a shred of hope in my nervous heart. If he’d been ‘busy’, he either wouldn’t have heard it, or if he did, wouldn’t be bothered to acknowledge it. The amount of time we spent paralyzed, Matt leaning casually against his open door while I sat nervously with my hands locked around the wheel, became immeasurable. Seconds felt like hours as we stared at each other from a distance, each of us too nervous to make the first move. With my eyes never leaving his, I clicked off my seatbelt and wound my fingers around the door handle, struggling to find the courage to open it.

“You gonna sleep out there, or what?” Matt called, cocking his head. His damp hair stuck to the side of his face and I tried to focus on it to distract myself from the fact he wore only a pair of faded black jeans and a silver chain around his neck. One glance at his gloriously athletic chest and I would forget everything I came here to say. “I can grab you a blanket?” The sound of his gruff voice set my nerves alight with apprehension, but at the same time compelled me closer to him. His voice wasn’t enough. I needed to see him.
Feel
him.

With a forceful swallow, I clambered awkwardly out of the car, turning to lock it manually with the key. I loved my car, but the poor girl didn’t quite fit with the grandeur of its current surroundings. “Can I come in?” I asked hesitantly, my gaze sweeping the floor.
Shit
. Even his naked feet had me wondering what they would feel like draped over my shoulders.

“That’s not a question you ever need to ask,” Matt said with a disapproving frown, his chest rising and falling heavily as he stepped aside to let me pass him.

The heat from his body as I brushed past him cascaded through my veins like electricity. I wanted him,
needed
him so badly… but I was afraid. “I wasn’t sure after, well, after everything.”

I’d spent so much time in this house, treated it as my second home, but as I walked diffidently through to the great living room, I felt like a stranger. I waited until Matt offered me a seat on the couch before perching gently on the edge of it with my knees pressed together. I ran my clammy hands up and down my jeans, trying to keep my fingers busy so I didn’t reach out and pull Matt into my arms.

“What’s going on here, Alex?” Matt breathed, sitting beside me but keeping a safe distance.

“I felt bad about the way we left things at the hotel. I came to apologize.”

Matt shook his head, sighing deeply. “I don’t just mean the hotel. I mean…
everything
. What’s happened to us?”

The word ‘us’ wrapped around my fragile heart, squeezing it to the point I felt physical discomfort. “I need you to know that everything I’ve done isn’t because I don’t care, or because I’m not attracted to you, because holy shit…I
am
. I have been for a
long
time. But… there’s so much you don’t know about me.”

“You think?” Matt scoffed before pushing the hair covering his left eye out of the way. “I’m sorry,” he added, the sarcasm disappearing from his voice. “I just keep trying to figure out what I did to make you unable to trust me. Did you think I’d judge you?” His eyebrows furrowed, the confusion prominent on his face.

“Oh, Matt.” I sighed, guilt swamping my insides. “I
do
trust you. It’s just…this was never supposed to happen. You. Anyone.”

“You need to quit talking in fucking riddles. Be honest with me, Alex.
Please
.”

“I will. I
am
. That’s why I came here. I want you to know everything.”

“You mean there’s more than the HIV?” Matt questioned, his voice unsteady.

“Not so much
more
. You just don’t know the whole story, and I want you to.”