INTO THE FLAMES

Chapter 17

That night at dinner, Matt sat in the chair across from me and stared at me the entire time. I felt his eyes burning a hole in body, and even when he took a gulp of water, he was staring at me, and all I could do was think about him drinking something else.

By dessert, mom asked me if I was feeling alright. I counteracted with, "Yes, why?"

Then she tells me my face is red.

And I see him smirk.

And my underwear is instantly drenched.

I clear my throat and avoid looking at anyone because that one look in my eyes could tell anyone and everyone that I'd been imagine Matt's head in between my legs. As much as my mother had wanted us to be together before my panic attack, I'm not sure how she would react to the two of us right now.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just a little tired."

My lie got me sent to my room by mother, who was insisting that I had been working too hard, and demanded that I take a break. I'd slipped on my pajamas just as someone knocked at the door. Before I had time to worry that it was Matt and there was food stuck in my teeth from dinner (I know, shallow worries) Aria came barging into the room and slammed the door behind her.

"Holy shit, Avery!"

My face was red again. She knew. Shit, she knew, and I wasn't even sure if I wanted her to. After being alone for so long, I'm really out of practice with this dating crap, and I would have to explain something to my sister that even I didn't understand.

"What?" I asked, and I just knew that I'd given myself away.

"You're so into each other!"

"What are you talking about?" I said as bluntly as I possibly could. I turned away from her so she couldn't see my face and pretended to rearrange files on my desk. There was only so long I could avoid this, but I wasn't about to lose my cool.

"Don't give me that crap," my sister said. "He was practically eye-fucking you at the dinner table." My breath caught at her words because she noticed that he had been staring at me, and the smoldering look he'd given me that she had compared to fucking instantly had me thinking about how amazing it would be.

"Look," I said to my sister, and turned around to face her. My mouth was open in preparation for saying something snarky, something that would clip this conversation in the bud and make her drop the whole thing. But when I saw her face, no words came out. I tried, really. But I couldn't lie.

"Oh. My. GOD!" Aria squealed and ran towards me. I tried shaking my head, to do something that would make her think I wasn't into him, but it was no use.

"Shut up!" I told her. "Someone will hear you!" I could only imagine my father's face if he found out I was interested in Matt and he was sleeping across the hall. Dad would make him sleep on the couch. Or worse, on the porch.

Aria left to put her pajamas on and grab "The Lucky One" so we could watch it while she grilled me about Matt. For the first time all night, I had room to breathe. I had time to think. 

I lied on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about Matt's eyes on me at the table, the same way they were a few weeks ago in the hallway. Jax never looked at me like that, like I was the only thing on his mind. He always wanted sex, yes, but he was always distracted by beer or his friends or lacrosse or surfing. Or other girls.

When I think about the fact that maybe Jax wasn't the best guy after all, I kind of feel like shit. I mean, obviously, he's not the best person in the world, and he treated and made me feel like shit in the end, but things were good while they lasted, and I don't want to change that. I don't want to warp what we had.

But then I see Matt in my head and I hear the way "baby" rolled off his lips so casually, the way he didn't care if people saw him staring, and I started to think that maybe I was wrong about Jax. He treated me well in the long run,yes, but was that enough?

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It's still dark when I wake up. The movie ended around eleven, and after trying to convince me that I should sneak into Matt's bedroom, Aria turned her back to me and fell asleep. She was still snoring softly when the door to my room cracked open. 

The first things I saw when the door opened were Matt's green eyes piercing through the darkness. I was instantly worried about what a hobo I must look like; crazy hair, wrinkled clothes, bad breath, skin matted with patterns from the sheets. 

"Avery?" He called through the darkness. I looked down at Aria, still sleeping softly, and covered her with the quilt. Then, I eased myself out of bed as quietly as I could, reached for an old Harvard sweatshirt, and followed Matt out into the hallway.

It was two-thirty.

"I'm sorry if I woke you up," he said, but I wasn't. He was wearing black sweatpants and a green tee shirt that was a little darker than the green eyes. His rich dark hair was puffed up and tangled. He had deep, dark bags under his eyes. Seeing him made me stop worrying about myself and start wondering what could have gone wrong.

"Are you okay?" I whisper through the dark of the hallway. He nods, and then smiles, and I can't help but smile too because I feel like I'm in high school again and sneaking around with Peter in the middle of the night when my parents thought I was sleeping at my friend's house. Except this time, my parents are a lot closer to finding out.

"Yeah, I'm good," he reassured me, then he cups my face, holding it with a hand on each cheek. And he steps closer, pushing me against my bedroom door. I can smell the peppermint on his breath, the shampoo in his wet hair, the vanilla chap stick as he leans in and presses his lips to mine.

When he pulls away, the world is still spinning as he whispers, "I realized that I couldn't sleep until I did that" against my lips. I smile, he kisses me again, harder, longer, and deeper this time, and I know that I'l be able to sleep through the night, too.