Chapter 6
“Heaven on earth with an onion slice.”
—Jimmy Buffet
Kelsey
“Hey, Kel, you gonna do some work or stare out the window all day?” Twilight giggled.
I whipped around to face him. “Oh, what do you care?”
His eyes were bloodshot as usual. I waited for him to break into some speech about chakras and the living spirit or something about my aura being off.
“Been looking out that window a lot is all.” He cocked his head to the side to regard me and attempted to hold back yet another giggle.
I started to say something snarky.
“I’m kinda hungry. You eat yet?” The man was perpetually hungry.
I laughed and glanced to my watch. It read 10:06 A.M. and he’d just devoured a donut in the back. “No, I think I’m good, actually.” I flashed him a motherly stare like you’ve got to be kidding me.
“Hmm, just came over me like a spell or something.” He turned toward the door leading to the stockroom and waved an index finger in the air. “I’ll be back. Don’t wait on me, though.”
I chuckled. Twilight could be frustrating seeing as how he was constantly stoned, but I wouldn’t trade my job for anything in the world. Any other day I would’ve laughed and joined him for takeout just to be nice. Instead, I turned back to the window.
Three days had passed since the date. I hadn’t heard from Matt—typical.
Was it, though? The guy didn’t even get a good-night kiss. He definitely hadn’t thrown me against the wall and done unspeakable things to me. Unusual willpower especially from what I knew about Matt. All he had to do was say the word and I was probably all in.
I pretended to rearrange some of the records but I really just picked them up and set them back down in the same spot while watching cars rumble by on the street. Why hasn’t he called or something?
I’d been distant at the beginning of the date, but hell, by the end I’d pretty much opened up to him. Maybe he was doing that stupid shit where guys waited three days to call so they didn’t appear desperate.
If Matt was anything, he wasn’t like other guys. He marched to the beat of his own drum like nobody I’d ever seen. And from the bulge I had felt in his pants on the dance floor, he packed quite a drumstick.
Tingles ran up my spine thinking about it.
Three days and nothing, though. Nothing but Matt on the brain. Every conversation since ended without me knowing what’d been said. No man had done that to me before and I couldn’t figure out if I was excited or scared.
Regardless, I was a faker. I’d faked my way through life the past three days with everyone I’d encountered, because of big, beautiful, gorgeous Matt.
I sighed and glanced to the door.
The door Matt had waltzed right through and commandeered a date in all of five minutes. The best damn date of all time. I grinned.
How the hell did he do that?
I pulled out my phone and checked it for the ten thousandth time. No messages.
I grumbled because I both loved and hated myself at the moment. Life was way easier without this full-time distraction, but yet I still squinted my eyes and attempted to will his name to appear on my phone.
It vibrated in my hand and I nearly dropped it on the ground in surprise.
Matt: I know you need space and time to think about what’s going on with us. I’ve tried to give it to you. But I can’t stop thinking about you.
Screw you, Matt! And your perfectly good excuse for not texting or calling before now, you bastard!
Had I told him I needed space? God, my mind was like a dense fog ever since our date.
I squeezed the phone in my hand and then clutched it to my chest. I was acting girly and wanted to throat-punch myself for it. Girly did not belong in my repertoire of feelings and actions. Girly was reserved for girly-girls and I most certainly was not one. They had feelings and believed things that boys told them and read way too much into every little detail. Then when the breakup came they cried all night and gained five pounds in a week from eating ice cream and watching Notting Hill on repeat while the guy went on looking hot and banged every groupie stupid enough to believe his charismatic speeches about a record deal that was just about to happen.
I pulled the phone back out in front of my face and swiped the screen.
Me: Hi.
Hi? Jesus, I was such a bitch. But the more I thought about the trap Matt was luring me into, the more anxiety crept into my chest. I reminded myself of what would happen if I allowed myself to fall for Jenny’s fiancé’s best friend.
Keeping him at arm’s length would be the key.
Matt: You like cheeseburgers?
I shook my head and smiled. He practically ignored my shitty text like it didn’t even happen.
Me: Umm, not really.
A lie. Because I freaking loved cheeseburgers. Cheeseburgers were God’s gift to humanity.
Matt: Good, I know a place. Be ready at 5:30.
My legs began to quiver no matter how hard I attempted to keep them steady. Something about him commanding things—his confidence and insistence—heated me up downstairs. Traitorous vagina; it was a thing.
Me: You think you can ignore me for three days and then take me to eat something I don’t like whenever you want?
Matt: Yeah.
I chewed my bottom lip. Jesus, how did he make being a cocky asshole so hot and endearing? I caught myself twirling my hair and yanked my hand down to my side.
Me: What makes you think I won’t leave you standing in front of my door?
Matt: Because you like me. And you like cheeseburgers.
Me: How can you possibly know that?
Matt: I wouldn’t like someone who didn’t like cheeseburgers. See you at 5:30.
Yep, I was done for.
—
“Stay strong. Must stay strong.” I stared at my reflection in my hallway mirror like it would talk some sense into me.
