20. Matthew

20

MATTHEW

T he evening after.

Yeah, it's awkward. Or, at least, I feel awkward when I wake up in Fischer's empty bed, remembering in vivid detail everything I said and did before I fell asleep in his arms.

I venture into the living room and find him lying on the couch with Vaughn who looks about two minutes away from going comatose. They're watching Coco again. "Big day at the park?"

"I thought I was gonna die," Fischer says.

Vaughn reaches up and pats his dad's cheek. "I'll come see you if you die, Dad."

He's watched this movie way too many times.

"Tell uncle Matty he should have a sleepover with us tonight," Fischer says.

"In my room?"

"No offense, bud, but I don't think I'll be able to sleep anymore tonight." I slept for nearly twelve hours. That's not typical for me at all.

I cross the room to the kitchen, pour myself a glass of water from the tap, and guzzle it. I refill it, take one more sip, and contemplate where I want to sit, or if I want to sit.

Fischer draws his legs up slightly, indicating where he thinks I should go. Once I'm there, he puts his legs on my lap and stares me down. "I'm not spending the night," I tell him.

"I know. And I'm guessing you're not coming back in the morning either."

I glance at his face, which is drawn and pensive. I hadn't counted on the truth coming between us quite like this, but I have a sinking feeling it has. And here I'd thought sex was the bad idea. Turned out it was just the idea of it. I wrinkle my nose. "Maybe we need a break."

"We just had a break," he pushes back.

"And look how that wound up."

"Matty…"

"Shh. Watch the movie, Dad," Vaughn says, giving Fischer a backhand to the chest.

I smirk and pull up a food delivery app on my phone.

He sighs and settles back into position with Vaughn, holding him not unlike he held me this morning. It's so sweet it makes my stomach hurt.

I order a Cobb salad with no blue cheese and set down my phone. I glance at Fischer again, and he's still looking at me. I frown. He rolls his eyes. I rub his socked feet, figuring a full day at the park warrants it. He sighs contentedly, and we watch the rest of the movie, which conveniently ends exactly at Vaughn's eight o'clock bedtime.

"I'm not tired," he says immediately.

Fischer buries his face in Vaughn's neck and does something that makes the kid squeal with uncontrollable giggles, which in turn, makes me smile. Breathless, Vaughn wiggles out of his dad's arms and stands facing the couch, a mischievous gleam in his eyes that makes me nervous.

He pounces, his hands out like he means to tickle Fischer, but I hear the distinct sound of an elbow to the crotch. I laugh and try to grab my nephew, but he only turns his spaz on me. While Fischer recovers, I manhandle the six-year old, eventually getting him on his back and tickling him until his lips are turning blue with gasping laughter.

"Uncle!" he screams.

"That's me," I say, as relentless as he is.

"I—mean— Uncle !"

"Is someone calling my name?"

"Matty!" he screams.

I let up and get him into a straitjacket hold, pulling him onto my lap and letting us both catch our breath. Fischer has bounced back and he's standing above us now, looking sternly at his son. " You are a menace."

"I got you good, though," he says.

I snort a laugh as Vaughn tries to get out of the impossible restraint I have him in.

"Thirty more minutes," Fischer says.

I give him a disapproving look. "He gets his way?"

"Like he said—he got me good. What's the plan?" he asks Vaughn.

"Ice cream."

"No go." Fischer shakes his head.

"Pillow fight."

"Deal."

Jesus. If someone doesn't wind up with another concussion, I'm gonna buy a lottery ticket on my way home.

The pillow fight is brutal. I have to move the coffee table so Vaughn can't dive bomb us from it, but we're all on the floor by the time it's over something like ten minutes later when Vaughn starts losing some steam. Since I'm already down, I give him a few airplane rides on my extended legs while Fischer leans back on the couch and watches with a lopsided grin.

"Can you do this, Dad?"

"Probably not," he says, "but I can arm wrestle."

"How do you do that?" Vaughn asks as I lower him to the floor.

"Matty and I can show you."

I frown at him. "Maybe a thumb war is fairer."

"How's he gonna get strong if he's never challenged," Fischer says. "Pull the table back over."

