Two weeks later, Allison, Natalie, and I were sitting at the kitchen table finishing dinner when the phone rang. Allison hopped up to answer it in her usual chipper tone.
"Hello? Oh hi, Matt! How are you?" She was twirling the cord around her finger as she listened. "Of course I'll be there. Yeah, he's coming too. What? Oh, yeah, she is." And suddenly Allison's eyes, the same light brown as her brother's, were staring at me curiously. "Just a second." She put her hand over the mouthpiece and leaned forward suspiciously. "The phone's for you, Alex," she said in a deceptively light tone. The gleam in her eye told me she wanted to know exactly why her brother was calling for me and not for her and that she expected a full report as soon as I hung up.
I'm sure I looked like a deer caught in the headlights. I knew the heat in my face was showing a brilliant red through my pale complexion. But I slowly got up and took the phone from her. "Hello?" I said quietly, turning my back self-consciously on my roommates.
"Hi!" Matt's voice greeted cheerfully. Then the confidence dropped out of his voice. "Are you busy tomorrow night?"
"Umm, no," I replied, still blushing. I glanced back over my shoulder and found Allison and Natalie both watching me avidly. I quickly averted my eyes again.
"Good," Matt sighed. "It's my birthday tomorrow-"
"Oh, happy birthday!" I blurted out before I realized I was rudely interrupting.
"Thanks. Anyway, I wanted to invite you to my birthday party. That sounds way cooler than it is, I'm sorry to say. But my parents are making dinner for me and Allison, and she's bringing Nate, and I thought maybe I could invite a friend of my own." I could practically hear him shrug.
"Well," I hesitated, surprised by the offer, "are you sure that’s okay? I mean, Nathan is practically family, so he kind of doesn’t count as a guest."
He made a dismissive sound, and I pictured him waving my objection off. "So are you, after all the time you've spent over at our house with my sister. More than any of my other friends. In fact, I'm pretty sure you've even been at my birthday dinners before with Allie. It would just be awfully nice to have some company that didn't come out of familial obligation." I think he knew I was still hesitating, because he threw in one earnest, "Please?" It was my undoing.
"Fine," I said, all resistance melting. "Do I need to get you something before then?"
"Your presence will be present enough," he said gallantly, then snickered at his own lame joke. "Seriously, you don't have to. Like I said, it will just be nice to have somebody else there. It will make me feel like less of a loser. Nobody wants to be alone with his parents and his sister and her boyfriend on his birthday."
I chuckled. "I'm sensing a theme to our conversations."
"Thanks for picking up on that," he said, sounding immensely proud of himself. "I worded it that way on purpose."
"I'm sure you did," I replied, rolling my eyes. "But I think I have to go before your sister's eyes burn holes all the way through the back of my head."
Matt laughed. "Sorry. Tell her to leave you alone. Oh, and tell her she has to give you a ride tomorrow. That way you won't have to worry about coming fashionably late or awkwardly early or anything."
"Okay," I said, grinning again. He had that effect on me. "I'll see you later."
"Tomorrow," he reminded me, as if I could have forgotten. "You'll see me tomorrow."
When I hung up the phone, Allison and Natalie didn't even pretend they hadn't been trying to eavesdrop.
"So why was my brother calling you?" Allison asked before the phone had even settled into the cradle.
I rolled my eyes at her in the hope that it would discourage her from making too much out of things. "He just wanted to make sure I knew I was welcome at his birthday party tomorrow with your family."
Allison's eyebrows lifted practically off her forehead. "Since when does Matt care whether you're at our family functions?" she asked incredulously.
I shrugged. "Probably since we decided that we were old enough to be friends instead of doing that weird thing where we kind of avoided each other because he was older than me and we were only awkwardly acquainted through you."
Allison's eyebrows lowered below their usual point. She looked disappointed. "Oh. Yeah, he and I talked about that too. About it being time to look past the age difference, that is."
"Damn," Natalie sighed. "I was really hoping he was asking you out." Allison and I both snapped our heads in her direction.
"What?!" I squeaked. "We're just barely friends! I certainly don't think he's thinking about being anything else."
Natalie raised an eyebrow. "You looked pretty comfortable together on Halloween. And I could have sworn he was flirting with you on the Fourth of July."
My eyes widened. "That was not flirting," I protested and shook my head vigorously. "That was just regular talking between friends."
