With Strings Attached (32 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said, eyeing him seriously. “I was yanking your chain.”

He stared down at her.

“Matt. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re acting like a two-year-old. No wait. Like a
male
two-year-old. Even Emma never acted like this.”

His scowl deepened. He shook her hand off his arm and reached for the doorknob.

“Wait,” she said again. “Matt. If you’re in love with Corey, you better tell her.”

“What?” He gaped at her. “I’m not in love with her!”

It was at that moment he realized that he was completely, totally lying.

Holy fucking shit.

He closed his eyes and slumped against the wall. “We’re friends,” he muttered. Yeah, right. He’d been in denial about this. For a long time. How long? He wasn’t sure, but when Dylan had arrived, he’d felt like he was competing with his best friend for Corey. They weren’t just friends. He was so in love with her it was ridiculous. He’d been jealous of Dylan.

“I don’t think so,” Neve said.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, his chest aching so much he rubbed it. “We are. That’s what we agreed. Okay, so we…” He swallowed and shot his sister a look. “We sleep together. Sometimes. Once a while. But it’s just friends. No strings attached. That’s what we both want.”

“She might want more than that.”

He shook his head, frowning. “Not from me.” Bitterness edged his voice. “She’s all broken up about Dylan.”

She snorted. “No, she’s not.”

“Neve.” He shook his head. “We’re friends. That’s all. That’s all girls ever want from me. I’ve heard it so many times. ‘I like you too much to go out with you’.” He laughed bitterly. “As if that makes any fucking sense at all. Women. I don’t get it. They all want the bad boy, the guy who joins a rock band, smokes dope, drives drunk and doesn’t take responsibility for his own children.”

A look of confusion passed over Neve’s face, but he continued. “That’s not me. Right? Right. ‘You’re too nice’. That’s what they tell me,” he said. “‘Let’s just be friends’. That’s all Corey wanted from me. So forget whatever crazy matchmaking ideas you have. I saw the looks between you and Mom and Jenna. If you’re all thinking that Corey and I are going to end up happily ever after together, forget it. She doesn’t want that. Like every other girl, she thinks I’m just a friend.”

His voice had risen, and probably everyone in the dining room was listening, but he didn’t give a shit. His humiliation was complete now.

“Matt.” Neve’s quiet, serious tone stopped him. “Shut the fuck up.”

He couldn’t help but laugh, a soft snort through his nose. “Watch your language, young lady.”

She smiled. “You’re an idiot. You’re both idiots. Go talk to her. She’s not in love with Dylan.”

“How the fuck do you know?”

“She told me last night.”

Once again he stared at her openmouthed.

She nodded, her lips quirked. “Yup. She told me that. I think she’s in love with you, Matt.”

“Did she say that?”

“No. She’s in denial too. Man.” She rolled her eyes. “You two are so blind. It’s unbelievable.”

Did the whole world know except him? Was he a pathetic fool who everyone knew was sadly in love with Corey, hanging around her desperately while she laughed and said they were “just friends”? A fist squeezed his throat at the thought. He bent his head and stared at his toes in his leather flip-flops. God, his toes were ugly.

“Go see her. You guys need to be honest with each other.”

Sure. Yeah. So easy to go and lay yourself out in front of a freight train like that.

“I…I can’t hear that one more time, Neve.” He hated revealing his biggest fear to his baby sister, but there it was. “I just can’t.” He swiped a hand across his face. “Not from her.”

What was he supposed to do?

She made a small noise and moved closer, put her hand on his shoulder. “Ah, Matt. You’re a pain in my ass sometimes, but I love you. Look. In some ways it’s true. Women are stupid. They like the bad boys because they think they can change them or something. That never works. It’s the guys like you that are the real catch. The guys who are solid and strong and look after us all. You drive me nuts, but…well, it was Dylan who reminded me of this…I know it’s because you care.”

