ALEX

 

Matt stayed over my place again after the fundraiser. It’s so comfortable having him with me. Which is odd in itself. I haven’t had anyone stay at my apartment before Matt… ever. Now, Matt has done it three times. We spent the rest of the evening with all my friends celebrating and generally chatting. But he’s gone home to check on Nate, and I spent the day in the gallery as always. Seeing as I am paid for a seven day a week job, I have to be there no matter what. I knew what I was taking on when Ria offered it to me, but I guess I didn’t take into account late nights like last night. So getting up this morning to go in on a Sunday, yeah that was hard work. Especially, when I’m a tiny bit hung over. But Matt drove me in, and we stopped for breakfast burritos on the way. It’s our thing, for some reason. I’m not sure why, but I like it.

Now that the day is drawing to a close, I figure I need to make good on my promise to help Nate be less of a lost puppy. At work I can do absolutely everything to take the load off him, that’s easy, but relationship wise I could be doing more. So I’m grabbing a cab and making my way to a certain celebrity A-lister’s house to try and make her see some sense. Ria needs to know what she’s doing to my friend. She needs to know that he’s struggling every day in every way, and she needs to tell him once and for all what’s going on. I need to make her tell him.

The cab pulls up at the front gates of Ria’s mansion, and the security detail looks down into my window. I glance through the front, and Donald looks down noticing me right away with his bright smile. It makes me inwardly giggle at how much Donald makes me think he belongs more on the Jersey Shore than in the Hollywood Hills.

“Hey Alex, good to see you again,” he announces as he presses a button to open the gate.

“Hey Don, good to see you, too!”

The cabby pulls off and up inside the gates, stopping next to the giant fountain. I pay him with a thanks, and get out into the warm night air. It’s a beautiful night, and the stars are on show glistening in the blackened sky. I sigh wondering how this is going to go down, but I step forward and knock on her expensive looking doors.

I don’t have to wait too long before she answers. The door opens with ease, and Ria stands before me looking gaunt, pale, and like she’s definitely lost more weight. Shaking my head, I slump as she looks at me and frowns, gesturing with her hand for me to come inside.

I nod and walk in, the door closes behind me, and I turn back to see her wearing a simple robe and bare feet. She looks less the elegant actress, and more the sickly friend I’ve become accustomed to now.

“Ria, are you eating?” I ask, and she winces at the mere mention of food.

She sighs and leads us through the foyer to her living room. “I try, I do. I eat as much as I can, but honestly, it mostly comes back up. I try to keep hydrated only at this point.” She takes us to the sofas and we sit down.

I face her as I sink into the plushness of the cushions. Reaching out, I grasp her hand. “Okay, so I’m going in for the tough love approach here, Ria. You look like death. You’re not coping. You’re not well. And Nate, God love him, but he’s much the same. He misses you so badly. Sure he’s working, he’s painting and losing himself in his art, but all he paints about is you. That’s clear and obvious.”

She sinks further into her sofa, her head turning down as her eyes droop, and she exhales out a long breath.

“I know you want to hide this from him, and I know you think it’s for the best. But Ria, you need him, you need him to help you through this, and he damn well needs you. Plus, you don’t want the baby to not have its father growing up, right?” I go for the low blow.

She grunts and shifts her shoulders. “Alex, I love you, but I’ve made up my mind. I thought I’d made that perfectly clear to you. Nate needs to move on without me. He needs to have a life where he’s not bogged down by going to medical appointments and spending all his time focusing on the baby and me. He’s too important to the world to stop his career right now for a family. I can’t do that to him.”

Rolling my eyes, I shake my head. “But what if he can find a balance? Work, life, family? What if you guys can make it work?”

“Alex, enough. I’ve made my mind up. I need you to tell Nate once and for all that he must move on. I don’t want him pining over me. He needs to get on with his life, a life without me because I don’t want him waiting for me. I’m done, Alex. My future doesn’t include Nate. He has his life to live, and I have to think of my baby and me.”

I scoff. “It’s his baby, too.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

“He will.”