"I was just hoping," Natalie said. "You would be so cute together."
Allison and I exchanged glances, and this time she was the one who spoke up. "That would be weird. I mean, he's my older brother. He and Alex have known each other forever, but they've hardly ever even spoken."
Natalie let it drop, and I was glad. I liked Matt, but I wasn't sure I wanted to date him. Allison was right; I still hardly knew him. But I can't honestly deny the little flutter in my chest at Natalie's assertions that he had been flirting with me. It would certainly have been flattering.
The birthday party was every bit as unexciting as Matt had led me to believe. His parents didn't seem to think it was strange for me to come waltzing in behind Allison and Nathan. They were probably so used to me coming over unannounced that they forgot I wasn't actually part of their family. They might have been more surprised not to see me there. In any case, they were their usual warm and hospitable selves. Dinner was fantastic, and I appreciated it all the more after a year and a half of trying to cook my own meals. Periodically, Nathan and Allison would start recounting something I'd already heard a few times, and I'd start to zone out. Then Matt would kick me under the table, and I'd look up to find him smirking at me and shaking his head. I don't know how he knew I wasn't paying attention; I guess he's always been able to read me well.
It was nice to sit in that familiar configuration around the table without the familiar awkwardness hanging between Matt and me. I don't know that anyone else noticed a change; I don't know that anyone else had been conscious of the awkwardness before. But it was a relief to me, and I think it made Matt happy too. I'd never seen him so engaged in dinner conversation. Not being a teenage boy anymore may have had something to do with that.
Matt's not exactly Mr. Stunningly and Ruggedly Sexy, and he certainly doesn't look anything like my ideal tall-dark-handsome trio, but that night was the second time I ever found him really attractive. And unlike the Fourth of July, it stuck. I think it was due to reaching the stage at which I saw the person instead of just the physical features, but the way his green striped shirt brought out the green in his hazel eyes didn't hurt. It wasn't a crush, but I never saw him quite the same way again.
After dinner came presents and cake. And then, as we were getting ready to go, I saw the apologetic look on Allison's face that meant she was about to brush me off for some alone time with her boyfriend. It was a rare look for her, but clear enough. She bit her lip and said, "Alex, would you mind terribly if I went over to Nathan's for a while?" I shrugged, because it really didn't matter to me and she was usually very conscientious about making sure she didn't neglect me for him. Then she added, making clear the nervous look, "I know I drove you over here, but his apartment's in the opposite direction from here." I couldn't help the sigh that escaped. "It's not a terribly far walk, and I bet Mom or Dad could give you a ride if you want, or-"
"Allie," Matt interrupted, "I can take her home. It's on my way. It's fine."
"Oh, thank you so much, Matt!" Allison gushed. "That would make things so much easier." Matt waved her off and shrugged his coat on. He said his goodbyes and gathered up his presents.
"Come on, kid. Taxi's waiting."
When we had loaded up the car and strapped ourselves into the front seats, he put his hands on the steering wheel and paused for a moment, glancing over at me. His head tilted thoughtfully as he surveyed me in silence. Then he said, "Given that it's not even dark yet and I'm going home to spend the rest of my twenty-fourth birthday alone, I'm wondering if you're interested in hanging out for a while. We could go for a walk or a movie or whatever. I don't really care. I just don't want to go home and do nothing."
"Nobody wants to spend the night of his birthday alone, right?" I quipped.
"Precisely. So what do you say, friend?"
I shrugged and replied with dry sarcasm, "I haven't got anything better to do. And since I would be helping out a friend, I suppose I can endure."
And that's how we found ourselves out together alone for the first time. We drove to the park and walked around for a while until we had worked off enough of our dinner to head to the nearby diner for some ice cream sundaes. I was surprised by how comfortable we were; it seemed remarkable to me how quickly we'd made the transition from awkward acquaintances to good friends. I wasn't usually very good at navigating that transition. Slowly a subtle shift was occurring in my consciousness, ranking Matt first as my friend and second as Allison's older brother.
He'd gotten his hair cut. When I commented on it as we walked from the diner to the car, he wrinkled his nose and said, "Mom made me do it." His disgust was evident as he ran his fingers through the shorter curls. It was funny; although it was more attractive on him in an objective sense, I missed the longer, more unruly ringlets. Something about his longer hair had made me want to touch it, wind the strands around my fingers, and see what it felt like. Allison's hair was similar to Matt's, but it was long and thick enough to weigh the curls into wider, softer waves.
