“A WHAT?” Romy asked.
“A big, sharp fork. Or your teeth if you prefer.”
She choked on the breath she’d been taking, coughed, wheezed, grabbed for the glass of water on the coffee table and took a massive gulp. What had he just said?
He grinned at her. “I can do kink, you know.”
And she choked again, this time on the water, and coughed up half a lung.
“You okay?” Matt asked. “Maybe you need some of that Deep Heat.”
Deep Heat? Yes! Yes, she needed deep heat. The deeper the better.
“But if you’re trying to change my channel,” he said, with a half laugh, “it’s too late. It’s preprogrammed.”
“Wh-what?”
He gestured to the remote, and she looked down at it as though she’d never seen it before.
“Here,” he said, taking it from her and pointing it at the TV. “Let’s agree that the next channel switch we stick with no matter what.”
But when he jabbed his finger on the remote and somehow found The Proposal, she wanted to snatch the remote off him and try again.
She and Matt had watched The Proposal together the night she and Teague had broken up. February 14, nine years ago to the day. Not that Matt would remember that. But it was etched in her mind as the date she finally accepted Matt didn’t know she was equipped with boobs and a vagina.
“What is it about this movie and Valentine’s Day?” Matt asked.
Blink of utter, utter insanity. “You remember watching this?”
“Well, yeah! I wasn’t the one who drank a whole bottle of red wine on my own—my memory is unblotted. Now shh, we’ve already missed half of it.” And he fixed his eyes on the screen while simultaneously reaching out a hand and yanking her close to him.
What the hell was going oooon—dear God, he’d put a hand on her thigh.
She waited for him to move it. One...two...five...ten seconds... But his hand stayed where it was.
What was she supposed to do? Leave it there? She tried to think if she’d felt this hot and bothered in the old days when they’d watched a movie and he’d casually touched her, but her body had gone into free fall and there was only now. A deep, painful longing for him suffused her. She’d sit through anything as long as he kept his hand there—golf tournament, snooker, home shopping channel, even The Proposal.
“So,” he said, his eyes still on the TV screen.
“Yes?” she breathed.
“Back to that fork...”
The fork. Ha! Stick a fork in him? Stick a fork in her! She was so done she was like a slab of overcooked pork crackling!
Matt hooted out a laugh as though he’d heard her thoughts, then gestured to the TV. “Do you remember this bit?”
She forced herself to focus on the screen. Ugh. “Unfortunately, yes. You made me get up and chant to the universe and dance around the living room.”
“You didn’t take much persuading.”
“Red wine.”
“Wanna have another go—without tripping over the coffee table this time?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Then shh,” he said, and as he refocused on the TV, he released his grip on her thigh and pulled her under his arm instead.
Romy kept watching the screen, conscious of the need to appear like she was just...well, breathing. Like a normal woman would breathe when she was jammed under the arm of a guy she was gagging for!
But she was struggling to take in anything, because she was seeing instead Valentine’s Day evening nine years ago...
Matt and his date du jour, Kelsey, were going to a brasserie. Rafael and Veronica were at a diner because Rafael was broke and his pride wouldn’t bend by so much as a quarter inch when it came to Veronica contributing funds toward their date nights. Romy, who’d been dating Teague for two chaste months, didn’t know where Teague was taking her because it was a surprise, but she knew if she was ever going to sleep with him this was the night. She might have actually gone through with it, too, if he’d booked any old restaurant. But the moment she’d seen it was the exclusive, expensive Catch of the Day—which she’d been dying to try but couldn’t afford—she’d had a crisis of conscience. Going to bed with Teague after such a meal would feel like a dinner-for-sex trade, and she liked him too much to go through with it. So she’d put her hand on his arm to stop him from entering the restaurant, and he’d given her his gentle, crooked smile and said, “It’s okay, Romes. Apparently Valentine’s Day breakups are almost as common as Valentine’s Day engagements.”
And they’d hugged, and she’d tearily rejected his what-the-hell-it’s-Valentine’s-Day offer of as much lobster and champagne as she could consume, and thirty minutes later Romy was back in the town house with a take-out pizza.
She’d been about to indulge in her first bite when Matt walked in, looked at the pizza in its box on the coffee table, at the glass of red wine beside it, and asked, “What’s with the pizza?”
“Can’t a girl order a pizza every now and then?”
“Not when the girl is you.”
“I don’t cook every night.”
“Yes, Romy, you do. You’re obsessed with cooking.” And he’d swiped a slice, sampled it, grimaced, picked up the pizza and taken it to the kitchen, where he threw it in the garbage.
“I haven’t eaten dinner!” she complained.
“If you want pizza, I’ll take you to Vendetta’s.”
“It took so long to get into this dress I can’t be bothered getting out of it just to go for pizza. The whole point of takeout was that I didn’t have to.”
“Yeah, I guess you do look overly trussed for a pizzeria.”
“A real man wouldn’t be deterred by a few buttons.”
