When Joss Met Matt (12 page)

He was right, but that didn't stop me from feeling like a cup of spilled milk. I wasn't heartbroken, nor did I have the overwhelming feeling of ickiness that some of my ex-boyfriends had left behind. I was … empty. It was like entering a contest, knowing in your head you're never going to win, but hoping in your heart that you might. There is no cure for disappointment that comes from false expectations.

Geena greeted me at the door with a
Hello My Name Is
tag in one hand. Without asking, she slapped it on my hip. I glanced down.

“Solitaire?”

“Live and Let Die,”
Geena said. “Jane Seymour played her. You got a good one.”

“And this isn't some kind of dig about me showing up dateless?”

Her eyes widened. “No! I'm sorry, I'll get you another one!” She reached for my tag, but I put my hand over it.

“It was a joke, Geena-Beana. I'll be Solitaire.”

“Yay!” She grinned and thrust one finger in the air. “To the champagne!”

I mimicked her gesture. “To the champagne!”

Being at the party, surrounded by my old life, was a welcome distraction from my breakup with Martin. It was as though my life back in Milwaukee was a dream, and I'd awakened on New Year's Eve. The illusion would have been perfect if everyone hadn't greeted me like the prodigal daughter. Hugs, kisses, and the traditional UW-Madison greeting of “Let's do a shot!” I was out of practice—and probably healthier for it—and had to start declining offers early in the night. Still, I was more than a little blurry-eyed and hot-cheeked when Matt showed up with the new girl in tow.

I was shocked when I saw her. Not at all his usual, too-pretty-for-her-own-good type. She was more cute than pretty, something I could relate to. If I were a chipmunk, Meghan might have been a puppy. Dirty blond hair and freckles, a smile that was just a few teeth too wide for classic beauty, and the most shocking blue eyes I'd ever seen. An electric blue like a postcard from a tropical island. But it was the warmth in them that made her so different from all the Courtneys, Shelbys, and Pep Squad Wannabes he'd dated before.

“Joss, Meghan; Meghan, Joss.”

“Joss!” She threw her arms around me. “I've heard so much about you! I was starting to think Matty made you up!”

I gave Matt a look over her shoulder, all wide eyes and the unspoken question:
Does she know about us?
He shook his head just slightly. Meghan released me.

“Okay, sorry.” She stuck her hand out. “I'm Meghan.”

I grinned and knocked her hand away. “Forget that. We're not going backward now.”

By midnight, Meghan and I were like old friends. She was smart, funny, and one of the most fun people I ever met. She had me standing on Geena's coffee table with a long string of beads around both of our necks, belting out the chorus to a song she'd requested when someone cut the power to the stereo and shouted, “Five minutes to midnight!”

Everyone scrambled to get a glass of champagne—a bottle in some cases—and to get close to whoever they wanted to kiss at the first moment of the New Year. That slapped me back to my freshly single status. My old life felt a little less comfortable when the room paired off in preparation for midnight. There were new couples everywhere I looked. Old friends with new flames, and me on my own. I watched Meghan and Matt find each other, and cheat the New Year by a good thirty seconds.

I pressed my lips into a thin line, unable to prevent myself from remembering the feel of Matt's mouth on mine. He was a good kisser anytime; alone and lonely on New Year's Eve, he might as well have been a glass of water just out of reach while I died of thirst. I pulled my eyes from the scene and received Geena's friendly kiss on the cheek.

Moving through the room, and away from Matt and Meghan, I collected hugs and kisses that ranged from dry and on the cheek to wet and a little too friendly. Ultimately, it was Meghan who grabbed me from behind and pulled me into a hug.

“Happy New Year!” she shouted, before planting a noisy kiss on my temple. Then, she shoved me at Matt who caught me by the waist.

“Happy New Year, Joss.”

“Happy New Year.” I put one hand on his chest to regain my balance and stared at his mouth.

He smiled a little, then leaned in to kiss the corner of my lips.

I scrounged up a smile for him. “I like her.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“Your taste is improving.”

“You're just saying that because she's almost as little as you.”