"I always wanted hair like yours and Allison's," I confessed with a sigh.
He looked incredulous. "Really? What on earth would you want this mess for? I hate my hair."
I shrugged. "I don't know. I think I always imagined pretty girls as being the ones with long blonde curls and big blue eyes." I paused as I remembered, "I always wished my eyes were brown, though."
Matt chuckled. "You know, I always wanted hair like this," he commented, reaching over to flick a piece of my straight, dark hair. "And I always wondered how I got stuck with Dad's brown eyes without managing to get the brown hair."
"Trade you," I laughed. "I've always thought it was weird that I have such dark hair and such light eyes. They don't really match well."
"That's what makes your eyes so beautiful," he said seriously. I flushed awkwardly at the unexpected compliment. "Besides," he added, lightening the mood, "you'd be a hideous blonde. It wouldn't suit you at all." I punched his shoulder, making him snicker.
"Shut up," I muttered, shoving my hands in my pockets. He laughed and slung a friendly arm around my shoulders.
"You're great," he said, giving my shoulders a little squeeze. "Now I know why Allie's been hanging around you for so long." And with that, he flashed me a smile that made my breath catch momentarily. "Come on, kid. Let's get you home."
Matt had one final proposition for me before he dropped me off that night. As we pulled into the parking lot of my apartment complex, he killed the engine and leaned against his window to face me. "Are you busy a week from Saturday?" he asked. I shook my head, and he continued, "Want to go to a wedding with me? One of my old roommates is getting married, and I don't want to go alone. As you know, I don't have a girlfriend anymore, and I'm not interested in trying to find one in the next week and a half. So I'm looking for a friendly date to keep me company. And really," he gave me a grin here that made the corners of his eyes crinkle, "nobody wants to be alone at a wedding."
"And get stuck at the reception sitting with a table full of couples who want to convince you of the joys of wedding bliss," I added.
Matt's eyes twinkled. "Or wind up with the other single guest near your age whom the bride and groom are secretly hoping to set you up with while you can't escape from the room."
The corners of my mouth began to turn upwards. "Said person will undoubtedly be the kind of person they would describe to you as 'nice,' 'sweet,' 'having a great personality', and a million other adjectives that are really euphemisms for 'socially awkward and relatively unattractive person whom you would never choose for yourself in a million years.'"
He laughed. "You forgot 'efficient'-that was always my grandfather's favorite. He would try and set my uncle Bill up with all of these single women, and all he could ever say about any of them was that 'she's very efficient, Bill.' Needless to say, none of them ever got very far, and my uncle is still a bachelor. My grandfather held it against him to his dying day." He gave me his most charming look. "So what do you say, kid? Are you up for it?"
"Sure," I nodded. "I feel morally obligated to save you from scheming couples and 'efficient' women. Besides, it might even be fun."
He breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much. You have no idea how much I appreciate it." Then his expression turned sheepish. "I did neglect to mention, however, that the wedding is about an hour's drive from here."
"Not a problem," I assured him.
His sheepish look became a little apologetic. "And my car's going into the shop next Thursday and might not be done by then. Would you be able to drive if I can't?"
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't quite keep away the smile tugging at the corner of my lips. "Absolutely. Just let me know."
He beamed at me. "You're the best. I'll call you when I know what time we need to leave and whether you need to drive or not, okay?"
I nodded, and he leaned over to give me a slightly awkward hug. We laughed at ourselves as we got slightly tangled up in our seatbelts, but we managed to eventually get a real hug out of the deal and extricate all of our limbs without permanent damage. I flashed him one last smile as I slid out of the door. "See you a week from Saturday," I confirmed. "Oh, and happy birthday one last time."
It turned out that the routine maintenance on Matt's car was more than just routine, and so the day of the wedding found me pulling into his driveway instead of the other way around. I spied him leaning against his garage door in a suit and tie. He slid into the passenger seat with a casual greeting and went over the directions with me. Then he added, with a hint of a smirk, "You clean up pretty well, kid."
"Thank you," I responded dryly, one eyebrow arched in his direction. "What an effusive compliment."