I do, and Vaughn climbs onto it, sitting on his knees closer to his dad while I flex the fingers on my right hand. I look up at Vaughn. "Your dad's already cheating," I tell him. "He knows I'm left handed."

"I can switch," Fischer says.

"No—I don't want to embarrass you in front of your kid."

He smirks, and I wish I didn't find that so fucking sexy—that and his forearm as he pushes up his sleeve to expose it. I take my position, already feeling the disadvantage as Fischer explains the rules.

Elbows on the table, Fischer and I clasp hands and lock eyes. "Count us down, bud," he says.

"Three-two-one- go !"

Our arms flex simultaneously, and my core engages immediately from the amount of resistance I meet. Grimacing, I shift my hips and try to gain an early advantage.

Fischer licks his lips and sucks his lower one into his mouth, narrowing his gaze. Jesus, even his hand is strong. "This is totally unfair," I grunt, fighting the pressure he's applying with my whole body.

"How old are you? Twenty-eight? You should have me easy."

"Dad's forty-one," Vaughn offers.

"I'm aware," I grit out as my arm shakes.

Fischer's cheeks are getting pink and Vaughn is rooting for him to "take Uncle Matty down!"

Five seconds later, he does, my knuckles slamming into the wood while my left hand comes up to shove him in the chest. He laughs, and Vaughn tackles his head with a hug. "My turn."

I sit back and watch Fischer pretend to give his son three fighting chances before beating him every time. "I got you good," he finally says. " Now it's bedtime."

" Ugh ."

"If we don't get on FaceTime soon everyone's gonna be asleep."

Vaughn pulls himself up from the floor and shakes out his arm. "Wanna wrestle me, Matty?" he asks. "You can use your left hand."

"Winner makes the rules," I say, nodding toward Fischer. "Bedtime, bud."

He sighs. "Fine."

Fischer uses his cane to get up from the floor, groaning as he does. He rubs my head as he walks past me and follows Vaughn into the bedroom.

The salad I ordered arrives while Fischer puts his son to bed. They have a whole routine to get through of FaceTime calls and reading that takes another half hour. The payoff is that Vaughn sleeps like he lives life—hard. Which is probably how Fischer gets away with fucking Ravenna when his kid is down the hall.

Not that I'm judging.

Just jealous.

Stupid jealous.

By the time he returns to the couch, I've eaten, straightened up the living room, and made him a drink.

"Should I read anything into this?" he asks, sitting down and taking a sip of the vodka tonic.

"You beat me. There's your prize," I say.

He sighs. "For the record, I'm not letting you leave without talking about this morning."

"I think we need to talk about the wild animal you're raising first," I say, dodging the topic.

"He's six."

"He's feral."

"I was just like that," Fischer says. "Weren't you? There's a reason Dick has a bad back."

"I was not like that."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't know, but he's a perfectly normal kid with a lot of energy."

"Seems violent," I say.

"Spoken like a true artist, and someone who's avoiding my question."

I sigh heavily and fold my arms over my stomach. "What's there to talk about? You know my dirty secret."

"Why dirty?" he asks.

"Did you forget you're my brother?"

"Did you forget I'm actually not ?"

The truth is there hasn't been a single day of my life where I thought of Fischer as my brother. Maybe that makes me an asshole, but he was a hostile stranger. Until he became my world, and now my best friend. Still, what I want between us isn't possible, and I've known that a long time. It's the cross I bear. "Regardless," I say. "But I'm sorry about all that earlier. I was just frustrated."

"Why were you frustrated, though?" he asks. "What did I say?"

I let out another sigh, but this one sounds more like a groan. "You were talking about getting married again and settling down, and you've got a regular hook-up who'll probably worm her way into your life sooner than later, and when that happens, for me, you might as well be back in Jerusalem."

Fischer scowls deeply. "What are you saying?"

"Just what I said."

"No…it's not just that. What are you saying, Matthew?"

"I'm saying…" I take a deep breath. "That if what you want is a life with someone you can raise your kid with, then maybe I shouldn't be coming by as much."

