Flat-Out Matt (9 page)

“I’m perfect. Are
you
okay?”

“Yes,” he said. “Are you going to make it until midnight?” Based on her faulty speech alone, passing out might be the best idea.

“Of course I’ll make it to midnight,” she said defensively. “I’m gonna watch fireworks shoot out over the ocean.” Matt highly doubted she had the coordination skills left to get dressed again, much less figure out how to walk to find these fireworks. “Wanna come watch with me?”

He smiled to himself. He would love to. More than anything. “Sure. I’ll be there in a minute. Don’t start without me.”

“I can always count on you, can’t I, Matty? You’re the best, and you’re very helpful. I love you.”

“Now I know you’re drunk.” Under other circumstances, her words might not cut so deeply, but a drunk, meaningless delivery told him how far they were from being where he wanted. She had no idea what she was saying now.

“Calm down, silly boy. Not like
I love you
-love you. I just love you. You’re so smart. Oh, you love me too, and you know it.”

Matt couldn’t respond to this. Besides, making sure that she was safe was the only important thing. She clearly had no experience with drinking, and it was more than likely that she was going to be in terrible shape tomorrow, particularly with no one to take care of her. Where was her father? Why was she so wasted before nine o’clock California time? “Have you had any water to drink?”

“See what I mean?
That
is the smartest idea ever!” He listened to some plodding footsteps and then the sound of a faucet running. He had to laugh. Based on the sound of her walk, she must be staggering like mad. She could careen to the side, ricochet off a wall, and get a concussion. Or she could just look ridiculous. It would be one or the other. “Okay, here I go. Are you ready?”

“Go for it.”

“Now, hold on. Don’t go anywhere.”

Matt rolled his eyes. Julie had quite obviously stuck her entire face under the tap since he could hear every gulp and gasp and splash as she hydrated herself. If any of the water was making it to her mouth, he’d be shocked.

“Ta-da!” she announced.

“You also could have used a glass.”

“You didn't say to, and you’re the one in charge. Now I have to pee. Don’t listen, because that would be gross.”

Matt clapped a hand to his forehead. This was hardly the intimacy he'd been hoping for with Julie. “Believe me, I will not listen.”

“You talk, and I’ll pee. Talk loud to cover up the pee sound. Tell me something interesting. You always have interesting things to babble about.”

“I do not babble.” But Matt thanked her for the messenger bag and hinges that she'd given Celeste for Christmas. He had to give her credit because not only was Flat Finn close to being foldable enough to be totally concealed in that messenger bag, but the real gift was the time he spent with Celeste putting on the new hinges. If he knew Julie the way he thought he did, this had been her intention.

He dwelt on this as she started going on and on about something to do with how smart he was and how funny the shirts were that she’d given him for Christmas.

“I will admit that I sorta like all of your shirts,” Julie said.

“Obviously when you get drunk, you lie. And talk a lot.”

“I am not lying. They are actually a tiny bit adorable.”

“I knew you would come around.”

“I'm done peeing now.”

“Thank you for letting me know.”

He heard her stumble around again. “I look crazy. I think I should go to bed now.”

“Probably a good idea. Happy New Year.” Matt started to pull the phone from his ear.

“Wait, don’t hang up yet! Tuck me in.”

What in the world was drunk Julie talking about now? “Tuck you in?”

“Yes. Tuck me in. Come to bed with me. Oh, wait, that’s not right, is it? Can you imagine?”

“Imagine what?”

“If we went to bed together. That would be bananas, huh?”

Matt sighed. Julie must be entirely out of her mind if she was mentioning the two of them in bed together. Not that he disliked that line of thinking, but…. Well, anyway, Julie was clearly a mess right now. “This conversation has officially taken an alarming turn.”

“You’re just figuring that out now?” She was silent for a few moments. “Matty?”

“Yes, Julie?”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“I like math.”

“I think that is wonderful.” Drunken thinking or not, he was happy to hear this. Matt had helped Julie with enough of her homework to know that, despite her near constant grumblings, she really had an aptitude for math.

“And there’s something else.”

“Shoot.” Maybe she had a secret physics fetish too? One could always hope.

