Not That Kind of Guy

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  “Mom, did you ever think about coming back?”

  Her mother looked back to her. “Every day.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Bridget asked.

  “Pride. I didn’t think your father would take me back. But mostly I didn’t want to admit that I was wrong.”

  Bridget set aside her eggs and threw her arms around her mom. “I don’t want to make the same kind of mistake.”

  Her mother pulled back. “You couldn’t possibly.”

  “I already did,” Bridget said. “I stayed with Chris for a decade because of my pride. I think I got married to Matt in the first place because of pride.”

  “I think tequila might have had something to do with that.” Sean Nolan, one hundred percent reliable in keeping it real.

  “Word.” Bridget looked down at her hands, the left ring finger still holding the engagement ring that Matt had given her. Something that felt so flashy and audacious at first now felt like it had always been there. She should take it off; it didn’t really belong to her anymore. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not until she knew they were done for real.

  She’d let her pride and temper get the best of her. All her life, she’d thought she was her father’s daughter with her hot, long-burning temper. This morning, she realized that she was a mix of her father’s temper and her mother’s pride. If she didn’t get her head out of her ass, she would end up letting the best guy she’d ever met think that he didn’t mean everything to her. She would go years and decades without the only guy she thought she could be happy with if she didn’t swallow her pride and apologize for her temper.

  Still, there was the fact that nothing about her and Matt’s lives fit together. The fact that they came from two different worlds would always trip them up—just as much as her pride and temper. As much as Matt’s unwillingness to stand up to his parents.

  But she could say the same thing for her parents now. Despite the fact that they came from the same neighborhood, her mother was a museum curator who bumped elbows with famous artists and celebrities, and her father was a contractor who cussed, drank cheap domestic beer, and worked with his hands. And they looked at each other like the other held their heart. After thirty-five years, three kids, and two divorces between them—a lifetime.

  Bridget wanted that. All that messy. All that good.

  “I want to be married to him,” she said quietly. “He’s my one.”

  “His mother owes you an apology,” her mother said.

  “That’s—”

  “What did she do to Bridget?” Her father’s face was getting a little red.

  “I have to figure this out myself, you guys.” But she needed a little time to figure out how.

  * * *

  • • •

  MAYBE I’LL BUY A boat. I can quit law school and sail around the world. Maybe I’ll just fuck off to the Greek islands for a while. Really lean into what Bridget thought I was. Live that Leonardo DiCaprio life with twenty-one-year-old models until my dick withers and falls off.

  It was about the thirtieth idea that Matt had come up with to escape his life. The best one so far.

  But it still felt hollow because he would be sailing around the world without Bridget. And, call him weird, but he only wanted to share any of the ideas he had—hike the Andes, start an orphanage somewhere, sail around the world—with the one person he couldn’t have.

  He was certain of only one thing. Now that his trust fund had vested—because it turned out that he didn’t have to stay married to get access—and he was out from under his parents’ thumbs, he was done doing what they wanted him to.

  His mother was still trying to run a power play, though. That’s why she’d kept him waiting for fifteen minutes in her office.

  “Shouldn’t you be in class right now?” She made a show of checking her watch.

  Matt stood up and kissed her cheek. Once she’d rounded her desk and was about to sit down, he dropped the bomb. “I quit school.”

  “What?” Not very many people surprised his mother; she was far too shrewd for that. Despite the fact that marrying his father had given her more access to resources, she’d been successful because she was always the smartest person in the room.

  And that was probably why she didn’t like Bridget—both of them were usually the smartest people in the room.

  “I didn’t want to be there.” It was true. That morning, he’d walked on campus for the first time after Jack and Hannah’s wedding, and he’d realized that there was no point. He didn’t want to join any of the firms that his father or mother employed regularly. Nor did he want to be groomed to lead either one of his parents’ companies. He had more money than God at this point, and he’d never really decided what he wanted to do with his life.

  “What are you going to do?”

  He shrugged, knowing it would drive her absolutely nuts. “I guess I’ll figure it out.”

  She stood up then. “Is this about that girl? Did she convince you to throw your life away?”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Mother.” He stood up, too. He needed to leave. “She signed the divorce papers and so did I. I think she’s done with me. This is about me.”

  “You’ll regret this.”

  He shrugged again. “Maybe.” There was a lot he regretted about the past week. Dropping out of law school wasn’t currently one of the things in that group.

  Losing Bridget, however, was.

  He started walking out of the room, but his mother’s voice stopped him. “Where are you going? We have to figure this out.”

  “We don’t have anything to figure out.” In that moment, he felt sorry for his mother, being so driven and direct and having a sensitive dreamer for a son. Still, he knew enough to know that he needed to make a boundary now, before their roles hardened and they felt real resentment toward each other. “I have to go see a guy about a boat.”

