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Winter Ball. Part 4.

For @AquaLuna who somehow deduced these clues-  3780375851797 and 9-19-2-14. The second set is the numerical order these letters appear in the alphabet I-S-B-N. If you use that to work out the meaning of the first set of numbers you get 378-0-375-85179-7. It's the ISBN number for The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp. The main character in that book is called Sutter. Sarah, xx

*

“How could you possibly have known that it was me?” Matt asks, his eye wide as he processes the revelation.

I chance a look up at him and see him watch me with an amused smile on his face. He obviously didn’t believe me when I told him that I had known it was him messaging me, but the signs had been there all along. For weeks it had just been a hunch, but today when I re-read all of our messages, it became glaringly obvious. It had been him.

Sutter.

“Well, it was a combination of things,” I admit with a shrug of my shoulders. When Matt shakes his head, I knew that he needed a full explanation; a breakdown of all the clues he had unwittingly given me over the last few months. “Ok, let’s see… the major one would be when I went to speak to the soccer team.”

“The soccer team?” Matt quirks an eyebrow at me. He laughs lowly, obviously having trouble understanding how a brief chat with the varsity soccer team could have led to such a revelation. “What does the soccer team have to do with anything?”

“I said the day that I spoke with them that I had found out something interesting.” I watch as Matt’s face contorts and then freezes as he remembers the day that I confronted the soccer team about their supposed crush on me. He sighs, and shakes his head in disbelief. “There are twenty players on the soccer team,” I being to explain, gaining confidence in my theory as I spoke. “But when you listed them all, you only named nineteen. So I got to thinking, how would someone know about locker room talks about crushes, unless they were on the team, too. So, I asked Kyle Barrowman and he told me that Sutter was the team’s captain. Plus, you like German soccer and watch all the games on NBC.”

Matt nodded in understanding. “You got me there, Nancy Drew.”

“Wait,” I hold up the hand that held the rose. I shake my head firmly and give him a stern look. He wisely gave up trying to interrupt me and let me continue. “I’m not done yet. You have a niece called Grace. I remember when she was born and Grace was all you would talk about during freshman year. At the time I had no idea she was just your niece and I got really jealous of this new girl in your life, but then you oh-so casually dropped into conversation that she was only a baby.

“You didn’t think I would remember that, did you? Well, I do. Just like I remember that you have a dog named Teddy.” Matt frowned at this news but stayed quiet and let me continue. “When we were playing the word association game, I said ‘dogs’ and you answered with ‘Teddy.’”

“I should call you Jessica Fletcher,” Matt laughs under his breath, but I still hear him. I playfully slap the top of his arm and roll my eyes at him. He stopped laughing then and gave me a serious look. “If you knew that I was Matt all this time, how come you got Maggie to date me?”

The smirk on my face widened, if possible, as I recall my moment of genius. “Trojan Horse,” I grin.

“Trojan Horse?” Matt laughed honestly and the sound made my heart swell. I made a mental not to myself to make Matt laugh at every available opportunity, because I just loved the sound. “How was Maggie a Trojan horse?”

“You send a Trajan Horse into enemy camp when you want information,” I shrug casually, not entirely sure if I was getting my analogy right. “She was doing a little recon, seeing the lay of the land and what not.”

 “You were testing me?” He asks in mock horror.

“No,” I frown at him, before I look away sheepishly. “Well, maybe. I needed one of my friends to check you out, and I couldn’t trust Haley to keep her mouth shut, and asking Eden would open a can of worms, so I asked Maggie instead.”

Haley Nicholls, a girl that I love like a sister, was sometimes a bit of a blabbermouth and she could never keep a secret. She was far too much of a gossip monger to be trusted with anything confidential, and that’s why I turned to Maggie Taylor. Maggie and I had been friends since sophomore year when we were partnered up for Chemistry and she knew just as well as Haley and Eden about my crush on Sutter. When I told her my theory that Sutter was really Matt, she was on board in testing out just how right, or wrong, I was. I asked her to hang out with him, get to know him and see if Sutter could ever be Matt.

“Explains so much,” Matt laughs and visibly relaxes. “She never did seem in to me.”

“She has a boyfriend,” I explain to Matt, my smug smile still stretched across my face. “She’s been dating Liam Cooke for a year so you never really stood a chance with her.”

Matt laughs and leans his head closer to mine. “I never wanted a chance with her,” he whispers, before pulling away and flashing me an arrogant grin. “Seeing as we’re in a confessional mood, I have one to make, too. I knew that you knew that it was me.”