“Only if someone tells him. I’m not going to… are you? Will you ruin his career, Alex?” she asks, and I take a deep breath and purse my lips.

“I don’t like this, Ria. I don’t like lying to Nate, or Matt either for that matter.”

“You’re not lying, Alex, you’re simply not telling them. There’s a difference. But you’re being my friend in the process, and I think after all this time, Alex, that our friendship means something to you. I’m not trying to pull the ‘we were friends first card’ here, but Alex, I’m begging you, please, please do this for me. Please tell Nate we’re done and to let me go… for his sake. I’m doing this for him. You have to see that?” Tears well in her eyes and I understand what she’s saying, and why she feels like bogging Nate down with an instant family is detrimental to him and his career. But I know him well enough that his love for her would make him want to stand by her. He would want this baby, and he would do anything to keep Ria by his side.

So, yeah, I know Nate would give up the band in a heartbeat if he needed to.

Unfortunately, for this reason alone I see that Ria’s reasoning is valid. I get it. I do. I don’t like it, but I get it.

Simply nodding, I clench my eyes shut and purse my lips before opening them again. “Okay, I’ll take him out somewhere, just him and me and tell him to let you go. I’ll be brutal, and quite clear with him that you don’t want him. Just know that once I do this, there might be no coming back from it.”

“Good. It needs to be truly over in his mind for us.”

Shaking my head, I lean in and pull her into an embrace, as a tear rolls down her cheek. “I’ll do this on one condition.” She nods. “You let me come over as often as I can to help you, seeing as you won’t let Nate. Let me be your support.”

She sniffs and nods. I hate that it has come to this. I despise the fact that Ria and Nate are so far gone that they can’t work their shit out. I’m really unhappy that I can’t fix this mess no matter how hard I try.

Tomorrow, after work, I’ll take Nate to Inflatable Land to break the news to him. I have no idea how that will go, how he will take it, or how I’m going to broach the subject. All I know is it’s going to be hard as fuck and watching his heart break is not something I’m looking forward to.

 

***

 

After the debacle that was Inflatable land with me telling Nate that he had to let Ria go, and then him getting all pissy little girl and smashing a bottle of Tequila on the inflatable and bursting it, we made a run for it but it was short lived. Nate was talked to by police at the gallery and had to pay damages. He was fined and also banned for six months, but Tillie sorted it all out—out of court—and everything settled down pretty quickly. But it’s been a month since then and Nate is still depressed, so I’m going to head over to the boys’ house after work and have a catch-up night. I’ve seen more and more of Matt, and we’ve been talking about the internet dating app again, but neither of us have been brave enough to go back on there since our terrible first dates.

So after a long day at the gallery, Nate and I are headed back to his house. We walk in, and Matt is in the kitchen holding a smoking sage stick. I glance to Nate, and he groans quite loudly as we walk in to hear Whisper singing Hava Nagila as he rushes about obviously doing the guys’ Fung Shui.

Whisper spots me, and his eyes open wide, and we both smile taking in the fact that we know each other, and that he obviously knows the guys as well. What a small world!

“Alexandria, you know these sexy boys?” he asks racing over and embracing me tightly.

Nate and Matt both cock their heads in exactly the same way making my chuckle, as Matt furrows his brow. “You two know each other?”

“Yeah, we go way back. Whisper was around when I was studying my art degree, and he helped me a lot. He knows many things.”

Whisper nods and waves his palm over the front of Matt’s chest. “Yes, like I know you seem down Matthew sexy boy, and so does Nathaniel, and the ju-ju is all off around you two. We need to get the love flowing in the room for everyone to have good qi running around them.”

Nate scoffs. “I’m not in the mood for finding love at any time in the near future, or maybe ever again.”

I lean into his side cuddling into him, as Matt looks at me with a wince like we both know how Nate feels.

Whisper nods and sighs. “Well, if sexy boy Nathaniel won’t put himself out there, then it up to my girl Alex and sexy boy Matt to make love happen,” Whisper announces.

Matt looks to me as I look to him with our eyebrows both raised high.

“Umm… what do you mean, Whisper?” I ask.