  He wondered what the Greek islands were like this time of year.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  DESPITE ALL OF HIS grand plans of escape to the Greek islands, Matt did not have the motivation to seek out a boat and a crew. He could have done one or the other, but that would have been disastrous with just the boat and silly with just the crew. Turns out that once it really sank in, a broken heart had sapped almost all of his appetite for anything but the remote and his couch.

  He didn’t expect to hear from Bridget, but he expected to feel more relief than dejection at this point. It had been days, and all he could feel was sadness. He seriously hadn’t been in love with Naomi if this was what losing someone he loved felt like.

  It was difficult to describe. It was as though the adrenaline rush of Bridget signing those papers and shoving them at him had gotten him through dropping out of law school and confronting his mother. But then it had faded, and he was just existing.

  Every so often, he had to check his pulse to make sure his heart was still beating. Everything he’d thought about doing or buying while he was still strung out on fight-or-flight hormones made him feel even more dead inside. Every adventure he could have or thing he could see only reminded him of how he wanted to see or do them with Bridget.

  It was almost ironic that the one thing he wanted—a second chance with her—was the one thing he couldn’t buy. Especially when he’d assumed that she could be bought.

  One thing Matt definitely did not expect was his ex-brother-in-law showing up at his place when he was supposed to be on his honeymoon.

  “Why aren’t you in the Turks and Caicos?” Matt opened the door even though he was fairly certain Jack would try to kick his ass. Matt would let him—just so he could feel something.

  “Hannah missed the dog.” Jack shrugged with a goofy smile on his face. “Said that we could have sex in our apartment. So we came back.”

  “She really likes that dog.” Matt led Jack into th
e kitchen, where he got them both beers. Jack looked at the bottle and nodded in approval.

  “Not as much as I hear that our dog likes you.” Jack laughed and winked, and Matt let his guard drop a little. This didn’t feel like an ass-kicking visit.

  “Tell him that I still feel violated.” Matt took a sip that didn’t taste like anything even though he knew for a fact that it was very good beer.

  “I’ll try to get him to send you flowers, but he’s a real cad, our Gus.” Jack narrowed his gaze at him, and Matt realized that his whole nice-guy routine was a front. It became immediately clear why people gave him scoops on big stories. Dude was disarming. “Were you just being a cad with my sister?”

  Matt thought about it for a long moment. Although he’d been the one accusing her of using him, he wasn’t innocent. He’d been willing to have a fling with Bridget without really caring about what it might do to her career. He’d stayed married to her because he wanted to sleep with her but lied and said it was to get Naomi off his jock. He’d told her that he was in love with her—and he’d felt it—but he hadn’t shown it.

  He looked Jack in the eye and said, “I love your sister.”

  “I believe you.” Jack took another drink. “What are you going to do to get her back?”

  “Does she know you’re here?” Matt hoped so. If she was sending emissaries on her behalf, maybe she felt more than she’d let on.

  Jack actually guffawed. “She would tear me a new asshole if she knew I was here. You really don’t know my baby sister that well, do you?”

  “Wait a second. I know plenty about your sister. I was just hoping for a miracle.”

  “Good. I was hoping she wasn’t in love with yet another idiot.”

  “You talk that way about your friends?” Matt didn’t want to know how Jack talked about him when he wasn’t around.

  Jack looked at him soberly and said, “With our friends we tell the truth.”

  “Seems about right.” Matt nodded. He agreed that any man who let Bridget get away was an idiot. He just didn’t know how to avoid being an idiot in that moment. “How do I get her back?”

  “Well, word on the street is that you told her that you thought she was with you for money.” Matt nodded, and Jack sneered a little. He deserved that. “Also, you sided with your mom over her?”

  “Yep.” Hearing it in such stark relief had him wanting to kick his own ass. “I really fucked up.”

  “Listen, the best of us fuck up.” Matt trusted him. He’d heard the whole story about how he’d initially started dating Hannah for a story at his old job, and then he’d done a bunch of terrible shit to her in the name of finishing that story. “Hannah threatened me with an ice pick when she found out about my fuckup.”

  “I was actually there earlier that night. With my ex.”

  “The cheater?” Jack asked. Man, the Nolans were bigger sharers than Bridget had advertised. He wasn’t sure he could get used to it. But he would try if it meant that he could get her back.

  “Yeah, the cheater.”

  “Listen, I don’t know anyone with a bigger heart than my baby sister, but she keeps it all locked up.”

  “Because your mom left.” Matt understood why Bridget was hesitant to open up or commit. After he met Chris, he’d understood her efforts to keep him at arm’s length.

  “Yeah, and Chris was a fuckup.” Jack looked at Matt as though it was his fault, which made Matt angry.

  “I’m nothing like him.”

  “Nah, you’re more like Bridget,” Jack said. “Stubborn.”

  “She never changes her mind.” Matt had changed his mind about the possibility that Bridget was after him for his money an instant after he’d entertained it. But he’d held the thought too long for Bridget. “And I can’t see how she’s going to change her mind now.”