He leaned back against the headrest, smirk widening. "It's as good as you'll get from me. I'm not one for stroking the ego unnecessarily. And let's be honest, you already know you look better than usual, so I don't need to tell you."
"Confirmation would not be unwelcome," I muttered, rolling my eyes. Then I snuck a glance at him and commented wryly, "You look slightly north of terrible yourself."
He laughed loudly for a moment before reaching over to ruffle my hair. I batted his hand away as best I could while driving. "That's why I like you, kid. Plus you're driving a manual, which makes you officially the coolest girl I know." After a few more seconds, he added, "You're also a pretty good driver. For a girl, at least."
I frowned, slightly offended. "What is that supposed to mean? All girls are terrible drivers?"
He shrugged. "Just saying. Most of the bad drivers I encounter are girls. They're too preoccupied with the seventy-five other things they're doing while they're supposed to be driving, and they're too hesitant to assert themselves. A lot of aggression on the road is a bad thing and leads to accidents, but too little aggression leads to accidents too." He looked over at me. "You've been best friends with my little sister since practically birth, certainly the entire time she's had her license. You must have ridden in the car with her. Do you not fear for your life slightly every time she takes the wheel?"
I winced. I didn't want to be disloyal to my best friend, but he was absolutely right. She was a terrible driver because she was always hesitant to stick to her spot and go; she wanted to yield to everyone, even when she had the right of way. And consequently, we had narrowly escaped several accidents that would have been the direct result of her lack of aggression. And I had to admit Allison wasn't the only girl I knew with the problem. It was not a problem for me-I liked to feel the engine leap into action beneath my feet when I hit the gas and slid into my spot in traffic. "Fine," I sighed. "You're right. About Allison, at least. But I refuse to condemn my entire gender's driving skills based on her example."
"As you wish," Matt conceded. "I was just giving you a compliment, you know."
"Your complimenting skills suck," I told him, eyes still on the road. "That's twice in the last ten minutes that your compliments have offended me more than flattered me."
I saw one corner of his mouth quirk up. "Maybe it's your receptiveness that's the problem. When two people fail to communicate effectively, sometimes it's the fault of the listener, not the speaker."
"I thought you were an engineer, not a psychologist."
"Oh, I am. But I had to fulfill my core requirement in social science just like everybody else before I could graduate." He gave me a teasing grin.
I rolled my eyes and merged onto the freeway. "So tell me about this wedding I'm going to," I requested, changing the subject. "Anything in particular I should know about the bride and/or groom?"
He filled me in on his old roommate and his fiancée, sharing stories and opinions on the relationship. He was fully expecting both bride and groom to cry during the ceremony and then live happily ever after, though he found their relationship a little bland for his taste. He was still talking when we pulled into the church parking lot. As we got out of the car, he was almost immediately accosted by some old college friends I'd never met and they started to walk inside. I started to get nervous that I was going to end up sitting alone at a stranger's reception while Matt caught up with his buddies. But he startled me by taking my hand and pulling me over to him, slightly away from his companions.
"No fair, kid," he murmured in my ear. "I didn't bring you to be abandoned. Nobody wants a wedding date that just lurks behind him all night. What's the point of that?" He pulled back slightly and winked at me. I smiled up at him, feeling much better and surprisingly warm inside.
"I thought you might want a chance to talk with your friends," I replied quietly. "I just wanted to give you some space."
His eyebrows lifted almost indiscernibly. "Thanks. But it's not necessary." Then, with a sudden change of tone, "So, fake wedding date, are you interested in being my girlfriend for the next few hours? Nothing serious, just for the day. It'll make you a lot easier to introduce." His lopsided grin was adorable and winsome.
"How could I say no to reasoning like that?" I asked facetiously. I took his other hand and looked up at him in faux shyness. "Matt, I would love to be your girlfriend for the next few hours. It would be my pleasure to assist you in this way."
A ridiculous batting of the eyelashes accompanied his saccharine tone as he said, "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so glad. We're going to be the best couple ever."
I chuckled and dropped his hands. "At least it'll get me out of being called 'kid' all day, right? It's not exactly an endearment."
"Of course it is!" he protested, surprised. "You think I go around calling everybody 'kid'?"
"No. You go around calling other people by their names," I reminded him. "You just like to torment me."
He grinned. "That is true. But I still maintain that 'kid' is really an endearment when I use it for you. Nonetheless, just for today, I'll call you something else."