It was 5:28 P.M. and my stomach was already stirring. I told myself it was because I’d eaten three bananas in my kitchen.
Lie.
Then I told myself I ate them so that I’d eat less food at dinner to help show Matt I wasn’t all that interested in him.
Another lie.
I ate them because I didn’t want to pound an entire cheeseburger and look like a glutton in front of him, which I never would’ve cared about prior to four days ago. My mirror image refused to give any meaningful advice so I called her a bitch and walked off, not before noticing how much extra time I’d spent on my makeup. Usually it was a few quick pats, some eyeliner, and done. Suddenly I’d become the Matisse of MAC when Stallworth was involved.
The doorbell rang.
Damn him and his punctuality!
I walked over to the door. Déjà vu kicked in like a glitch in The Matrix.
“Who is it?” I stalled.
“Knew you wouldn’t stand me up.”
“Don’t know anyone by that name.” I grinned at the door. “I don’t open the door for strangers or solicitors.”
“Wouldn’t a solicitor be a stranger?”
My eyebrows rose. “Huh?”
“If all solicitors are strangers there’s no need to say strangers. It’s redundant.”
I yanked the door open and glared. “Are you correcting my English?”
Matt’s beautiful smile appeared in front of me. I’d never seen anyone fill out an Aerosmith T-shirt the way he did. God, I wanted to bite into one of his biceps the way they stretched the sleeves.
“Knew you’d answer the door if I did that.” He smirked.
“Excuse—”
Matt grabbed me by the hand and pulled me out to him. My heart raced and a jolt of adrenaline rushed through me. He reached through the door and into my bag that sat on a table just inside the apartment.
What in the hell?
He rummaged around for a second until a jingling sound rattled around and his eyes lit up. He
snatched the keys from my bag and shut the door.
“Told you, I’m hungry. Let’s go.”
He tugged my hand and we took off toward his car. His mouth curled up in a boyish grin the entire way.
“But—I need my bag.” I waved my free hand back at the apartment door with my fingers grasping at the air.
“It’ll be fine. I won’t keep you long. I eat fast.”
He opened the door for me as my mind attempted to catch up to the current events. I stopped a few feet away and crossed my arms over my chest.
“My phone is in my bag.”
“No cellphones.”
I dropped my mouth open and gasped, the sarcasm obvious and intentional. “Well, umm, my wallet? My wallet is in there, as well.”
“I appreciate your offer to pay, but I truly insist on treating you to this meal.”
I cocked my hip to the side and tapped my foot. “Mom would kick your ass for that, too?”
He winked. “You’re a quick learner.”
He walked over and put a hand on my lower back and guided me toward the passenger-side door. I pretended to fight against him, but I’m pretty sure he could’ve steered me off a cliff with that hand and I wouldn’t have noticed.
“But, but—what if we’re in an accident and burn to death and the authorities need to identify me?”
He politely helped me down into the seat and grabbed the top of the door. “That won’t really be our problem, will it?”
I smiled and shook my head. “This is kidnapping, Stallworth!”
He shut my door midsentence and laughed on his way around the front of the car.
He sat down in the passenger seat and fired up the noiseless engine. I pretended to struggle against the seatbelt I’d willingly put on seconds before.
“Don’t you worry. Once you get a mouthful of this meat you’ll forgive me.”
I snorted at his deadpan delivery.
He backed out into the parking lot and put the car into drive. Without looking at me he channeled the eeriest rendition of a Hannibal Lecter impersonation I’d ever borne witness to. “Tell me, Kelsey. Have the lambs stopped screaming yet?”
His head slowly rotated toward me and he had a psychotic-looking smile plastered across his face. Then he hit the accelerator and we rocketed down the road.
—
Matt shook his head while he sat across from me in a booth.
“What?”
“You call yourself a burger lover and you’ve never been to Fred’s Jumbo Burgers.” He regarded me with skepticism.
“Are you questioning my burger integrity? And if I recall, I told you I didn’t like cheeseburgers, sir.”
“Yes. Yes, I am. And we both know your feeble attempt at lying was total bullshit.”
I laughed and looked around the place. Fred’s was about twenty minutes from the record store, just on the outskirts of the city. My eyes roamed the walls where pictures of celebrities and politicians hung. They all smiled with a giant burger on a plate in front of them.
Large, slanted glass windows ran floor to ceiling around three of the walls with a bank of booths attached to them except for where the door opened and closed.
“Order up!” A man’s voice boomed from a narrow window back behind the waist-level bar top that ran along the back wall.
I stared down at the menu. It read FRED’S JUMBO BURGERS and underneath in a smaller font it said ESTABLISHED 1947.
“Wow, they’ve been around for a while. I’m surprised I didn’t know about this place.”
“Not many people do. They don’t spend any money on advertising.”
I glanced up from the menu and stared at Matt like he was from outer space. “What? Why?”
Matt’s eyes rolled up from the menu to meet mine. “I’ve known the owner since I was a kid. He’s cooked every single burger that’s been served here. I asked him the same thing one day.”
Seriously, he’s going to tease this out of me? Does he think he’s J. K. Rowling?