I eased back from him and twisted to look at Meghan. We weren't twins by any means, but she was close to my height and also built light and small. “Like I said—improving.”

The night wore on, as New Year's Eve so often does, until the inevitable bad idea happened. So, at five in the morning, I found myself in the backyard of Geena's boyfriend's house, huddled around a charcoal grill with a marshmallow on a stick. January in Wisconsin is cold. Especially in the predawn morning. But we'd all been drinking long enough to think the unseasonably warm temperature of forty-two degrees was obvious s'more weather. Within five minutes, it was obvious what a horrible idea this was, but we had the kind of dedication that only the drunk and exhausted can give to a bad plan.

“I need some kind of rotisserie.” Meghan put her back to the fire, then immediately shifted to face the tiny pyre. “I'm burning up in front, and literally freezing my ass off in the back.”

Matt leaned over to check her out. “Nope, still there.”

She twisted to check for herself. “Huh, look at that.”

I laughed and dropped my marshmallow into the flames. I groaned.

“There're more inside,” one of the guys who lived there offered.

I knew there was a distinct possibility I wouldn't return if I got a taste of the warm interior, but a s'more sounded good. I went back to the house then grabbed the whole bag of marshmallows and a fuzzy blanket from the back of the couch. When I came back, Meghan was in the middle of a story about her halfhearted attempt to rush the sororities first semester. She'd been talked into it by a group of girls who lived in her dorm, who convinced her that it was the way to make lifelong friends and do something important on campus.

“I don't know what I was thinking,” she said.

“No shit, Meghan,” someone else agreed. “You're not the sorority type at all.”

“Well, I know that now,” she agreed with a theatrical eye roll. “I quit on day three.”

“Thank God,” I said.

She turned to smile at me and noticed the blanket. “No fair!”

“I'll share, but I'm not giving it up,” I said.

“Yay!” She wobbled through the trampled area of snow around the grill and grabbed one end of the blanket. We squeezed together and succeeded in cutting off the wind.

“Ahhh …” Meghan sighed and wiggled fractionally closer.

“Speaking of Greeks … did I ever tell you about the time I almost sexually assaulted a frat guy?” That got the laugh I was expecting, and I launched into the story of my pathetic attempt to seduce the useless Jeff. I skimmed over the rationale for the attempt, feeling remote from the heartbreak of Ben's cheating.

“So, did you ever find a more helpful volunteer?” Meghan asked.

I found Matt's eyes on the other side of the fire and he gave me a pleading look. It was what I'd expected, and I dropped a wink at him. “Not for a while. It's just as well … I think Jeff would have made me feel dirtier than Ben.”

I stayed in Madison for the weekend, sleeping on couches and borrowed beds wherever I could. I'd dropped Dewey off with my fellow vet tech, Nellie, so I didn't have anything pressing me to get back to Milwaukee. Avoiding home seemed like a better plan anyway. Geena tolerated my dissection of the Martin breakup better than I expected. I guessed not seeing me for a while made her more willing to listen to my dating drama.

Matt was the last person I saw. We had a breakfast on Sunday that by all rights should have been called lunch. Meghan always worked in the call center for the university hospital on Sunday mornings, so it was just the two of us. It reminded me of dozens of times when I'd sat across from him in the four years we'd known each other. Even the setting was familiar—Mickie's Dairy Bar, a Madison institution in the field of breakfast. The place was noisy, crowded, and usually required a long wait, but we got a seat after only twenty minutes. The city still seemed to be nursing its collective hangover. I always liked sitting on the red stools near the windows at Mickie's. It made me feel almost normal height, though I kicked my feet like a kid the whole time.

We talked about my job, about his decision not to walk in the December graduation ceremony, about my cat, where Matt should live when he moved to Milwaukee for law school, about Martin and Meghan. There was a lot of talk about Meghan.

“What made you stray so far from the Barbie aisle?” I asked, and poked at my half of the scrambler we were sharing. I had pressed a butter knife through the center of the obscene mountain of breakfast food and wiggled it until there was a moat between our halves. Matt's half had ketchup on top of it. Demonstrating enormous personal growth and maturity, I hadn't thrown up at the sight, and even managed to eat a good portion of my half. The food was going to emerge victorious, I knew, but I intended to give it a good fight.