He nods toward Matt’s laptop. “I love guru! Internet dating… I help you choose your perfect matches. Yes?”

I shake my head. “Not sure I wanna go down that path again, Whisper. Didn’t work out so well for me last time.”

Matt raises his brows in obvious agreeance.

“Oh yes, but this time I hand pick love match for you, with my detailed skill set and working love ju-ju.”

Nate scoffs out a laugh. “Working love ju-ju?”

Even I try to hold back my laugh. I love Whisper, but really some of the crap he dribbles is completely absurd.

“You laugh now, but everything I do end up bringing the right people together. You see. My love ju-ju work. Mark my word.”

Matt shrugs and turns the laptop around. “Go on then, pick me my next ten out of ten. And then we can pick someone for Alex, too,” Matt says.

I scowl at him as he grins maniacally at me. I roll my eyes as Whisper sets off tapping away on the laptop, and Nate chuckles slightly to himself. Well, at least Nate is getting some amusement out of this.

“For importance of flow we must do Alex’s first,” Whisper specifies, but doesn’t elaborate and I groan while Matt chuckles.

So I move forward and type in my account details, and let Whisper go about finding me my perfect match. I stand back as he scrolls through the profiles. He searches and searches as Nate stares off into the distance. So, I move in next to Matt and cuddle into his side. I like that we’re affectionate with each other. Matt’s fingers gently stroke up and down my arm and his tender touch soothes my nerves.

“Got it!” Whisper calls out and opens a profile of a guy named Ronan. He has red hair, he’s not bad looking, but not the bad boy image I’m used to.

“Ronan… you see me falling in love with him, Whisper?” I ask furrowing my brows in confusion, as I see his approval rating has only two and a half stars.

He smiles, as Matt looks at his photo and winces. “I believe he will lead you to true love, Alexandria.”

Pursing my lips, I let out a small huff. “He’s Irish,” I state for no real reason other than I don’t have anything else to say.

“Your very own pretty little Galway guy,” Matt teases, and I roll my eyes while giving him a light punch to his arm.

“That’s not how it goes and you know it, Matthew,” I mock.

He chuckles with a shrug while the look on Nate’s face indicates he’s obviously amused by this whole thing.

“Fine, if I get a dud Matt gets one too. Let me pick!” I say.

Whisper pulls the laptop away from me. “No. Alex, this very important. I must choose wisely. Plus, Matt get two to pick from. His path has two women. It very clear… very, very, clear to me.”

All our eyes open wide as Nate chuckles. Matt’s jaw drops open and I scoff. “What the fuck. Why does he get two? That’s not fair, and it’s kinda slutty. Matt, you’re a slut,” I exclaim while Nate laughs.

“Hey, don’t blame me, I haven’t even done anything, yet. It’s Whisper’s fault. He’s the love ju-ju master. If he wants me to have two women, I can’t deny him that now, can I?”

I glare at him as he smiles wide, and Whisper takes the laptop from me putting in Matt’s details.

“Well, Whisper, I think I should be allowed to choose one of the women,” I demand and Whisper furrows his brows shaking his head.

“No, this is not path.”

Matt smirks and rolls his eyes. “Okay, okay, I’ll have two women. But I’m fine to let Alex choose one of them.”

Whisper winces and slumps his shoulders. “Sexy boy, I can or cannot show you way which the tide will change. You will only see it when water swallows you whole,” Whisper says.

I know somehow that’s a warning in his weird Whisper way, but he never comes out and says what the actual problem is or when there is one. And knowing Matt, he won’t take the warning when it’s there. Whatever the warning is, which I’m still not sure what the warning is to be honest, I know Whisper enough to know there is one.

“So… you want to go to the beach and watch the tide?” Matt asks, and Nate laughs as I chuckle and shake my head.

“No, fuck face, just get on with it,” I say and he nods with a shrug, as Whisper brings up a profile of a woman with red hair. Her name is Madeline, which screams of innocence and virtue like he’s after. Her profile pic is just of her face, her lips are plump and red, her cheeks are full and pert and her eyes are big and green with full lashes that go on for days. She’s basically Jessica Rabbit in real life, and even I have a lady boner for her. Matt takes a deep breath and raises an eyebrow as Whisper looks down at her profile and nods as he continues to read it over.