Huh? He narrowed his eyes at his sister. “Yeah.”

“Corey may not realize that, but I know she cares about you. If you want her, go fight for her. Sweep her off her feet. Tie her to the bedposts naked.”

His mouth fell open. “Neve!”

“C’mon, I’m not that young and innocent. She knows all your good qualities—go show her your inner bad boy.”

“Fuck.” He rubbed his eyes. “I think I already did.”

“Ooh.”

“Never mind. Long story. And you’re not going to hear it.”

She laughed. “Get outta here. Go see Corey.” She gave him a shove toward the door.

He left his mom’s house, walking out into the cool night air scented with saltwater and a neighbor’s barbecue. He strolled toward his Jeep, parked in the driveway, thinking about what Neve had said.

Who’d’ve thought his little sister would be giving him advice about his love life?

He climbed into his Jeep, started it and put it into gear. He drove without any plan, thinking more about what she’d said. So Corey had told Neve she wasn’t in love with Dylan. Which meant she probably wasn’t all that broken up about him leaving. Yeah, she was probably worried about him, especially after they’d discovered the truth about his accident. It was kind of worrying him too, especially since Dylan had been acting weird and hadn’t even tried surfing, had even been talking about staying. That was so fucking weird for him it was scary.

Maybe he should’ve been more worried about Dylan and less worried about himself.

Dylan had been through hell. Matt wished Dylan had stuck around longer after they’d found out the truth about his accident so they could’ve talked about it. He was pretty sure he didn’t know the half of it, but knowing what had happened to Dylan, the way he’d been acting, the nightmares, the fact that he hadn’t even tried surfing all told him Dylan was messed up bad. Then he’d asked Corey to go with him and she’d turned him down. And he’d left.

Fuck.

He pulled over and parked in front of Corey’s building. He’d driven there without conscious thought. In fact, he wondered how he got there. Had he run any red lights? He’d totally been driving on autopilot. He turned off the engine and sat there, hands on the wheel, staring out the windshield.

He hoped Dylan was okay. He hoped he was on his way to France to get back in the ocean and surf the hell out of those waves. He was an amazing surfer, one of the best in the world, and that wasn’t best-buddy bias. It was the truth. But Christ, it was going to take some guts to get back there after what he’d been through.

He surfed those waves with no fear, riding an adrenaline rush along with the ocean, owning those waves, living his life doing what he loved. Yeah, he took risks every time he went out there. Yeah, he’d gotten hurt. He’d get through it, though. Matt suddenly felt sure of it.

He’d always envied Dylan’s fearless joy of life, living every day like an adventure. He knew he sometimes got too complacent. He had a great life, was happy with his life the way it was. Or rather, the way it had been. He had no huge ambitions for his restaurant. Sure, he’d like to grow the business, but he loved working there, tending bar, talking to people, creating his beers. He had everything he needed.

Except one thing. Corey.

He had to take the risk. Like Dylan, he had to risk getting hurt, and like Dylan, if he did get hurt, he’d survive. But he had to go in and talk to her. Whatever was going on between them, they had to talk. If she was going to tell him she was in love with another man, which according to Neve wasn’t the case and was the
only
thing giving him the nerve to even do this, they were going to be done anyway. He’d known that the moment she walked out of his house that afternoon.

So if there was any hope for anything at all between them, he had to go in there and basically strip naked in front of her. Metaphorically. Although stripping naked literally might work too since they’d always been hot for each other and the sex had been off-the-charts amazing.

Tying her to the bedposts sounded pretty amazing too. He smiled.

Corey sat in her dark living room, cross-legged on her couch, hugging a cushion. She’d cried a little. Thought a lot. Relived moments from the past—the first time she and Matt had slept together. The talk they’d had afterward, when they’d both had an oh-God-what-have-we-done moment. All the times he’d come to her rescue, when her car broke down, her tire went flat, her father showed up out of the blue. There were lots more.