  “She changed her mind about whether she wanted to be in a relationship, didn’t she?” Matt nodded, and Jack continued. “For your ass. What makes you think she won’t change her mind about you being a douche canoe?”

  “For a hot minute,” Matt said. “I don’t know what I can do to convince her to give me another chance.”

  Matt didn’t trust the smile that crossed Jack’s face. “Luckily, if you have more beer, I have ideas.”

  * * *

  • • •

  BRIDGET SMELLED FOOD COOKING from inside Matt’s apartment. It almost made her turn around. What if she showed up to apologize—to eat shit and see if he would forgive her—and he was here with another girl?

  But she realized that it didn’t matter. They’d left words unsaid. If she just let him go without fighting for him, she would regret it for the rest of her life. And she’d racked up way too many of those as an adult.

  So she knocked on the door.

  When Matt opened it, he looked delicious. Disheveled, but she still wanted to put her mouth all over him. They’d only been together a handful of times, but he looked like home to her. His hair was tousled, his T-shirt had sweat stains at the pits, and his face was flushed. Which somehow made him more charming. If she didn’t already love him, she would hate him.

  “You’re early,” he said, but he was smiling, so she didn’t think it was a problem.

  “I can come back later if you have someone in there.” She started to back away, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her in the door. When he closed it behind her, she was about an inch away from him.

  “You’re the only one here and the only person I was expecting.” It was just a sentence, but he said it like there was some sexy double meaning that she couldn’t begin to understand. Her body understood it, though. And it made her want to forget about apologizing to him and kiss him.

  But that wouldn’t solve any of their problems—they needed to be better at communicating and they couldn’t do that with their mouths attached to each other. So she needed to step back and change the subject to something safe. “It smells good in here.”

  He let her go, but he waggled his brows and that almost reeled her back in. “I’m glad you think so.”

  “You didn’t have to cook me dinner.” She didn’t need to be filled with hope like this. It felt entirely too normal for her to just sink in. “You have every right to be mad at me.”

  When he didn’t respond, she looked down at her feet. “Take off your shoes and stay a while.” His words made her want to stay even more. “I made a chicken. It was my first time, and I hope I didn’t mess it up too much.”

  Once her shoes were off, he grabbed her hand and pulled her into the kitchen. “You didn’t have to cook me dinner. I came by to talk.”

  Matt shrugged. “We’ll talk. Over food.” He boosted her up onto one of the stools around his kitchen island and handed her a glass of wine. He turned back to the stove where something that looked like brussels sprouts was cooking. “It’s been breathing for a while.”

  “I came over to apologize.” This was entirely too romantic, and she didn’t deserve it. He was acting as though she hadn’t tossed divorce papers in his face and stomped out in a huff less than a week ago. “Aren’t you mad at me?”

  That stopped him, and he turned off the burner and turned to her. “I was mad that night, but mostly I’ve been sad.”

  It hurt her heart that she’d made him sad. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about your mom’s offer and the lunch. It was just awful, and I didn’t want to damage your relationship with her any more than I already had. Plus, I kind of thought—for just a minute—that you were behind the whole thing.”

  He nodded. “I get it, and I’m sorry I didn’t believe you right away. I think the thing with Naomi messed me up more than I wanted to admit. And I hadn’t realized that my mother had gotten so involved with trying to control my life.”

  “She really did go overboard there.”

  Matt rounded the counter and cupped her face. “
But you never gave me any reason to doubt you.” He ran his finger over her lower lip, and she just fought the urge to lick him. “I really want to kiss you right now.”

  It pained her to say it, but she did. “I think we should talk more.”

  He groaned and looked to the sky. “You’re really going to make me work for it, aren’t you?”

  “When haven’t I?” They might have graduated to jokes, and her will to talk things out before jumping his bones might be slipping, but she wanted to do things right if they had hope for a future. She was using her stubbornness for good.

  Luckily, the timer on his oven went off, saving her from relying on willpower alone. When she went to get up and help him, he put a hand on her shoulder. “Nuh-uh. This is my show.”

  “It feels weird not to help.” It was killing her not to do anything. She always felt like she had to be doing something for Chris. If Matt didn’t need her help, then what would he need her around for?

  “I wanted to do something nice for you. It would hurt my feelings if you didn’t let me.”

  * * *

  • • •

  ONCE MATT TALKED BRIDGET out of taking over dinner prep and got them seated, he let himself really look at her. He was glad that he’d lit candles, because she was so beautiful and lush to look at in candlelight. It danced over her freckles and made her look almost otherworldly.

  When Jack had suggested this, it had seemed too simple. But he should have known that simple wouldn’t mean easy. Convincing the woman in front of him that she didn’t need to do anything to earn his love was much more difficult than one would think.

  Every time she’d thanked him—for the wine, for carving the chicken, making sure she got her favorite cut—it made him angry. Like, it was nice that she was grateful, but couldn’t she see that she deserved to be treated like a queen?

  “It’s so good,” she said, barely finished chewing. “I don’t know how you had time to do this.”