22. Matthew

22

MATTHEW

I 'm still angry when I get to Maggie's the following morning. She wants me to walk with her and Stuart to the appointment with the florist. I don't want to go, but she insists she needs my "artistic eye." As if her ability to compose a setting is in any way inferior to mine.

"What's the matter?" she asks when I come in.

"Just tired," I grunt, taking off my jacket in the entryway and hanging it up.

I've been sleeping like shit. I'm desperate for rest. For sex. To shut off my brain. To leave the goddamn country for years like he did. I jerked off in the shower when I got home last night and then again this morning, but it didn't help settle me down. Probably because of the subject matter I used to get myself over the finish line. I can't think of anything but him.

But I guess I'm the only one with that problem. When he didn't text me after the night we kissed, I went back to the Bronx, thinking I'd give him some time. But our communication has been awkward and lacking this week, and it's always me reaching out. I'm scared to ask for more, worried what he would say—more worried he'll say nothing. I figured our insecurities were feeding off the other's and one of us would have enough eventually. Until last night when he came in with Ravenna.

I'd seen her out the door four hours prior. She asked how she looked. Told me she had a date. She was fucking beaming. Granted, neither one of them were smiling when they returned, but they were together. And I'm in the dark. I fucking hate this.

"You look cool," Stuart says entering the living room. I'm wearing my usual. Khaki cargos, a black Henley, and Docs. It's not the height of fashion, but it's clean.

He, on the other hand, looks classy in designer jeans, a white untucked button-down, and a navy blazer. The look helps fill out his tall, lanky frame. Sometimes it seems like his head is too big for his body, but today it looks normal. The Marches are Irish—dark hair, pale skin, ruddy cheeks. Stuart wears wire-framed glasses that make him look both nerdy and unassuming. Conversely, Maggie is in some mossy green hippy flower child dress with her hair down and her contacts in. They couldn't look less like a couple if they tried.

I wonder if it's the slam poetry or the cello that helps her overlook the fact that he's in "society."

He's a smitten kitten, still. Heart eyes and everything—like he landed Taylor Swift.

"Coffee?" Maggie asks as I crash onto one of the kitchen counter stools.

"I could use it."

"Yep. Those circles under your eyes aren't going to fix themselves." She mixes me a mug the way I like it, with heavy cream and raw sugar.

Stuart takes a seat next to me, his phone out with a picture of my tree sculpture pulled up. He's got it zoomed in on one of the words in the branches. "Settle a bet for us. Does this say penis?"

"Penance." I say with a surprised laugh.

"I told you," Maggie says.

"It looks like penis."

"I have shitty handwriting."

That makes Stuart laugh, too. "So I've been staring at this a long time. It's about death, right?"

"More like the circle of life," I tell him.

"Everybody looks like they're dying though," he says, zooming in on an etched face.

"They're coming," I say.

"Oh…" He zooms in on a few more faces. " Oh ."

"Why would I make a sculpture about death?"

He comes back with, "What even is art?"

"Art is life," I say, sipping my coffee.

"I love this. I'm gonna show it to my boss and get him to buy it for the lobby."

"How much should I charge?" I ask, being serious even if he isn't.

"One point two, minimum."

"That wouldn't even cover materials," I argue.

"He means million, Matty," my sister says.

I laugh loudly at that, but they just stare at me. "It's not worth that." I gesture at the phone. "It's practically porn."

"No one knows how dirty your mind is," Maggie says. "It could easily be seen as a metaphor for suffering and beauty or whatever."

I need to write that down.

"Let me know what he says," I say sarcastically to Stu.

"I will," he says. "This is the best thing you've ever done. Although it probably should be in a gallery. That'd drive up the price. Get you some press."

The mention of the press flings my mind straight back to the gutter with Fischer. Because he's a member of the press. Fuck, I'm a mess. I don't know if I can go another day without talking to him. "How long is this gonna take?" I ask.

"Maybe an hour," Maggie says. "Then lunch. Why?"

"I have some things I want to get done afterward."

"We'll be done before dark. Promise."

Should I go see him? Call first? If I see him, I'm gonna want him. I already do.

My body misses his so bad. My mouth wants to reattach itself to him. My tongue wants to taste him. I have to remind myself constantly he probably doesn't want that. It's way more likely he wants her .

Trying to get my mind on literally anything else, I ask Stuart, "Is your mom coming?"

"Nah. She's got her book club every Saturday."

"They read a book a week? Seems ambitious for a book club."

"It's just an excuse to drink and gossip. No one questions Mother's book club."

"Drink up, Matty," my sister says, patting my shoulder as she breezes behind us. "We gotta get going."

Mustering what's left of my energy, I drain my cup and get ready to head back to the Upper East Side.