Something about the gleam in his eyes made me suspicious. "What exactly will you call me instead?"
He waggled a finger in my face. "You'll just have to wait and see, won't you, schnookums? Sweetie pie? Sugar lips? Hot ass?"
I gasped at the last one. "Call me 'hot ass' in front of your friends and I'll punch you in the face. You wouldn't dare!"
"Wouldn't I?" He smirked smugly and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. "Besides, it's a compliment. You do have a hot ass. Now come along, sweet pea. We have a wedding to attend."
"I hate you, Matthew Benningham," I grumbled.
"No you don't," he said lightly. "You love me. I'm your boyfriend." He dragged the word out like an elementary school boy out to embarrass an older sister. "Now come along, darling."
I sighed and let him lead me to our seats. "Your complimenting skills really suck," I muttered again.
The wedding itself was nothing out of the ordinary. Lovely ceremony, lovely bride, the usual music, the usual vows; the only unusual thing was Matt sitting beside me, fingers interlaced with mine, thumb brushing over my knuckles so slowly and rhythmically that I don't think he even realized he was doing it. Yet what caught me off guard was the dismissal.
As Matt bestowed his congratulations on the happy couple with a manly handshake for the groom and a warm hug for the bride, she said, "I'm so glad you came! I was worried after what happened with Sarah that you'd avoid us. But you look great! And who's this?" She turned to me with a sunny smile, taking my hands and pulling me into a hug before Matt even had the chance to fully introduce us.
"This is my girlfriend," Matt started, visibly struggling for a moment to pick a name for me (though the bride was too busy hugging me to notice), "Alexandra."
"Oh, what a beautiful name!" the bride exclaimed. "It makes me think of royalty. And there are so many cute nicknames." I couldn't resist shooting Matt a victorious smile.
After I managed to extricate myself from the exceptionally friendly woman, Matt led me off to the side with a hand on my back. "Sorry about that," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "I didn't know she was going to be so… gregarious. She's normally really pretty reserved."
"Apparently she's ecstatic to see you're over whatever happened with Sarah." My curiosity had been piqued. Matt knew it.
With a sigh, his face fell into a frown. He pursed his lips for a minute before explaining, "She was my girlfriend the last year and a half of college. I was starting to think about proposing after we graduated, but she beat me to the punch. The week before finals, she made some comment about how much she was going to miss me after graduation. I asked her what she was talking about. She thanked me for the invaluable experience I'd given her in dealing with a long-term relationship, commitment, et cetera, and then told me that I'd been an excellent practice boyfriend, but now that school was over, she was ready to look for the real thing out in the real world."
"What?!"
He continued slightly bitterly, "She couldn't believe that I'd ever thought things were headed beyond the end of school. She thought it was dreadfully old-fashioned of me to even think about settling down straight out of college, because that's simply not what modern men and women do these days. 'We aren't baby machines, you know, Matthew.' She had assumed we were both just looking for something in the meanwhile." He sighed again, heavily, this time with a disbelieving shake of the head. "What I can't understand is how we made it that far into a relationship without ever having talked about it before."
"I guess neither of you thought you needed to," I replied, unsure of how to act.
"Kind of a big thing not to address though, don't you think?" Matt shrugged it off. "Anyway, I'm over it." I wondered from the way his eyebrows contracted whether he meant that. "I haven't exactly forgiven her yet, and I don't think I ever really will. But I think I kind of understand where she was coming from, and I know better than to want her back. Plus it's been a couple of years. She just hurt me pretty badly at the time." He met my eyes for the first time since I mentioned her. "I'm kind of surprised Allie didn't mention it to you, actually. She was pretty upset. I think she really wanted a sister." He managed a wan, wistful smile.
His expression made my chest ache. "I'm really sorry, Matt," I told him sincerely. "That's a pretty shitty thing to go through." Impulsively, I threw my arms around his neck, and I was gratified to feel him smile against my cheek.
"Thanks, kid." The way his breath moved across my ear gave me a pleasant shiver.
I pulled back, but slid one hand into his. "I thought you weren't going to call me that today," I teased.
His face brightened considerably. "Thank you for reminding me, babycakes! I had forgotten!" And that simply, he was back to normal: talkative, easy-going, offensively complimentary in a way that was infuriating and delightful all at the same time.