Chapter Sixteen

MATTS PICKS SYDNEY up at the airport again.

Unlike her trip to Gunnison where she flew entirely under the radar—pun intended—here, she’s deplaning first class with the rest of the band in full band-appropriate getup. Many of the good people populating the George Bush Intercontinental Airport recognize them.

There are several folks with their phones out at the baggage claim as they come down the escalator, and Rex is quickly besieged by a gaggle of teenage girls asking for photos.

A couple people try to catch Sydney’s attention as well, but her attention is entirely caught by Matts. She tries to suppress a grin when she sees him waving at her and then remembers she doesn’t have to anymore.

You ok with PDA at the airport, or nah? she’d texted him as they boarded the plane.

PDA is my favorite, he’d answered.

What if I throw myself at you?

I’ll catch you.

And he does.

Sydney spares a moment to wonder if he realizes the domino effect it could have when, inevitably, someone’s pictures end up online. But he gave her an invitation, and she’s hardly going to turn it down.

She jumps the last few steps of the escalator, dumps her backpack off her shoulder mid-run, and crashes into him.

Matts scoops one arm under her ass, wraps his hand around her thigh, and settles her on his hip as though he’s planning to keep her there for a while. The other hand ends up around the nape of her neck, fingers in her hair, pulling their faces together.

“Hey.” He bumps his nose against hers. “I missed you.”

And then he just…holds her there. With one arm.

Sydney kicks her feet. “You are completely destroying my credibility right now.”

“Right. As a…sexy, stoic enigma.”

“A facade I maintained until you showed up and ruined everything.” It’s meant to come out dramatic. Instead, it’s a little too honest.

“I’m not sorry,” Matts mutters against her mouth.

She’s not either when he kisses her.

“Should I put you down?” Matts asks. “For your credibility?”

“I mean, it’s already fucked, so—”

“Hey, Matts, if you could maybe not ravish my sister while within my sightlines, I would greatly appreciate it,” Devo says behind them.

Sydney flips him off.

“If that’s your way of saying we should get a room, I’m happy to oblige. I’ll see y’all at the house tomorrow,” Sydney says, waving over Matts’s shoulder to Sky and Rex.

Sky nods toward the carousel. “You don’t want to wait for your bag?”

“I’ve got toiletries and underwear. Matts has T-shirts, food, and guitars.”

“What else could you possibly need?” Rex says dryly.

Matts stoops to pick up her backpack and slings one strap over his shoulder without dislodging her even a little. The man is stupidly strong.

“What time are we practicing tomorrow?” Sky asks. “Morning?”

“I would prefer afternoon,” Sydney says as primly as possible, considering she’s still wrapped around her—whatever Matts is.

“Gross,” Devo mutters.

“Respect,” Sky says.

“One p.m.,” Rex says.

“Deal,” Sydney agrees. She rests one elbow on Matts’s shoulder so she can pat his head imperiously. “Take me home, Jeeves.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says.

His car is freshly detailed and immaculate, with vacuum lines on the floor mats. It smells like leather cleaner and the same glass spray that she uses on the windscreen of her motorcycle. Maybe Matts didn’t clean it just for her. Maybe he cleans his car every weekend, and her arrival is just a coincidence. But Sydney gets a small thrill imagining him in his garage, wiping down the seat with the expectation that she’d be sitting in it later. She likes the idea that she matters enough that he’d prepare for her.

“I read the stuff you sent me,” he says.

Sydney is abruptly no longer thinking about leather and glass cleaner.

She sent Matts a zip file of some very dry medical papers about sexual changes pre-op trans women can expect on HRT and some links to less-dry blogs and vlogs by trans women discussing experiences and preferences that align with hers.

Sydney emailed the file late one night the week before when she was post-concert high on endorphins, slightly drunk, and just brave enough to press Send. The subject line was ‘So you know what you’re getting into,’ and the body of the email was empty. Possibly, she could have better prepared him for the contents of the attachment.