He’d complained that girls always wanted to be just friends with him. He’d never told her that. And she didn’t quite understand it, because girls looked at him and flirted with him and came on to him all the time. He didn’t even seem to realize it.

He’d been hurt by Lysett, she knew, and she hated Lysett for that. But she was glad, too, glad that they’d split up because…because…she closed her eyes. Because she wanted him for herself.

She tossed the pillow aside and leaned back into the couch cushions, staring at her ceiling.

She’d never had good luck with relationships either, and she’d had enough therapy that she could analyze the reasons why. She’d always hooked up with guys who were unavailable—commitment-phobic guys who screwed around on her, used her, lied to her. Because even though every relationship ended badly with her getting let down, she knew it was because that’s what she expected to happen. Her life had taught her that.

She and Matt had been friends before they’d been lovers. Her forehead wrinkled as she thought back to when they’d met. Had she ever said that to him? That he was too nice to date?

No. She was pretty sure she never had. He’d had a girlfriend when they met, and even though she’d recognized how attractive he was, and even though they’d flirted mildly and teased each other and laughed a lot together, there’d never been any thought of “dating” him. So she never would have said that to him. And then when things had changed, both of them had agreed they didn’t want relationships. They didn’t want any strings attached. They both liked sex—a lot—and it turned out they liked sex with each other. Also a lot. But since she didn’t expect anything from him, there was no reason to worry about being let down.

He was the kind of guy who stayed around. The kind of guy who looked after people, the kind of guy she could always count on, the kind of guy who would make a faithful husband and a good father. The kind of guy she’d always avoided. Avoided unconsciously, but still…avoided. Because he was the kind of guy she’d fall in love with and that would mean
really
getting hurt when he let her down.

And she’d gone and fallen in love with him anyway and ruined a beautiful friendship.

The ring of her doorbell startled her so much she knocked a cushion to the floor. Her heart lurched, then thudded. She frowned and rose to her feet, then headed down the stairs. She stood on her toes to peer through the small window at the top of the door and saw a big shadowy figure that she instantly recognized. Matt.

She leaned her forehead against the door as her heart pounded and her knees went weak. She knew what she had to do, she just hadn’t expected to have to do it this soon. Right now. She’d thought she’d have time to get her nerve up.

She unlocked the door and opened it, and it took all her courage to meet Matt’s eyes.

“Hi,” he said. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his shorts, his shoulders hunched. He smiled but his eyes were shadowed and he almost looked…nervous.

“Hi,” she said, stepping aside so he could enter. He walked in. Her fingers trembled as she relocked the door. “What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

She nodded. Her mouth went dust dry and her tongue felt thick. “Yeah. We do. Come on up.”

She led the way up the stairs, every nerve ending in her body aware of him behind her.

Her apartment was in darkness other than the light of a streetlamp that filtered through the venetian blinds on her front window. She clicked on the lamp on the painted end table and a warm glow spread around them. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling cold, her insides trembling. “Have a seat. Uh…would you like a drink…or anything?”

“No. Thanks.” He sat on her couch. Her heart was jumping in her chest and her lungs refused to expand as she tried to breathe. She didn’t want to do this, but what choice did she have?

“So what did you want to talk about?” Matt asked in a low voice.

She sat, too, though nervous energy flowed through her and made her antsy. She perched on the edge of the couch at the opposite end from him, angling her body slightly toward him. “Well. Um.” She twisted her fingers together. “This is really hard.”

She looked up and met his eyes. Maintaining eye contact was too hard, though, and she dropped her gaze. Licked her lips. Swallowed.

“I think we have to…stop seeing each other.” That sounded wrong. It made it sound like they had a relationship. “I mean, I know we weren’t ‘seeing each other’. But you know…it’s not that I don’t want to be friends any more, but…I don’t think we can.” Christ, how did you end a friends-with-benefits relationship? It wasn’t exactly breaking up. But it was.