“Any man would be deterred by three million of the things, so to save us both the effort...” dragging her off the couch “...I’ll make you something to eat instead.”
He’d tugged her to the kitchen counter, got a beer for himself, poured her a fresh glass of red, tapped the neck of his bottle to her glass, taken a quick swig and started gathering ingredients.
Recognizing the makings of Matt’s infamous cheese, bell pepper, chili and Henry’s Hot Sauce omelet, Romy had spared a mournful thought for her trashed pizza capricciosa. But she knew Matt only made this particular omelet when someone was miserable—there was something about hot sauce and egg that helped take your mind off your troubles, he insisted, to everyone else’s disbelief—and so she’d said, “What happened?” preparing to take one for the team and help him eat the damn thing.
“Huh?” As he roughly chopped the pepper.
“Tonight. What happened with you and Kelsey?”
“Nothing.” Shaking out a ton of chili flakes.
“Nothing as in...nothing?”
“What?” he said, distracted by cracking eggs into a bowl and whisking enthusiastically. And then he paused and looked at her. “Oh no, I don’t mean nothing nothing. I mean nothing interesting.”
He mixed the cheese, chili and pepper chunks into the egg, tipped the mixture into the pan and pushed it around with a spatula. A couple of minutes later he scraped what looked like a lumpy red-and-beige splotch onto a plate. Without ceremony, he poured the hot sauce over it, threw a knife and fork on top and slid the plate across the kitchen counter to her.
“Where’s yours?” she asked, dismayed at the gargantuan size of the thing.
“Shit, I don’t need to eat.” He grabbed for his beer and took an enthusiastic swallow. “I had to eat Kelsey’s dinner and mine because she’s on a diet.” Another slug of beer. “Fuuuucking hell, Romy—a diet!”
“She’s a cheerleader, Matthew,” Romy said, and shoved a valiant forkful into her mouth. She swallowed with some difficulty, then grabbed his beer off him, needing a sip to extinguish the flame in her throat. “She has to wear skimpy outfits, and people have to toss her in the air and...and things. You’re the American—you know this stuff better than I do.”
“So what?”
“Sooooo she can’t eat like the rest of us—she has to keep her weight down.”
“Oh. Yeah. I guess.”
“And come on, you know girls don’t look as good as Kelsey without a little self-deprivation.”
“Who cares about looks?”
Romy choked on the bite of omelet she’d just taken. Took another sip of Matt’s beer. “Name one nongorgeous girl you’ve been out with.”
He grabbed his beer bottle back off her. “Names aren’t important. And neither are looks.”
“Ha ha.”
“I’ll qualify that—looks are a drawcard, but not if the rest of the person is annoying.”
“Yeah, well, your problem is you’re spoilt for choice. You get the pretty ones and the creative ones and the smart ones—all the ones.”
“At least I don’t get the nasty ones like you! Don’t make me regret wasting the Omelet of Compassion on you, Romy.”
Romy slowly lowered the laden fork that was halfway to her mouth. “What makes you think I’m in need of compassion?”
“Er...the pizza? Obvs!”
“Try again.”
He ran a hand behind his neck. “Well, you’re here, and Teague’s not.”
“How did you know I’d be here?”
Another rub of his neck. “I saw Teague at Flick’s.”
“Flick’s? Teague?”
A look of annoyance crossed Matt’s face. “It’s not a den of iniquity you know, it’s just a bar that happens to show films on Wednesday nights. They went anti-Valentine tonight with some godawful indie horror film. Lots of people were there.”
“Yes, but Teague?”
“Why not Teague? At twenty-one he doesn’t even need a fake ID, even if they could be bothered carding us, so—”
“It’s not that! It’s just... I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like him. It has a bit of a reputation.”
“Oh, so Flick’s is good enough for me but not for him? Yeah, well, he was there, halo and all! So I asked him why you weren’t with him and he told me you two had called it quits.”
“And you assumed I’d be in need of an omelet! Well, let me assure you the split was amicable.” She pushed her plate away. “I promise you it wasn’t worth leaving Kelsey unsatisfied.”
“As it happens, smart-ass, we’d already done the satisfying stuff before dinner.” He grinned. “And after. We were just out for a postcoital drink and the movie, and to be honest I was looking for an excuse to skip the film because there’s a scene with an eyeball being chewed in close-up. Blech.”
“I’m glad I didn’t completely ruin your evening,” she said drily.
“You don’t look glad.”
“Because you threw out my pizza!”
“Hey, I was going to take you out!”
“Oh, great—me eating and you watching!”
“Well, I... Sorry. I got a little ahead of myself with the pizza.”
“That’s because you always act first and think later. But since I don’t need a babysitter, please take yourself back to Flick’s.”
“Don’t make me go back there, Romy! I’ve got a DVD of The Proposal for us to watch instead—much better than a chewed eyeball. Kelsey said you’d like it and she’s a film major so she’d know. She says it’s perfect for V-Day.”
“Kelsey suggested it?” Romy didn’t know how to feel about not being considered a threat; she was living with Matt, after all!