He narrowed his eyes. “Cute. You've been saving that one up, haven't you?”

I didn't answer, but grinned at him.

“Honestly? You.”

My insides whirled and I had to reach for my coffee for distraction. “Why me?”

“You were dating a thirty-three-year-old.” He shook his head. “I figured I should try something new.”

“It's not a contest,” I said.

“Yeah, it's just …” He shrugged. “I don't know. I just saw her at the Nat, and she was cute and funny, and I thought, why wouldn't I ask her out?”

“Do you hear that?” I cupped my hand behind one ear. “I think that's the sound of Matt Lehrer maturing.”

“Bite me.”

“Oh, no. I was wrong.” I grinned at him.

“Just do me a favor and don't go rambling on about all the girls I've dated when you see her, okay?”

“I would never—” I started to say.

“Not even if you've had too much wine?” he interrupted.

“So, she doesn't know you're a man slut?”

“I really hate that you came up with that.”

“What? It's not my fault you can't keep it in your pants.” I was smiling, because I was teasing, but there was a strange feeling of nervousness in my stomach. Like I was at the top of a slippery slope and one false step would send me down the path of saying mean things just to make him feel bad. Apparently, I was taking the breakup harder than I was willing to let on. Harder than I even realized. I tossed out a belated, “You know I'm teasing.”

Matt picked up the ketchup bottle and tilted it over my half of the plate, cap on. “You sure about that?”

I wrinkled my nose and sat back fast enough to almost slip off my stool. “You wouldn't.”

He grinned and set the bottle back on the table. “So, what were you saying?”

“I take it she hasn't been enlightened to the concept of Sorbet …” I said.

“Um … no.”

“I get why you're not telling her, but at the same time, I have to ask: What are you worried about? You hadn't even met her the last time we …” I crossed my legs and pressed my knees tight together. We were experts at compartmentalizing the two parts of our relationship, but nothing could stop liquid heat from dripping through me when we spoke about our intermittent sex life in the light of day.

“I know.” He nodded. “But, I'm not sure she'd be thrilled that we're still friends.”

“It's in the rules,” I reminded him.

“True.”

“Maybe you should just show her the contract.” I nudged his foot with mine.

“Do you still have that? The rules, I mean.”

In a box in my front hall closet. “Probably somewhere.”

“That's good.”

I considered all the possible meanings of his uninterpretable tone while I busied myself with a forkful of hash browns and eggs—sans ketchup. Of course, the right words came to me when I was still chewing. “Planning to invoke them anytime soon?”

He looked down at his coffee, smiling a little. “I hope not.”

“Ooo-ooh!” I smirked. “Matty's in loo-ooove.”
Ah, sarcasm … balm for any unmentionable wounds to the soul,
I thought. There was just too much irony in Matt Lehrer finding a long-term girlfriend while I was breaking up with yet another inappropriate man.
Ugh.

He laughed. “Screw you, Joss.”

“Apparently not.”

“Oh, right.”

I drummed my fingers against my thigh. It would be so much easier if I could just have been with Matt one more time. If he could have met Meghan next week, or just stayed my Sorbet Guy forever. Taking risks was easier with a safety net. Without Matt around, I might have to stop careening through the dating world like a toddler on a sugar high. Unless … “So, anyone else you'd recommend since you're bowing out as my Sorbet Guy?” Not that I could imagine having a contract with anyone but Matt.

“I think Jay would be more than happy to step in.”

“Okay, I like Jay, but gross.” Jay was an acquaintance who had asked me out once. I was seeing … someone at the time, and had been grateful for the excuse to say no. He was fine enough to have a chat with if I ran into him, but he was self-important for no good reason, and frankly, a bit lacking in personal hygiene.

“Gross?”

“Oh, come on, Matt.”

He let out the smirk he'd been trying to hold back. “Yeah … gross.”

“Thank you.” I sighed.

“Look, I'm sorry I can't help you out with the Martin thing …” Matt started.