The only response she received from him referencing it was a text a few hours later:

Thanks for the sex research. I’ll work on my plays.

Adorable. Devastating. Sydney actively forced herself not to think too much about it since, or at least right up until the day before, when she started second-guessing all her life choices and texted him:

You still want me to spend the night tomorrow?

He answered almost immediately: I’ve already set aside another shirt for you to borrow and conveniently forget to return.

So. Sydney was reasonably sure he at least skimmed the stuff she sent him, but she also assumed they’d have this conversation once they were back at his place, not on I-69.

Though, if they’re going to have a sex conversation while driving, maybe I-69 is one of the more suitable locations. Considering.

“Oh?” she manages.

“Yeah. And then I spent some time on Reddit, found some forums, and asked some questions there too. They were helpful.”

“Okay.”

“And I subscribed to this one girl’s OnlyFans.” Matts glances sideways at Sydney as if unsure what her reaction will be.

She has no idea what her face is doing, but it can’t be too terrible because he continues.

“She’s actually a couple months post-op now, but the majority of her content is from the last year when she was pre-op. I’ve been watching her stuff, and it’s been— Uh. Educational.”

His ears, she realizes, are pink.

“I just figured you should know,” Matts says

“That is so much more than I expected of you. Like. Way more.”

“I want to be prepared. I want to make sure you enjoy anything we do.”

“I can see that,” Sydney says faintly. “Except now I feel like I’m under prepared. Do you have preferences I should know about? Things you dislike? You’ve done all this research to make sure it’s good for me, and I’m— I have no idea how to make it good for you .”

He looks askance at her. “That’s not going to be a problem.”

“Matts.”

“Sydney,” he says reasonably.

She kind of wants to punch him. But, like, gently. “I’m just saying. You did all this work.”

“Watching a hot lady get off wasn’t exactly a hardship.”

Sydney takes a moment to hide behind her hands. “This conversation would be a lot less mortifying if it weren’t happening in broad daylight.”

“The sun is setting,” Matts points out, reaching over to snag her wrist closest to him. He slides his fingers down her palm and pulls their linked hands to rest on her thigh. He’s clearly gearing up to say something when her phone, tucked between her leg and the seat next to their joined hands, lights up.

Check ur tags on IG, Devo advises . Before Sydney can respond, he follows it with: Be safe. Text me by 10pm or I WILL show up at his door, and it WILL be awkward for everyone.

She thumbs-up the second message and swipes to the Instagram app.

Sure enough, there are multiple pictures of her and Matts at the airport. In all of them, she’s the only one tagged, and people are trying to determine the identity of the, as one person terms it, “giant mullet man” in the picture. There’s one post near the top, though, where the most-liked comment, with over one thousand likes already, has correctly identified Matts. The next most-liked comment points out that Matts has been photographed backstage at Red Right Hand concerts, and Sydney has been photographed attending Hell Hounds games. The speculation continues, and gets more ridiculous, the further she scrolls.

“What?” he says.

“There are pictures of us on social media already. From the airport. Most of them haven’t figured out who you are yet, but a couple have, and it’s only a matter of time before your IG gets flooded with comments and messages and shit.”

“So?”

“So, people think we’re together,” she says.

His hand tightens around hers. “Are we not?”

In the ensuing silence, Matts tries to focus on the road, but he keeps cutting his eyes over to her. His hair is in his face, his top teeth are pressed into his bottom lip, and his hand is warm and a little damp around hers.

If he can be brave enough to ask, she can be brave enough to answer.

“I’d like us to be,” she says.

He exhales. “Good.”

“Good,” she agrees.

They grin stupidly at each other for a moment before he swears, pulling his hand out of hers so he can swerve around a car that suddenly slams on their brakes in front of them.

“Maybe we should table this conversation until we’re not on the highway,” Sydney suggests, forearm braced against the passenger window.