Julie lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m a virgin.”

“Oh my God, Julie, I’m hanging up now.” Why in the world was she telling him this? This felt really inappropriate. Except… Matt couldn’t deny a stupid level of relief. He assumed that she'd been with Seth, if not somebody before that, and he had hated thinking about what she'd been doing every time that she'd gone out with Seth for the night. Learning that they’d broken up had given him an embarrassingly good feeling. It’s not as though he, or “Finn” for that matter, had any right to expect her not to have a love life. He just didn’t like it.

“I’m serious,” she continued, undeterred. “This is important. I’m a freshman in college. How can I still be a virgin, huh? Nobody else is a virgin. Nobody else in the whole world. What about you? You can’t be. I mean, you had that girlfriend and everything. And you’re old.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, not old. But older than I am. So you definitely can’t be a virgin, right? Tell me. You’ve had sex, right?”

“I don’t think we should be talking about this.”

“Come on! Don’t be such a baby. It’s a perfectly normal question.”

Matt rolled onto his back and tucked his hand under his head. She probably wouldn’t even remember this conversation, so what the hell. “Fine. Yes, I’ve had sex.”

“I knew it!” she yelled with a level of satisfaction that he found somehow flattering. “Have you had a lot of sex?”

Matt laughed. “I suppose it depends how you define
a lot
.”

“That means you have! Man, at the rate I’m going, I’m never going to have sex.”

“Are you in a big rush?” The thought of Julie being careless with herself and her body didn’t sit well. Even though she hadn’t slept with Seth, what if she ran off and slept with someone from school just to get it over with? That wouldn’t be right. It shouldn’t be something to just hurry up and cross off a list. He knew the pressure, especially in college, not to be a virgin, but Julie should have better than some meaningless one-night stand with a random guy. Julie deserved respect, and love, and care. Tenderness. She should be with someone who would make her first time amazing. Someone who would make her feel absolutely perfect emotionally and physically. Who would take his time with her body, finding out what she liked .…

Of course, Matt was sort of going off the rails here. Getting protective over Julie wasn’t his place. And she may be drunk right now, but Julie wouldn’t make a wrong decision when she did decide to have sex. Behind the haze of alcohol was an incredibly smart person who would find a guy who loved her with everything he had. A non-geeky guy who hadn’t developed a split personality.

“Why wouldn’t I be? Everyone says sex is great. It is, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know that I qualify as an expert, but, yes, it can be great. If you’re with the right person.” Matt was silent for a moment. There were a few times when he was with Ellen that had felt right—really right—but now he wondered. What he thought had been so good maybe wasn’t what it could be. Or should be. Maybe it had just been that Ellen had been his first, and the two of them had certainly taken every opportunity to rip each other’s clothes off, but… that didn’t necessarily make sex magical. It just meant that they’d been horny teenagers. He had cared about her a lot, but those feelings didn’t compare to what he was feeling these days. Or what he was fighting not to feel.

“So you and Seth never…?” Matt couldn’t help it. He had to confirm this.

“Ha! I knew you'd want to talk about this stuff! No, we never did. I didn’t want to. Seth was cute and nice and perfect and all that, but I didn’t want to. He just wasn’t
the
guy, you know? I want
the
guy. The everything guy. Not the dumb Prince Charming, nauseatingly-perfect-everything guy. That’s pathetic. I want the flaws-and-all, everything guy.”

Matt was indeed not a Prince Charming kind of a guy, but he was pretty sure that “flaws-and-all” did not include pretending to be your dead brother and seducing a girl via e-mails and chats. Still, one never knew…. “You’ll find him. Not when you’re drunk and slurring, but you’ll find him.” Julie deserved this guy who she was drunkenly dreaming about. He sounded a lot better than Matt.

“Hey, they’re counting down to midnight. In stupid New York where all the stupid cool people are. Let’s count together.”

She must have Times Square on her television. Matt wasn’t sure what she had against all of New York, but if this countdown meant that she would get to sleep and start the recovery process, he was all for it. She was going to feel wretched in the morning. “Tell me when.”