“Hmm… much to know about her. Path unclear on this one. Something… fuzzy. She have good ju-ju but there a barrier. Something that might be an issue. The qi in the room blocking me from seeing what barrier is, but everything else lining up for her, Matt. She could be good candidate.”

Matt’s smile is bright, and I curl my lip up slightly staring at her, suddenly feeling something weird happening in the pit of my stomach. Nerves, tension… I’m not sure. But looking at her and thinking of her coming into Matt’s life—my life, and possibly interrupting my time with Matt—doesn’t sit well with me.

“You get all that from her profile picture, Whisper?” I ask.

“I get it from flow coming from her. I guru, remember? I read more than picture, I read lines on face, posture, stance, confidence, aura, energy… everything from her. Even down to grammar and way she present herself on paper. You tell lot from way a person write about themselves, Alex,” he tells me and I furrow my brows and nod slightly, wondering if I can pick a good person for Matt. I want him to have a really nice girl. The girl Whisper has chosen looks too done up for me. Sure she’s stunning, but to me and from what Matt’s said, he wants someone a little more down to earth. So I’ll find him that girl. My stomach twists again, and I shake my head slightly trying to push away the unsettled feeling in my stomach as I grab the computer and turn it to face me.

“Okay, my turn.”

Matt chuckles, resting his arm on my shoulder and looking over me to see as I scroll through the sea of women. I notice my profile and Matt chuckles pointing to me, and I smile as he runs his finger over my face on the screen. I scroll past it, shaking my head with a slight smirk.

“Okay, so we need your perfect ten, right?” I ask, and Matt nods.

“Yes. Let’s find her together,” Matt suggests.

I glance up to see Nate and Whisper looking at us both resting their fingers on their chins assessing us. I furrow my brows and shake off their judgmental stares going back to the screen to search for Matt’s perfect partner and match.

Then I see her.

She has short wavy brown hair with a slight red tinge, but it’s only just there. She caught my attention because whenever Matt is over, we always watch The Walking Dead and he always comments he has a crush on Maggie. Well, this woman is the spitting image of her. But obviously, she has a less apocalyptic, world’s just ended and zombies are everywhere trying to kill you, look.

Matt leans in over my shoulder as I pull open her profile and he chuckles into my ear. “Damn Alex,” he says and I giggle as I read over her profile. She’s studying to be a writer and spends most of her time case studying.

I raise my brow knowing this means she’ll probably work for herself, and send her work off to publishers or journalist columns and such. Therefore, she’d be free to travel with the band which is one of Matt’s complicated rules. She’s never been previously married, has no kids, and seems to have a good family from what I can see. To me, she appears to be a good match and is hitting a number of his rules.

“Charlotte looks like a good match from what I can see,” I say turning toward Whisper.

Whisper moves to us and looks at her over my shoulder and instantly screws up his face. “Urgh, no. Try again,” Whisper demands and Matt pouts shaking his head.

“Oh, but I think Charlotte looks great. From what I read she fits my criteria. Plus, she looks like Maggie, my idol.”

“Beauty like a serpent. It can strike you and be venomous, lethal to its prey.”

Matt raises his brow. “Umm, what does that even mean?”

“It mean… choose wisely.”

I swallow hard wondering why Whisper is so adamant with Matt, but with me he was like, yep, Ronan’s all good. Off you go and be merry. Whether we have different ju-ju, or whether he looks at us differently I’m not sure, but either way, we’re certainly getting a differing experience in this love guru thing.

I use Matt’s account to send Charlotte a Pessimistic wink, while Matt smiles at me as Whisper grunts from behind me in a disapproving manner. I roll my eyes as Matt cuddles into my side even further.

“Well, looks like we’re at it again, Alex. We gonna double date like old times?” he asks.

I scoff. “Umm… no. Don’t think I can live up to your lavish lifestyle, Matt. If Ronan and I go anywhere, I think I’ll catch up with him on my own terms this time.”