“Come on, Romy, you know how squeamish I am. I can’t take the eyeball. Don’t make me go back there.”
And so she’d laughed—of course!—and let him pour her more wine and put on the movie and tuck them both under a blanket on the couch. And then he’d poured her more wine, and made her do the chant-dance, followed by more wine...
And then came the scene with the ivory satin wedding dress and Romy had started to cry, and as though Matt had been waiting for exactly that, he’d scooped her up and sat her on his lap and patted her back and she’d snuggled against him.
Matt made stupid It’s all right, I’ve got you, You’ve still got me murmurs into her hair, and even stupider than what he was saying was that she’d fallen asleep. Cradled on Matt’s lap she’d fallen asleep! What a waste!
When she woke up, she was sprawled on Matt on the couch, and for the longest time she’d watched him sleep. Awake, he was always so sure of himself, and yet asleep there was something defenseless about him that made her want to hug him.
She’d felt an insane desire to take his face between her hands and rub her lips against his to see what it was that he gave to other women that he wouldn’t give to her. It had shocked her, how much she wanted to do it, not only because it felt wrong to break up with one guy and kiss another all in the one night but because she hadn’t allowed herself to think about Matt like that since that first night they’d met, when they’d almost kissed.
Whatever the reason, she’d sucked in a breath and the small noise woke him. For a moment, he’d stared at her, and then his eyes heated, and hooded. The hands that had been loosely crossed over her back tightened and he’d pulled her in close and she’d felt his erection.
Time stopped. She’d sensed rather than felt his heartbeat, steady and strong. Or maybe it was her own she was in tune with: it was telling her to kiss him, kiss him now because she might never get another chance.
“One thing I noticed last night...” he’d said, and she’d held her breath, dying to know. And then he’d grinned. “You look kind of like a troll when you cry.”
“Oh, you...you bastard!” she’d exploded, whacking him in the chest and oofing her way off him.
“Hey, it’s cute,” he’d insisted, laughing at her disappearing back as she stomped to her room, where she told herself that she was to Matthew Carter what Teague Hamilton was to her. A friend you liked too much to love. A friend you needed in your life but not your bed. A friend, nothing more.
And now, so many years later, nothing had changed...and she still wanted him anyway...
“Hey—remember this bit?” Matt, giving her a nudge and bringing her back to the present. “Betty White trying to find Sandra Bullock’s boobs in that dress. You started crying and said your boobs were too big, so you were going on a diet like Kelsey to shrink them.”
“Yep, got it, thank you.”
“And I had to lift you onto my lap and cuddle you.”
“Aaaand you can shut up now.”
“And I said I’d take a look at your boobs for you and give you an honest appraisal.”
“Shut up, Matthew!”
“And you started undoing those three million buttons on your dress.”
“Yes, I remember,” she said, exasperated. “I also remember that you stopped me.”
He looked at her, eyes heating. “I was a moron. How about I check your boobs now?”
Oh God, oh God, what did that mean? Fork. Done. No! If she asked about it, it would probably turn out to be something about barbecued steak! “Very funny.”
“Except that I’m not laughing, Romy.”
For one perilous minute, she vacillated...but then she remembered that her buttons hadn’t been unbuttoned that Valentine’s Day nine years ago, and she turned back to the television.
“I can hear you sniffling, Romy,” Matt said. “Just saying.”
“I’m not sniffling.”
“Are you, you know, hormonal?”
She looked up at him. “Am I what?”
“When women fall pregnant, they get sort of emotional.”
“Oh, they do, do they?”
“Apparently.”
“Shut up, Matt. And stop reading up on pregnancy. You won’t be here, so you don’t need to know.”
“I could be here. If you needed me. If you...wanted me.”
She swallowed, letting that sink in. “You can barely fit in this flat before I’m fat.”
“I fit better if I do this,” he said, and lifted her onto his lap. “Just like old times, huh?”
Old times? Not quite, Romy thought.
“And yet not like old times, is it?” Matt said, as though reading her mind.
“No, not like old times,” she said.
“You see, Romy,” he said, “I have a feeling the old times aren’t coming back. Which leaves us with a choice of either no times or new times. And I...I don’t want no times.”
Breathless. Wanting. “So what do new times look like?”
“That’s something we’d need to work out.”
“How do we do that?”
“I don’t know yet. What I do know is I still want you. I know, also, that if you didn’t want me, too, you’d be down the other end of the couch. So I have a suggestion, if you’re interested in hearing it.”
Could this be real? Oh God, she didn’t know what to think.
“Romy?”
“What’s the suggestion?”
“That I give myself to you for the night, and you do whatever you want to me and we see how we feel at the end. And if it’s good...I stay. But I stay in your room with you.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Cross my heart, hope to die.”
“Just so you know, I’ll help you with the dying part if this turns out to be a joke,” she said, and tilted her head, closed her eyes, waiting for the kiss.
Long moment of...nothing. And then Matt spoke. “Er, Romy...? I think you’ve got the wrong idea.”