“That’s probably wise,” he agrees.

*

SOPHOMORE YEAR OF high school, a week before school let out for the summer, Sydney found a note in her locker from Bryce Shaw.

Bryce was a junior, a football player, and firmly embedded in the popular portion of the student body. So when she unfolded the note from Bryce, asking her to meet him under the sports field bleachers during the junior/senior lunch period, which coincided with her study hall period, Sydney was suspicious.

The space under the bleachers, hidden from campus view by the concession stand, was a well-known make-out spot at the high school. There was no reason Bryce Shaw would want to meet her there aside from the usual, and the usual made no sense.

“Him and his stupid friends are planning some Carrie shit for sure,” Sky advised when Sydney told her and Rex at lunch.

“You’re not planning to go , are you?” Rex asked.

Oh, but she was.

And she did.

There wasn’t a group of football players lying in wait as she expected. Only Bryce Shaw in his polo and his letterman jacket, shifting a little anxiously from foot to foot as she stalked across the parking lot to meet him, arms crossed, boots muddied, the knife Devo gave her freshman year in her pocket.

“Well?” she said.

And he shocked her when he asked if maybe they could hang out that summer.

“Why?” probably wasn’t the most elegant response, but it was the only one she could come up with.

“I’d just like to,” he said. And he seemed to mean it.

Sydney didn’t know if she wanted to hang out with him that summer; she never thought it was within the realm of possibility. But the concept was novel enough that she agreed to give him her number, albeit with a healthy degree of caution. It wasn’t until several weeks, several meetups, several long text-threads and late-night conversations later, that she stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. She stopped waiting for him to admit it was all part of a prank or some long-game gotcha.

Bryce was sweet and funny and a little awkward. He loved science fiction, Legos, and astronomy. He was good at football, but he didn’t like it, only played because it made people like him. He talked to her about his anxiety. About the stars. He talked to her about things he said he couldn’t talk to anyone else about.

And she liked him.

Sydney kept waiting to feel more than that, but she also never really let herself believe that it was real. Because summer was a liminal space. They met up on horseback at the creek just past the ranch’s back pasture line and a mile from Bryce’s dad’s land. He came to the band’s practices. Swam in their pool. But he never asked her to his house or the movie theater or the diner or to drive into the city with him. Sydney knew she was a secret. She recognized the pattern easily enough. So she let him hold her hand. And she let him kiss her. But she didn’t let him do anything more. And she didn’t let herself get attached.

When school started again, and Bryce wouldn’t so much as look at her in the hallway, when he said, “My friends wouldn’t understand; won’t it be easier if we just keep things the way they are?” it hurt. But it didn’t hurt like it would have if she hadn’t been careful. It was a hollow comfort, but it was better than heartbreak.

Sydney let it continue for a while, meeting Bryce on weekends, acting like a stranger during the week. She thought he might change his mind if she gave him a little more time. But then, on an otherwise ordinary Wednesday, one of Bryce’s football friends grabbed Sydney in the hallway, one hand wrapped in her backpack strap, the other clamped with bruising force around her opposite arm. He dragged her to the men’s restroom, shoved her inside, and then held the door while she rammed her shoulder against it, trying to get out.

And Bryce was there.

He didn’t help hold the door. He didn’t laugh when a teacher finally intervened, and she managed to stumble back into the hallway, panting and furious.

But he didn’t try to stop them.

Sydney never spoke to him again.

She finds herself thinking about Bryce as she crouches to unlace her boots just inside Matts’s front door. As she tosses her leather jacket over the back of his couch. As he ushers her into the bathroom to shower the last dozen hours of travel off her skin. As she pulls on the shirt he’s left for her on the counter. As she looks at her reflection in the steamed mirror and tries to be objective. Tries to look at herself as Matts will see her: flushed and damp and too wide-eyed.

