“I’m tired of pretending, Bran.” His head dropped to my shoulder. His breathing was ragged, and I couldn’t tell if it was because he’d just kissed me until he was out of oxygen or if it was emotions overflowing. With Matty, it could be either.
“Then don’t,” I urged him. This might prove to be the biggest mistake of my life, but if Matt was into me and I couldn’t make myself stop thinking about him when I rubbed one out, it was stupid for both of us to suffer. But first, he needed to say the words. “Tell me what you want, Matty.”
It was awkward as hell. but I managed to pull him onto my lap. I was certain he could feel my heart thumping against his palm when he pressed his hands against my chest. He rocked gently when I gripped his hips.
“I thought you’d be mad at me,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. His fingers curled around the back of my neck and he leaned in, pressing his forehead to mine. “You don’t hate me?”
“I told you, I could never hate you, Matty,” I promised him. It was hard to rein in my own excitement. Knowing that Matt could be mine was better than any Christmas gift I could have asked for.
“But do you want to kiss me again or are you going to tell me that was a big mistake?”
Nothing with Matt could ever be a mistake. Even if he wound up being my biggest regret somewhere down the line, that still wouldn’t mean we’d screwed up. It had been Matt and me against the world for as long as I could remember. Nothing was going to change that.
No, the only thing I could possibly regret would be pushing him away, and that so was not going to happen. Rather than speaking, I cupped Matt’s face in my hands and drew him close. Our faces were close enough I could feel his every exhale against my skin.
“Oh Matty,” I whispered right before I pulled him in close enough to get another taste. Neither of us tried to deepen the kiss from something sweet into a release of the pent-up sexual frustration we both felt. There was no need to hurry as I slipped my tongue past his lips. Being with him like this was something new, but it also felt like so much more. It was almost an inevitability that we’d wind up here. “The only mistake was waiting so long to let you see how much you mean to me.”
Now, I needed to figure out how to spend as much time with Matt as possible before we went back to school. I didn’t want there to be any doubt in his mind that we belonged together once we headed back to Annandale.
3
Brandon
I popped the trunk and grabbed as many bags as I could loop on my arms without causing injury. Matt didn’t know it, but we had big plans today. I couldn’t take one more day of coming to visit and being assaulted by the stagnant remnants of over-processed food. I couldn’t abandon my own family to take care of Matt and his mom, but that didn’t mean they had to fend for themselves.
“Um, did you get kicked out of your parents’ house and not have time to pack?” Matt teased as he swung open the storm door. He gaped at my overloaded arms. “What’s all this?”
“We’re cooking,” I informed him.
“And by we, you meanyouare cooking, and I get to be your dish bitch?” Okay, so maybe I was a bit territorial over the kitchen at school, but that was because it made the average galley kitchen feel cavernous. “Is there more in the car?”
“Yeah, but if you want, you can start washing the containers I picked up while I grab another load.” I cringed, realizing I’d proven him right. It wasn’t my fault Matt was a disaster in the kitchen; he’d never learned how to do anything more than punch in some numbers on the microwave. Maybe I would work with him on the basics so he could leave the frozen meals for Kim. I grabbed his arm as he turned away and pulled his body against mine. He sighed when my lips brushed against his. “Do you have any idea how awesome it is to be able to do that? I think we need to make a rule that you have to kiss me any time I come over.”
“I’d do it even if you didn’t make me.” To prove his point, Matt slid his hand around the back of my neck, holding me in place as he traced his tongue across the seam of my lips. My jaw went slack, allowing him entry. It didn’t matter that we were on his front porch and whoever drove past might see. In fact, it was that much hotter because everyone in town needed to know that Matt was off the market, and more importantly,he was mine.
Both of us were breathless by the time the kiss ended. I slipped my hands into the back of Matt’s waistband, not quite ready to let him go. He reached up, brushing the hair out of my eyes. I’d been in such a hurry to get to the store so we could work while Kim was out that I hadn’t bothered styling my hair. “That…fuck, Brandon. You greet me like that and we’re never going to get anything done.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” I laughed. A blast of cold air rushed through the entryway, reminding both of us that we were doing something. “I’m going to get the rest of the groceries out of the car. If you finish with the storage containers and start rinsing the produce.”
Matt stared at me like I was speaking in tongues. “I’m not sure I remember the last time fresh fruit or veggies had a place in Mom’s kitchen.”
“Believe me, I’m aware,” I deadpanned. “But we’re changing that. You’re mom works too damn hard to live off packaged crap. I thought we’d make a freezer full now, and then the weekend before we go home, we’ll do it again. And bonus, the food will last her longer once I take the human garbage disposal back to campus with me.”
“I’m not that bad,” Matt protested.
But hewasthat bad. If there were leftovers, I could count on him to eat them before the next morning. I had to threaten corporal punishment to keep him from devouring all the snacks in the kitchen when we were busy studying for finals. And yet, he somehow managed to maintain a killer body. Life wasn’t fair.
I was impressed to find Matt drying the plastic containers when I walked into the kitchen loaded up with the last of the groceries. A cold snap had rolled in overnight and I wasn’t about to spend any more time than absolutely necessary outside today.
Matt surprised me. He listened to every direction I gave him, asked questions when there was something he wasn’t sure about, and before I knew it, he was dumping cheese over a disposable pan of ziti. I wrote the reheating directions on the lid, sealed it, and told him to put it in the freezer.
We worked together all afternoon, and by the time we were done, Kim’s chest freezer was nearly overflowing with meals Matt could cook while he was home. While I was riding high from the feeling of doing something good for my best friend and his mom, Matt was wiped out.
Hehatedcooking. But he was good at cleaning up—even if he complained the entire time—so we were a pretty well-matched pair.
“Do you want to go out for dinner?” I asked as I finished wiping down the counter while he put away the last of the pots and pans. “I thought we could do some Christmas shopping and then grab a bite to eat.”
“What time do you have to be home?” Even though I was an adult, I still had to talk to my parents if I was going to be out past curfew. I hated it, but I respected that their rules applied when I stayed at their house. “Going out sounds cool, but if I only have a little while with you, I can think of better things we could do.”