“Seven, six…” she said, and Matt started to count with her. “Five, four, three, two, one!”

He heard cheering and music in the background. “Happy New Year, Julie.”

“Happy New Year, Matty.” It was quiet. “Matty, I have another question for you.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Are you a skilled lover?” The seriousness of her tone was beyond words.

“And that concludes our evening chat.”

“I bet I could be a skilled lover. I’m very energetic. And a quick learner.”

      He really couldn’t take this. The last thing he needed was Julie’s oversharing about her sexual potential contributing to fantasies that he was already routinely pushing away. “You definitely need to go to sleep.”

“Oh, fine. I can’t stay on the phone anymore. I have to get to sleep.”

“I think that's a good plan. I’m glad you thought of it.”

“I like talking to you,” Julie mumbled.

He smiled again. That simple phrase meant the world to him, whether she meant it or not. This entire conversation was likely to fall into the wasteland of forgotten drunk memories. Which was probably a good thing. “I like talking to you too. Most of the time. I'll see you when you get back.”

“G’night, Matty.”

He hung up the phone and set it on the floor next to his bed. That was either the best or the worst conversation he’d ever had with a girl. It was an eerie parallel to the general Julie situation: she would either be the best or the worst girl to come into his life. He would find out. He didn’t know when, but he would find out.

Flat-Out Love
, Chapter 23, MPOV

Matt Watkins
took over a year to learn how to walk after he first left the hospital. But he never lost faith in himself, even at that early age.

Finn is God
You mock me for my apathetic nature, but meh.

Julie Seagle
I bet the very first piñata was surprised. “Oh, hey a party! Cool! What’s the occa— HEY, WHAT THE HELL, KID?”

Matt sat up in bed, wide awake and panicked. He touched a hand to his chest. He was sweating. It was still dark out, but he knew he wouldn’t go back to sleep. Something felt wrong. He threw on sweatpants, tucked his phone into the pocket, and tiptoed into the hall. The house was quiet, and Celeste’s door was still shut, but he quietly opened it and checked on his sister. She was still asleep. But something had woken him. He crossed the hall to Julie’s room and checked in there. Matt flipped on the light. The room was empty.

Obviously it was empty. She was in California. And probably still drunk. He hoped she would sleep most of the day so that she wouldn’t have to be awake for a good portion of the nausea and headache that were bound to hit this morning. He sat down on her bed. Being in her room was comforting. And also sad. He flopped back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling.

He lay there unmoving until light started to filter in through the windows. He was waiting. Waiting for what, he didn’t know, but there was most definitely a charge in the air that had him on high alert.

His phone sounded and he pulled it from his pocket. It was a message from Julie to Finn, simply quoting an In Like Lions song that had come up in one of their chats. Yup, she was still drunk. Probably stumbling around in search of water and aspirin before she crashed back asleep.

Matt got up and went downstairs. The kitchen floor was freezing and he regretted not having thrown on socks. A relentless chill swallowed the entire house today. It was wretched out: gray skies, frigid temperatures, and the threat of snow. So much for a spectacular start to the new year. He put the tea kettle on the stove and filled the French press with espresso grounds. The house was too quiet, even when the water boiled and the room filled with the kettle’s sharp whistle.

Matt stared at the steam. Lyrics swirled in his head.

I was broken… I am broken… Ride the wave be gone… Save me, come save me….

Oh, hell. Julie’s e-mail wasn’t drunken nonsense.

He lifted the kettle from the burner and slammed it down before turning off the heat. “Damn it, Julie! Damn it!”

Matt was upstairs and in Celeste’s room in a heartbeat. “Celeste, we have to go. Come on! Get dressed!” 

A mass of curls stuck out from underneath the sheets. “Matty? I would prefer not to go anywhere right now as I am sleeping, and I suspect it is cold and despicable outside. I have a fondness for meteorology, and based on what I heard last night—”

“Get! Up!” Matt pulled down the sheets and tugged at Celeste’s flannel pajama top.

“Where is it that we must go at this early hour? What is of such an urgent nature?”

“It’s Julie. She’s doing something stupid and dangerous, and we have to get her. Let’s go!”