He frowns and pouts like a small child. “Party pooper.”

We both turn to look at Whisper and Nate, who are watching us both with the same intense stare.

“What?” I ask, and Nate shakes his head.

“You guys are weird. That’s all,” he replies and turns walking out of the kitchen while Whisper smirks.

“I believe sexy boy one correct… you two, are, as he says… weird.”

Matt and I burst out laughing.

“That’s rich coming from you, Whisper,” Matt says.

“Ah yes, but my weird seen, yours seen by others, but not seen by yourselves. For it the unseen that one does not see before it become clear to oneself,” he says.

I furrow my brows looking to Matt to see if he has any idea what any of that means, but the confused look on his face that mirrors mine shows he’s just as confused as me.

“Your riddles give me heartburn,” Matt says, and Whisper grins with a twinkle in his eyes.

“It not my riddles that make your chest ache, Matthew, it the unseen. It make sense one day. Just open your chakra, the knowledge there, you need to be willing to truly use it.”

Matt exhales as his hand reaches into his back pocket pulling out his wallet. “Okay, so how much for this insightful privilege, Whisper? $599? $699?” He chuckles, and I open my eyes wide in shock at the cost.

Whisper waves his hand through the air and lets out a bemused laugh. “We friend now, sexy boy, you no longer pay me for guidance. I give freely. I offer myself to you in all way to help you… unless you want your taxes done, then I give you good price… Yes?”

Matt glances at me with a sly grin and swallows hard. “We’ll see about the taxes. That’s a big job for a rock star, but we can talk. In the meantime, thank you, and I’ll let you know how it goes with Charlotte and Madeline.”

“Excellent, okay, I take leave now. You kids have good night. Don’t party too hard, you wild child you. Hahaha,” Whisper laughs in that fake laugh he does so well, making Matt and me both chuckle as he turns and heads for the front door leaving us both in the kitchen.

“This should be interesting. Not sure I’m ready to take on two women at once,” Matt says.

“Well, I guess you just talk to both of them if they respond, get a feel for them and then choose which one you like better to meet out of the two.”

“Strange how he said I needed two. Maybe I need more odds because I’m harder to match with?”

“Or because you’re such a dork that no one will like you,” I tease and he grins while rolling his eyes.

“Burn,” he says, licking the tip of his finger and placing it on my arm pretending it sizzles. I chuckle and sigh as he furrows his brows and looks into my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

I shrug. “I dunno… I just feel a bit like… I get why you have to do it this way, but am I so unapproachable that the only way a guy would be interested in me is by meeting me online first?”

“Hey, stop. No. You’re incredible, and you could have any guy you want. You’re killer, Alex.”

“Nah, I’m not exactly ladylike am I?” I scoff.

He tries to hide his smirk, and he bumps his shoulder into mine. “But that’s what makes you so awesome. You’re not like the other girls, you’re unique, and there’s plenty of guys out there who love that in girls.”

I sink into the side of the kitchen bench wondering if he’s just saying that. Because from where I’m standing, Nate went for Ria who’s stunning and a normal girl in every sense of the word, other than being an actress. Matt, he wants the same, a stunner who has core values and looks the part. Me—I’m not a normal girl. I look different, I act differently. Everything about me is different, and so if the two men in my life both want normal women then isn’t that what most men are looking for? Normal? Which I obviously am not.

“Alex, you’re thinking too much,” Matt says grabbing my hand. A tingle shoots through my skin when he touches me, and my heart skips a beat, but I’m not entirely sure why. Whether I’m just on edge in this moment, or high from Whisper being around. His energy always flows into me for some reason making me feel more in tune with what’s around me, and I’m not sure how or why that happens but it does.

I nod my head slightly. “I probably am.”

“Well then, stop it,” he demands.

“Yes, sir,” I say as his cell dings.

He looks down. “It’s a wink back from Madeline,” he tells me.

“Not the writer… the redhead?” I ask, and he nods. “Good. Send her a message,” I suggest, and that sinking feeling in my stomach appears again, and I have to hold onto the bench for support.