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“So you and Seth never…?” Matt couldn’t help it. He had to confirm this.
“Ha! I knew you'd want to talk about this stuff! No, we never did. I didn’t want to. Seth was cute and nice and perfect and all that, but I didn’t want to. He just wasn’t the guy, you know? I want the guy. The everything guy. Not the dumb Prince Charming, nauseatingly-perfect-everything guy. That’s pathetic. I want the flaws-and-all, everything guy.”
Matt was indeed not a Prince Charming kind of a guy, but he was pretty sure that “flaws-and-all” did not include pretending to be your dead brother and seducing a girl via e-mails and chats. Still, one never knew…. “You’ll find him. Not when you’re drunk and slurring, but you’ll find him.” Julie deserved this guy who she was drunkenly dreaming about. He sounded a lot better than Matt.
“Hey, they’re counting down to midnight. In stupid New York where all the stupid cool people are. Let’s count together.”
She must have Times Square on her television. Matt wasn’t sure what she had against all of New York, but if this countdown meant that she would get to sleep and start the recovery process, he was all for it. She was going to feel wretched in the morning. “Tell me when.”
“Seven, six…” she said, and Matt started to count with her. “Five, four, three, two, one!”
He heard cheering and music in the background. “Happy New Year, Julie.”
“Happy New Year, Matty.” It was quiet. “Matty, I have another question for you.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Are you a skilled lover?” The seriousness of her tone was beyond words.
“And that concludes our evening chat.”
“I bet I could be a skilled lover. I’m very energetic. And a quick learner.”
He really couldn’t take this. The last thing he needed was Julie’s oversharing about her sexual potential contributing to fantasies that he was already routinely pushing away. “You definitely need to go to sleep.”
“Oh, fine. I can’t stay on the phone anymore. I have to get to sleep.”
“I think that's a good plan. I’m glad you thought of it.”
“I like talking to you,” Julie mumbled.
He smiled again. That simple phrase meant the world to him, whether she meant it or not. This entire conversation was likely to fall into the wasteland of forgotten drunk memories. Which was probably a good thing. “I like talking to you too. Most of the time. I'll see you when you get back.”
“G’night, Matty.”
He hung up the phone and set it on the floor next to his bed. That was either the best or the worst conversation he’d ever had with a girl. It was an eerie parallel to the general Julie situation: she would either be the best or the worst girl to come into his life. He would find out. He didn’t know when, but he would find out.
The Polar Plunge
Flat-Out Love, Chapter 23, MPOV
Matt Watkins took over a year to learn how to walk after he first left the hospital. But he never lost faith in himself, even at that early age.
Fi
Julie Seagle I bet the very first piñata was surprised. “Oh, hey a party! Cool! What’s the occa— HEY, WHAT THE HELL, KID?”
Matt sat up in bed, wide awake and panicked. He touched a hand to his chest. He was sweating. It was still dark out, but he knew he wouldn’t go back to sleep. Something felt wrong. He threw on sweatpants, tucked his phone into the pocket, and tiptoed into the hall. The house was quiet, and Celeste’s door was still shut, but he quietly opened it and checked on his sister. She was still asleep. But something had woken him. He crossed the hall to Julie’s room and checked in there. Matt flipped on the light. The room was empty.
Obviously it was empty. She was in California. And probably still drunk. He hoped she would sleep most of the day so that she wouldn’t have to be awake for a good portion of the nausea and headache that were bound to hit this morning. He sat down on her bed. Being in her room was comforting. And also sad. He flopped back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling.
He lay there unmoving until light started to filter in through the windows. He was waiting. Waiting for what, he didn’t know, but there was most definitely a charge in the air that had him on high alert.
His phone sounded and he pulled it from his pocket. It was a message from Julie to Fi
Matt got up and went downstairs. The kitchen floor was freezing and he regretted not having thrown on socks. A relentless chill swallowed the entire house today. It was wretched out: gray skies, frigid temperatures, and the threat of snow. So much for a spectacular start to the new year. He put the tea kettle on the stove and filled the French press with espresso grounds. The house was too quiet, even when the water boiled and the room filled with the kettle’s sharp whistle.
Matt stared at the steam. Lyrics swirled in his head.
I was broken… I am broken… Ride the wave be gone… Save me, come save me….
Oh, hell. Julie’s e-mail wasn’t drunken nonsense.
He lifted the kettle from the burner and slammed it down before turning off the heat. “Damn it, Julie! Damn it!”
Matt was upstairs and in Celeste’s room in a heartbeat. “Celeste, we have to go. Come on! Get dressed!”
A mass of curls stuck out from underneath the sheets. “Matty? I would prefer not to go anywhere right now as I am sleeping, and I suspect it is cold and despicable outside. I have a fondness for meteorology, and based on what I heard last night—”
“Get! Up!” Matt pulled down the sheets and tugged at Celeste’s fla
“Where is it that we must go at this early hour? What is of such an urgent nature?”
“It’s Julie. She’s doing something stupid and dangerous, and we have to get her. Let’s go!”
Celeste’s eyes opened wide. “Oh! We are off on an exciting rescue mission, is that correct?”
“Yes.” Matt reached into a laundry basket of clean clothes and tossed jeans and a heavy sweater at Celeste. “Here. Just put these on over what you’re wearing. We have to go now.”
“Matthew?” Celeste sat up and started pulling the jeans over her long underwear.
“What?” he asked, exasperated at how slow she was.
“Do you think that perhaps you too should put on some clothes?”
Matt looked down. She had a point. He might need to wear something besides only sweatpants. “Yeah, okay. Fine. Just hurry.”
Matt raced to his room, snatched some clothes from his dresser, and put on a T-shirt as he stumbled down the stairs, falling hard onto the landing. He slid his feet into socks and shoes, swearing too loudly. “Move it, Celeste!” he yelled. “And grab some warm clothes for Julie!”
Celeste followed him to the foyer, where he grabbed the car keys and Julie’s boots. “This is a remarkably exciting way to start the day, isn’t it?” she asked happily.
Matt yanked a wool hat over her head. “No. No, it is not.”
They rushed through the frozen snow to the car. Matt cursed the old Volvo that was taking forever to heat up enough to drive. He could feel Celeste’s eyes boring into him expectantly.
“What is it?” he snapped.
“Are we going to the airport and flying to California? I do not want to go on an airplane. Not at all. But I will if we are to partake in a heroic cross-country mission.”
“No, we’re not flying anywhere.” Matt turned on the wipers and cranked up the air, willing the windows to defrost enough so that he could see. “Julie is in Boston. I don’t think she ever left.”