“And?” I rolled my hand forward like get on with it and tell me what he said.
“He told me that if you’re good at something you don’t need to tell people about it. That people will do it for you.”
I thought about the words for a moment. Twilight handled all of that stuff at the record store, so I was by no means an expert. “I mean, I get it. I’m no business guru and word of mouth is always good advertising. But shouldn’t he pay for advertising, too?”
Matt smiled. “I told him the same thing. But—”
He paused and looked around at the place.
I thought about tickling him if he didn’t tell me the damn story.
His shoulders started to bounce and his face turned pink like he was holding back a laugh.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, Mr. MVP, spit it out.”
Matt’s smile faded and his face paled. He turned his gaze toward the window. “Someone’s been Googling.”
Weird, why did he stop smiling at that? “No Googling. Jenny told me about it. But thank you for assuming I’d Google you.” I scoffed and rolled my eyes.
Matt’s grin returned, but not fully. Something was going on in his head. I wished I could read his mind the way he read mine constantly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything.”
I faked a glare at him that must’ve been pretty convincing, because for the first time he actually appeared a little apprehensive. “Pretty sure you Googled me, though.”
Matt laughed, hard. A strange sensation coursed through my body—not the kind of sensation that made me want to hump Matt’s leg or see him naked, but something I hadn’t felt in a while. It was hard to pinpoint what it was, but I just felt like I was walking in the sun and breathing in everything around me without a care in the world. Hakuna Matata was what it was. I was Timon and Pumbaa, completely carefree and oblivious to the rest of the world.
I reached over and grabbed Matt by the wrist. “Everybody Googles me, Stallworth. Everybody. I bet you read the hell out of my Wikipedia page.”
We both laughed like little children sitting at their own booth away from their parents. Making Matt happy like that surprised me, and it did nothing to alleviate the feelings that were flaring up again. Could I give in to them? I knew deep inside what was about to happen.
A train wreck.
And I was waving my ticket as it rushed into the station with a ton of luggage on the platform waiting to hop on with me.
“Order up!”
Matt rubbed his hands together. “I hope I haven’t built up the suspense too much on this burger. You know, set the bar too high, so that it’s impossible to measure up?”
“Did you order for us? When?”
“Yeah, when I walked in I held up two fingers.”
Someone walked our way with two baskets of food and I eyed Matt ferociously. “You ordered for me?”
The corners of his mouth curled up like my expression meant nothing and he nodded. “Should I be worried that your opinion of this burger will be tarnished by that fact?”
A teenage kid set them down on the table and walked away.
“Oh, I’ll be objective, Stallworth. Don’t worry. I don’t expect much when it comes to being an authority on burgers from a guy that looks like you.”
His mouth dropped open like he couldn’t believe his ears.
I laughed. “Teasing. But for real, look at yourself. There’s not an ounce of fat on your body. Why the hell would you be considered a true connoisseur?”
“That’s umm, some kind of ‘ism.’ I’m not sure which, but it’s discrimination.”
“Really? Playing the cheeseburgerism card?”
Matt laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I am, damn it.”
I lifted the fully loaded double cheeseburger in front of my face and tried to hold back the foodgasm that was about to occur. I promised Matt I’d remain objective but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t tease him a bit first. I bit into it and an explosion of
flavor went off in my mouth. My eyes closed while I took it all in.
God, this is like heaven. Why’d I eat those effing bananas?
I lowered the burger to my plate and caught Matt staring intently. “And?”
I snapped out of food paradise and shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“Heresy! Tell me what I want to hear, Martin.” He leaned in and grinned.
I laughed so hard I nearly choked.
“Fine, Stallworth. Fine! Okay?” I took a deep breath and swallowed my pride. “How the hell have I never been here before?” I shook my head.
“Exactly.” Matt snatched his burger from the basket and took a bite roughly twice as big as mine.
“Do you even taste it when you inhale your food like that? Maybe we should have gotten you two.”
“Or three.” He waggled his eyebrows at me and swallowed.
I took another bite and gave a quick nod to the food gods for creating such a delectable combination of meat and cheese. “Seriously, though, this is a work of art. Now finish the story about paying for advertising.”
“Oh, right. When I told him he said he’d rather focus money on the product. Better ingredients, paying his staff more, stuff like that. I’ve always liked his mindset on things.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Yeah, he’s a great guy. Like a second dad to me.”
A sharp pain slammed me in the chest. I had one of those once, a second dad.
Matt must’ve noticed something change in my demeanor.
“Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t think before I said that.”
I couldn’t tell if I enjoyed how observant Matt was or if it scared me. “It’s okay. Really.”
“You were really close to Jenny’s dad, weren’t you?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I miss him, a lot.”
“I’m sure it was rough on both of you.”
I looked out the window and nodded again. I missed taking care of him. Usually, I would’ve been at his house while he watched football and cursed the television for it not being baseball season. A smile crept over my face briefly and then disappeared.
Fuck cancer.
Matt’s hand wrapped around mine and I glanced down to it then up at him.
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