A long silence hovers between us. It doesn't settle. It's charged and it's got weight. We stare at each other, and I have no clue what he's thinking. He doesn't look happy. But he doesn't look devastated either. Meanwhile my insides feel like they're being put through a shredder.

After a few endless minutes of this, he holds out a hand. "Come here."

I roll my eyes. "Why?"

He wiggles his fingers at me. "Come on."

Against all my better judgment, I take his hand and let him drag me down. After some rearranging on his crazy-firm couch, we lie on our sides facing each other. My leg instinctively cages him in because he's the one on the outside, in danger of falling to the floor. Again.

"What?" I repeat myself.

He rests a hand on my face. "You're beautiful. You know that, right?"

This is suspicious behavior. "What's the point of this?"

"I'm telling you I think you're beautiful."

"Thank you. You're not so bad either."

His eyebrows lift. "Thanks, I guess."

His thumb brushes my mouth, and I feel myself going into shock. I'm cold. I'm clammy. I lick my lips as subtly as I can, but they feel dry all of a sudden.

"I'm gonna kiss you," he says out of the clear blue nothing.

My eyelids flutter. I might pass out.

"If you want me to stop, just don't kiss me back, okay?"

"Okay," I choke out.

"But I wanna say something first."

He might actively be trying to kill me. I stare into his mirror eyes.

"I can't have you not coming back here, or taking space or a break or whatever," he says, his voice low and urgent. "I know it's a big joke to you, but I actually need you. Or at least I firmly believe I do, which is more or less the same thing."

"I'll come back whether we kiss or not," I whisper. "I need you, too."

He gives his head a short shake, like I can't possibly understand. "It's not the same. You can go three weeks without seeing me in any meaningful way, and I can't do that. I'm not asking to be everything to you again, but you're kinda everything for me ."

If he's only scared, then… "Fischer, you don't have to kiss me."

His thumb presses gently into my chin cleft. "I want to."

"Oh."

He lowers his gaze to my lips. "Do you not want me to?"

"No, I do." I mean, I think I do. I'm also low-key terrified it's going to be bad, that I've totally misread our chemistry, but maybe that's a good thing? It might knock some sense back into us. Or me at least.

"Why do you keep saying I don't have to?" he asks.

"Because if you're only kissing me because you're scared you're gonna lose me, then please don't."

"I'm terrified I might lose you," he says, and it chills me, the thought of that. "I won't risk it. I'll pull out all the stops. I'll fight dirty."

I'm not sure I'm still breathing. I'm torn between wanting to argue his rationale—it's not a good enough reason to cross this line—and wanting to cross the line so bad I can almost taste it— him .

"What if I freak out?" I ask, because I already am, and maybe he needs to prepare himself.

He frowns.

I mean it, though. "What if this is the worst idea? What if it's better if we never…"

"Hmm…" He presses his forehead to mine and sighs against my mouth.

Fuck, just the feel of his breath on my lips gets me going. I'm so turned on my heartbeat has a heartbeat.

"It's a good question." His thumb leaves my cleft to sweep softly across my lower lip.

We both get hard as we remain like that for a while. Maybe minutes, contemplating the impossible. "I still think I should do it," he finally says just when the silence fills me to the point of near bursting.

"It feels sort of inevitable, huh?" Which doesn't make it right.

"Yeah," he says on another soft exhalation.

I want him too fucking much. The compulsion to have him is too overwhelming to resist. My hand tightens on his waist, and his chin dips.

Our mouths meet in the softest caress. Softer even than when I kissed him goodbye. I take a breath, bracing for what comes next, no clue what to expect.

He wraps his hand around my jaw and moves his lips against mine again, this time capturing my lower one between his for a light tug. "That doesn't count," he whispers, sounding nervous.

A not insignificant part of me wants to tell him to stop. We can still come back from this. But I'm too far gone. I'm already painting murals of this moment in my head. Feeling it, but also seeing it like I'm hovering above our bodies, too.

"You sure you wanna do this?" I ask him.

Nodding, he says, "I have no fucking doubt," which is a strong affirmation.