The florist for The Pierre events is an elderly white woman in a pencil skirt and four-inch stilettos. She's giving Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada . Not what I expected, and I wonder if she knows about the sex club next door.

Initially, she mistakes me for the groom because Maggie and I make more sense as a couple, but I quickly fall back to stand with my mom, who's looking toward the entrance. Her face brightens. "Oh, there they are!" She waves.

I turn. Fuck. Fischer .

Of course. I don't know why it didn't occur to me he would be here. He lives a block away, he's helped plan a wedding in this century, and Maggie loves attention.

Our gazes meet, and he nods. In a lightweight sky blue sweater and dark, fitted jeans, he looks so good I want to gouge out my eyes.

He's with Vaughn, who starts running at my mom like a mini freight train. I spot her with a hand on her back so that when he leaps into her arms, she doesn't go tumbling backward. Fischer gives Mom a grin as he makes his way over to us. "Am I late?" he asks, keeping a safe distance.

"Not at all," she says indulgently, then turns her attention to her grandson.

Fischer's actually twenty minutes late. But he could murder someone in cold blood, dismember them in front of me, and I'd still look at him like he walks on water.

"Hey," he says to me, offering his hand.

If he expects a handshake, he's an idiot. I may be jealous, I may even be dying inside, but I take his hand in mine and tug him toward me, using my other hand to pull our heads together. "We need to talk."

He wraps an arm around my back and pulls his head away, staring at me. One look, and I'm already overstimulated. "You look exhausted," he says.

"So do you."

"I've been lonely. What's your excuse?"

"You didn't look lonely last night," I counter.

"Guys—we're going this way," Maggie calls to us. "Hey, Vaughn! Come here!"

Our mother hurries to follow them. Fischer and I hang onto each other and walk that way, too, just…slower. I splay my hand on his hip beneath his jacket, firmly reasserting whatever claim I might have on him. "So coming home with her was a coincidence?" I ask.

"No, she invited me to a show at her gallery."

"You went on a date."

"It's possible for a man and a woman to meet somewhere and it not be a date."

"She said it was a date," I tell him.

"She was mistaken."

"And while that might be possible, the probability of it not being a date when said woman is sleeping with said man is small."

He huffs. "Nevertheless."

"Let's not talk about her anymore."

"Yeah, okay. I'm sorry," he says.

"Me, too."

"Is there anything you want to talk about?" I ask.

"Not here, but Vaughn's going home with Donna. I got him on loan today."

"That was nice of you. And Nicole."

We enter the area where the wedding ceremony will take place with its frescoes, chandeliers, columns and the double staircase topped with French doors where a bride can make a dramatic entrance. It's huge, gaudy, and it's so not Maggie, I want to laugh. But I don't, because she's not laughing. She's taking this whole thing very seriously, beckoning me over to help them decide how they want to set up the altar space—how many arrangements, how big, and how much is too much.

This whole place is too much, I want to tell her and remind her while I'm at it that she used to want to get married barefoot on a beach. But with Stuart looking at me like even he's ashamed of the over-the-top grandeur, I go ahead and add my thoughts while Vaughn runs up and down the stairs like he's calculating how to turn the bannisters into slides. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mom doing to Fischer all the things I want to be doing. Touching his suit, tucking his hair, stroking his arm fondly.

He must be losing his fucking mind. I cringe in solidarity.

When the plans for the altar and the steps are sorted, it comes down to the color palette, and Maggie gets stuck.

October is a tricky month to scheme out. Even I struggle to determine what's appropriate for an autumn wedding without being too on the nose.

We almost settle on ivory, peach, and dusty green, but Maggie has a mild psycho bride moment and blurts—"It's just not me!"

While I don't have an answer for her, I'm relieved that a piece of my sister still exists inside her somewhere.

"What about wine?" Fischer asks.

Maggie shakes her head. "I'm fine, I'm just having a meltdown. Ignore me."

"Sorry, I mean shades of wine. Merlot, Zinfandel, Rosé, champagne. Deeper greens."

Maggie tears up as he speaks. He just nailed her aesthetic and her vibe in a breath. "I love it," she whispers, turning to the florist.

"Gorgeous," the woman agrees.

Maggie attacks Fischer in a surprise hug, and he laughs awkwardly, loosening himself from her grip without trying to be too obvious about his aversion to hugs. That time he grabbed onto my wrist when we were leaving the hospital? My first thought was that he had to be dying. Like he'd thrown a clot post-surgery and couldn't breathe because the man seriously hates having his personal space violated.

I've always felt it like an unspoken rule, but maybe no one else notices. It's something I've always known about him. I never hugged him when I was a kid either, but Maggie always did. I always stood back.