She’s pretty. Mostly. Her hair is more curl than frizz and her skin has been shockingly cooperative despite the stress she’s been under. She’s proud of her body. She thinks it’s beautiful most days. But that’s no guarantee that Matts will like it, and while she’d love to say she doesn’t care about his opinion, that couldn’t be further from the truth. She wants him to be attracted to her. So much it makes her feel a little crazy.

Sydney thinks about the one time Bryce tried to slip his hand up her shirt, fingers pushing at the bottom hem of her sports bra. She caught his wrist, met his eyes, and he relocated his hand safely to the nape of her neck, kissing her, gentle and sweet in apology.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

She was never ready. Not with him. Not really with anyone.

She’s ready, now.

Sydney points to herself in the mirror. Don’t fuck this up , she mouths at her reflection. And then, she pushes open the door to the bedroom and closes it behind her. She leans back against the door, weight on her heels, toes pointed. Sydney looks down at them so she doesn’t have to look at Matts sitting on the bed.

She painted her nails the night before, a blue-black with gold flecks that look like the night sky. She thought it might give her some little measure of confidence when it came time to get naked. It isn’t working.

“Hey,” Matts says, pausing, hands mid-spin on a Rubik’s Cube.

It’s dark in his room, the only light coming from the lamp in the corner and the streetlight bleeding through the half-closed curtains. His shadowed expression falls as he takes her in. “Are you okay?”

She is not okay.

She wants to say: I’m terrified that I’m already in love with you, and if I show you all of myself and you find me lacking, I’m not sure if I’ll survive it .

But she can’t.

Mostly because he would hear her.

“Peachy,” she says instead.

Matts glances at the unfinished cube in his hands and then sets it aside on the nightstand.

“I did make it clear,” he says. “I have zero expectations about what we do this weekend. Right? Like we can get out the guitars or watch a movie or—anything you want.”

“I want you ,” she says, honest and damning. “Badly. And I want to show you how badly. I just don’t know how to—” Sydney waves one hand fruitlessly before crossing her arms. “I know I gave you the impression that I was experienced, but my experience is actually pretty minimal, and I’m freaking out a little.”

Matts starts to stand and then sits right back down again. “How minimal?”

“I’ve kissed a dozen people and hooked up with two. Sort of.”

“What does ‘sort of’ mean?”

“It means I’ve never had an orgasm in the presence of another person,” she says, mostly exhaled rather than spoken. “Or been fully naked.” Because that’s probably something he should know.

His expression doesn’t change; he just keeps looking at her. Steady. Intense.

“I would like to change both of those things,” he says.

“Yeah, so I gathered. That’s what’s freaking me out. If all I had to worry about was getting you off, I’d be less worried. And obviously I want to”—she gestures between them— “with you. It’s just…”

She breathes: inhale four seconds. Exhale five.

Her voice is rough when she speaks again. “Usually, I get by with bravado when I’m doing something for the first time. But this isn’t something I can BS my way through.”

“Okay.”

Matts shifts, bracing elbows on knees and lacing fingers together, head ducked to study them, brows pinched.

“What if—” He pauses, touching his tongue to his bottom lip. “I used to do this thing when I was a kid. Not that I think you need, like, childish coping mechanisms or anything, but I still do it sometimes now as an adult. I came up with it when I was a kid and used it a lot more then. And it’s going to sound stupid, but it also works most of the time, so—”

“Matts.”

“Right.” He laughs softly. “Sorry. But sometimes, I’ll act like I’ve already done whatever the thing is that’s making me anxious. And I talk myself through the steps I took to do it. Out loud. So, what if you told me what you want us to do in the past tense. Like we’ve already done it. Would that help?”

“Past tense,” Sydney repeats.

“Most things aren’t as scary the second time you do them.”

That’s…accurate. She still isn’t sure what he means though.

“So,” Matts continues, attention still on his hands. “For example, I watched you come out of the bathroom, wearing my shirt and nothing else, and”—he nods to the Rubik’s Cube—“I completely lost track of the sequence. Because all I could think about was touching you. But I didn’t know if that was allowed.”