If that's the case… I slide my hand from his waist up his back until I have a fistful of his hair in my grip, and I kiss him. His lips part, and my tongue doesn't hesitate.

Once it finds his, he moans and pulls my head in, sealing our mouths together, and holy shit . His tongue is wet, hot, firm, and still it yields to mine. His lips are as soft as they look, plush and full against mine. I'm instantly obsessed.

I lock his body in place and grind against it. I work to fill up his mouth, overwhelm it, overtake it. The need that's been burning inside me for weeks— years —unleashes itself on him in a kiss I can only describe as aggressively intense. There's no room for breathing. There's no room to escape. It's just this now. Just us . Succumbing to the inevitable.

And fuck, it is so good.

I have an oral fixation about as impressive as the Empire State Building, and kissing Fischer satisfies it like nothing else ever has. I think I knew it would. I think that's why I tried to warn him away. Because I know him. I know him better than I know anyone in the world, and I love him, too. So I knew no one could kiss him better than I could, and, if I'm not mistaken, he feels the same way about me. Or close enough.

His forehead smashes into mine as he pulls his lips away, drawing a deep, jagged breath. "Fuck."

"Is that it?" I ask.

" Fuck ," he says again, lower, and then we're right back to kissing. Hard. Slow. Deep.

Somehow, I've got his ass in my hand, and I'm using the hold to leverage myself in various ways. To grind our cocks, to keep our mouths sealed, to feel the thump of his heartbeat against my chest. We get wetter and sloppier, my need surging. The desire to know him more intimately takes over. I sink into him the best I can, using my tongue to draw moans and whimpers from his throat.

It's not long before he's digging his nails into my neck.

" Matty …" he groans into my mouth, and then his breath catches and his body shudders.

I stop kissing him just long enough to hear him say what I think he's about to say. I need it.

"I'm gonna come."

God, yes . I dive back into his mouth, his kiss chaotic as his orgasm rocks his lower body against mine. He grunts helplessly, and I hold him together while he falls completely apart. It's the hottest thing ever. "I'm sorry," he gasps, "I'm so fucking sorry."

"I'm not."

"I'm not usually?—"

"Shh…"

"Like I'm fucking fourteen…"

"It's okay." I kiss his neck while he rambles and recovers, sucking a mark into his skin, showing zero mercy and not giving a fuck who'll be tasked with covering it up so he can look like a proper anchorman.

"Matty," he's gasping. "Matty… oh God … "

I soften my kiss and slow down, loosening my hold on his hair and smoothing it away from his face. I peek at him, and he's all flushed cheeks and closed eyes, his brow drawn in an expression that could easily be mistaken for pain, but I know it's just overwhelm. I plant one final, soft kiss on his mouth, then hold him close, tucking his head beneath mine to absorb all his aftershocks. Extraordinary.

"Feel better, princess?" I whisper.

He sighs, squeezing my deltoid. I take it as a yes and as permission to fondle him longer—kissing his head, adjusting his leg, perfecting our position. My cock still aches, but the sense of urgency is gone. It's nice just feeling his body against it while he breathes and comes back to me. "Just in case no one's ever told you, you're an incredible kisser," I say into his disheveled waves.

"Was it a bad idea?" he asks.

"Too soon to say."

He makes a contented sound and settles against me. "I think it was a great idea."

"Yeah?"

This side of him fascinates me. So soft. Sweet. Like he's had three martinis and is getting sleepy. It reminds me how delicate he is. How important he is. And how much his existence and happiness mean to me. How devastated I'll be if any of this leads to distance between us. But now's not the time to bring that up. This is one of those things we'll have to play by ear.

I won't lie and say I'm not nervous about it—that making him come with a kiss is making me feel all confident that anything like this could or should happen again, but I loved it. I could hold him like this all night.

However…I'm not sure I should stay. This was a lot. We might need time to process it without forcing what might come too naturally to both of us.

I give myself a few more minutes to bask in his afterglow and make sure his jelly-like state solidifies so I don't have to worry about him tripping and falling while I'm not here. Eventually, I wiggle myself loose. I make it into a sitting position, leaning back on the arm of the couch, but he's still draped across me, rubbing the same warm circle over my left pec.