I even think, over the years, he's grown to hate hugs more than he used to.

Except with me. With me, he's as touch-starved as ever. And I guess the way he tends to crowd me is misleading. So, when he slings an arm around my back, to get away from the rest of them, I can see why Maggie or my mom wouldn't get the message that his body is off-limits.

I fix the hair Mom messed up, rearranging it the way I like it, and he pinches my earlobe, making me cringe. It's a major erogenous zone, which he has no way of knowing, but he does it to get a reaction from me, and it works every time. "Stop," I laugh, putting a hand on his stomach, unable to help myself.

"Boys," Mom says, giving us a warning look. "You're drawing attention to yourselves. Stop fooling around, and let's eat. I'm starving."

Fischer and I share a look as she gives us her back and marches toward the dining room. I put my hands in my pockets and he sighs. "I thought having Vaughn here would help."

"Guess not," I say.

The table we're seated at is round, so I naturally wind up between Maggie and Fischer. He takes hold of my hand underneath the tablecloth, interlocking his fingers with mine. Either our relationship is changing, or we merely missed each other. If it's a combination of both, I might need a paper bag to breathe into.

As affectionate as we are in private, in public we just tend to hover around each other, "fooling around," picking and tickling and taking jabs at each other. We've never held hands under a table before is what I'm saying.

Fischer orders a vodka tonic without batting an eyelash at the fact that it's three-thirty in the afternoon. Following his lead, Mom and Maggie both order wine, and Stuart requests a Hefeweizen. I stick with water because I'm so fucking thirsty.

"Did you have a groom's cake, Fischer?" is Maggie's next random question. "I couldn't remember."

He shakes his head. "Just the one cake."

"We're tasting cakes in two weeks. You should come!"

I interrupt. "He doesn't even like cake. Why do you need him to taste it?"

Maggie and Mom both look at me like I might need a valium. But Fischer's slow head turn is what I feel in my soul. "He's right. Hence—just the one cake," he says, giving my hand a squeeze as my dick gives a throb at the word " hence ."

"Matty's just jealous he's working that day," Maggie explains to my mother who's still eyeing me like I'm a riddle she can't figure out.

"Maybe you can bring your brother some cake," Mom says tightly.

"I already told him I would. He's grumpy because he works a ridiculous schedule and can't sleep. You should let Stu buy you some blackout blinds."

"Oh, absolutely," Stuart pipes up. "The company who did the conference room did a great job. I could call?—"

"I don't need blinds, but thank you. It's just a thing. Happens every few months. It'll pass."

Fischer strokes his thumb over mine, and I remember how it felt on my mouth. I swallow on a parched throat.

"Oh! Fischer! Have you seen Matty's new sculpture?"

I sigh.

"No, but I'm seeing it tonight."

"Oh—you're going there after this?" Mom asks.

"That's the plan," I say, filled with enough relief and validation that I can ignore the vague judgment in our mother's question.

"You don't have to go all that way," Maggie says. "I have pictures."

I slap her phone down as she tries to pass it to Fischer. "Do you mind? I want him to see it in person—same way you got to," I add, just to make sure we're all clear that I'm not doing Fischer any special favors. Yet.

She scowls at me. "Sooo- rry ."

I turn to Fischer whose smirk is so fucking sexy I could blow him under the table. "Stu thinks I can charge a million dollars for it."

"I said one point two, minimum. As a starting point."

Fischer says, "Sounds impressive."

I need to get this man alone. As soon as possible. He's not gonna know what hit him. Provided he's okay with doing more than holding hands and talking. I might have to have myself castrated if not.

"One point two is a high price tag," he adds.

"Well, it is big," I say.

His throat bobs. "I don't know how much size matters in this case."

"Sometimes the bigger the better."

He smiles. "It's good that you believe in yourself. Confidence is key."

"I hope I don't sound too cocky," I say.

He takes a longer than average sip of his drink.

Mom pipes up with the familiar names of a few gallery owners, all of whom I've met before. They're all particular about sculptures, but a few have shown interest in some of my sketches. Apparently I have a unique sketching style. Shocking, I know, for a guy whose brain wiring is basically reversed. I bet my sketches do look pretty weird to people.

"It's like twelve-feet tall, Mom," I say. "I think it might wind up being a permanent fixture in the loft."

"Twelve feet? How'd you manage that?"

"A ladder?"

"You're gonna break your neck in that loft one day, and I'll be the last to know."

My mom hates that I live in the Bronx. She's a borough snob. "He's the one you should be worried about," I say, reminding her of the tumble Fischer took a few weeks ago.

"You're all terrible. Thank goodness for my precious baby boy." She gives the most dangerous kid in the world a big kiss on the head.