“It was,” she says slowly. “I wanted you to. I was just—”

Weeks of filling up the Notes app on her phone and the spiral in her bunk with words words words , and now they’ve all run out when she needs them.

“I was nervous.”

“I was too,” he says, finally looking up, meeting her eyes. “Because I didn’t want to fuck things up. I may have slept with other people before but no one I cared about or wanted to keep, and you’re—” He looks back down, twists his hands to study his palms. “You’re important to me. So, it was a first time for me too.”

Sydney uses her shoulder to push off the door, not quite brave but as close as she’s going to get, and moves to stand between his knees. She thinks she gets it now.

“I kissed you,” she says.

Matts tips his face up, and like this, with him sitting and her standing, they’re nearly eye-to-eye. He unlaces his fingers so he can settle his hands on her hips. He leans into her and only stops when their noses are practically touching.

“You kissed me,” he agrees, breath against her mouth.

It’s easy to close the space between them after that. Maybe it’s because Matts is right, and she’s tricked herself into some past-tense-related confidence; maybe it’s because of the way he’s looking at her. But it’s easy. Like most things are with Matts.

And it’s easy for Sydney to step closer until her knees butt against the mattress, easy to open her mouth under his and wrap her arms around his neck.

Matts tips his face to the side to let them breathe, then rocks their foreheads together. Her eyelashes catch against his.

“You took off my shirt,” Sydney whispers into the warm pocket of air between them.

Her heartbeat is so loud in her ears she barely hears Matts’s sharp intake of breath. He moves slowly, palms sliding down to cup the back of her thighs. When they slide back up, this time against skin, the fabric of her shirt collects in a well between his thumbs. Matts doesn’t look at her body as it’s exposed—he looks at her face, eyes dark and focused entirely on hers as his fingertips trail up her ribs until she raises her arms and her vision obscures. He stands to free her wrists from her shirt, the heat of him pressed against her. And then his hands are on her face again, two fingers in front of her ears, two behind them, his thumbs pressed, gentle but unyielding, to her cheekbones.

“You were so fucking beautiful,” Matts says, hard and a little angry, as if he needs her to believe it. “And knowing no one else had seen you like that, that I was the first, made me feel—things I probably shouldn’t.”

“Things like what?”

“Possessive things,” he grinds out.

He’s restraining himself again. Sydney feels the tension in his hands and sees it in his arms and shoulders where he’s ducked to keep his face close to hers. It should feel dangerous, maybe, having someone so much bigger than her looming like that. Holding her like that. But she feels safe. And she feels brave.

“I like that you’re possessive,” Sydney says, and her lips catch against his. “I wish you’d stop being so careful with me.”

He straightens abruptly, reaching behind him to grab his shirt and pull it off in one fluid, stupidly compelling movement. He pops the button on his jeans. He doesn’t look for her permission before shoving them down his thighs, before kicking off his boxers and crowding back into her space, toppling them over onto the bed. And then she has a solid expanse of naked hockey player on top of her. He’s heavy in a way that feels grounding. Perfect.

But Sydney has to admit, in the face of his shadowed chest and the curve of his shoulders and what might be banked desperation in his eyes, that she loves him. She’s so in love with him it feels as if her ribs have been cracked open. But the vulnerability seems less like a death sentence when he braces his elbows on either side of her head and carefully pushes hair out of her face, looking at her like she’s something worth the gentleness in his hands. Matts implied before that he wanted to keep her. Sydney can almost believe it, given the way he’s touching her.

Her heart is racing for an entirely different reason now. Sydney hears him swallow. She watches his throat move.

“I wanted to go slow,” Matts says. “I didn’t want to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared. I trusted you.”

“You trusted me,” he repeats as though she’s given him a gift.

“I did. I do.”

This time, when he kisses her, he doesn’t stop.