"You okay?" I ask.

"I'm trying not to beg," he says.

"What do you honestly think would happen if I stayed tonight?"

"Whatever we want."

"You sure you know what that is?" I ask.

"I trust you."

"Weird answer," I murmur.

"That's my answer." He sighs, using his hand on my chest to push himself up and look at me. He could easily straddle my lap with one shift of his weight, and I wouldn't stop him. He's never looked sexier with those hooded eyes and swollen lips. "Fine. You can go. If you want."

I shake my head. "You don't play fair."

"Not playing."

"You're not behaving well at all," I tell him.

Half his mouth quirks in a grin as he glances down at himself. "I need to change my pants..." His words fade as he gets a glimpse of my lap. "Oh, you didn't…" He smiles instead of finishing his sentence and works his way to standing.

"Fischer…"

"It's okay," he says. "I get it. It was weird, right?"

"No," I say. "It wasn't. It was good."

"If you say so."

Fuck, he's shutting down on me. There's nothing to do when he gets like this except give him space. Now I really don't want to leave. But it's either that or pull him onto my lap and do something probably neither of us are ready for. I take a deep breath full of misgivings and change the subject.

"You should come out to the loft soon," I say. "I finished the piece."

"Did you?" he asks, now sounding distracted as he limps to the bedroom. "How do you feel like it turned out?"

"Decent. Maggie took some photos of it. I'm waiting on her to send them to me so I can start pimping it out."

"Let me know if I can help."

"Do you want to come see it next weekend?" I ask again.

"I'll check my schedule."

I roll my eyes. Great. He and I both know he doesn't have a single fucking thing to do next weekend, but I'll play along. I get we're both dealing with big feelings here.

While he showers and changes, I put my spare clothes on—a t-shirt and sweats. I refuse to walk out on him like this, but with every passing minute I'm less sure what to say. When he finally comes out, he looks surprised to find me still here.

He sits down to pull on a different pair of flannel pants. Then he puts his elbows on his knees, hanging his head.

I wonder if he regrets asking me to stay this morning. Insisting on that kiss. He definitely has a way of begging without opening his mouth, though, and I'm a total sucker for it.

I touch his face, wanting him to look up at me. He does. "Are we all right?"

His jaw is tight, eyes wary. "You tell me."

The truth is, I'm ready to stay. I'll keep kissing him, I'll let myself come in my pants, I'm ready to drop to my knees for him. But while this might have been inevitable—while it might be the one thing I've secretly wanted for eight years—what I need is more important, and that's having him in my life.

I have to offer him an out while conveying with every cell of my being that the only thing I care about is having a relationship with him. It doesn't have to look like my ultimate fantasy—in fact—it probably shouldn't. Whatever he decides, I'm okay with. I rest my hand against his neck. "Try not to overthink this, okay? I'm good. I promise. I want you to be good, too."

"What's that supposed to mean? Not overthink it?"

I flinch at his sharpening tone. "Exactly what I said."

"But which part?"

"Any of it," I tell him. Honestly I don't know what the fuck I mean. I just know I hate seeing him like this—unsure of me of all people.

His brow draws, expression baffled. "I don't understand."

"This doesn't have to mean anything," I say, scared it may already mean too much, and maybe that's what I should be saying. I feel myself getting desperate for reassurance, too.

But I'm clearly not going to get that. What I do get is the sense that he wants to push my hand away. Instead he leans back, out of my reach. He's a brick wall.

"Let me know about next weekend?" I ask, not wanting to leave things too open-ended.

I get a silent nod. Zero eye contact.

I've been dismissed. When I turn and walk away, I realize it's the first time in months I've left him without a hug goodbye.

Dread and apprehension settle in when I step onto the elevator. What happened tonight wasn't a mistake. It was a big fucking deal, and there's no doubt in my mind it's changed something fundamental about us. But I think I needed that.

I think we both did.

We've been at a breaking point for a while now, and either we'll survive it or we won't.

I'm not sorry. It's past time for both of us to move on. One way or another.

All I can do is hope we figure it out together .