Unspoken Memories (Unspoken Series) (21 page)

This earns me a full laugh from Kelly, making her eyes
water, while David sits there trying not to be judgmental.

“Okay, but if he breaks your heart, not even David will be
able to stop me from kicking his ass,” she says, pointing her finger at me.

Now I’m the one laughing along with David. “From what
happened to the last guy I won’t need your help. I’m pretty sure I could handle
Matt myself. You’re welcome to finish him off a second time though,” I say
smiling.

Kelly throws her hand up for a high five, which I give her.
David just shakes his head at both of us saying, “Remind me to never do
anything to Kelly that will have both of you coming after me.”

I look over at him. “Damn straight,” I deadpan, making us
laugh again.

She eventually gives me a ride back to the house and I only
see Trey’s Jeep in the driveway, leaving me relieved as I walk into the house.
When I walk in Trey is sitting on the couch eating a bowl of cereal, while
watching TV, so I go over and sit on the other end of the couch. “The table
isn’t good enough for you to eat on?” I ask with a smirk.

He raises an eyebrow at me and says, “I figured since you
weren’t here to force me to eat at it, I choose not to.” After eating another
bite, he adds, “Anyways, who knows if he’s cleaned the table?”

Even if he’s trying to lighten the situation, it isn’t
helping. “So he told you?” I sadly ask.

Finishing his cereal, he places the bowl on the coffee
table. “Yeah, I came home from having my own fun to find Matt all fucked up
with a weird look on his face. He eventually told me.”

“Why would he be upset about me walking in on him?”

Trey shrugs his shoulders. “Fuck if I know what’s going on
between you two.”

My body tenses up, wondering if he suspects anything. I
mean, it’s not like Matt and I advertise our little escapades. As far as I
know, Kelly and David are the only ones who know something even happened
between us at all.

“Where is he by the way?”

“Where the hell would he be? Running off his steam. I don’t
know how he can do it with the hangover he had, but shit if I care,” he says,
looking back at the TV.

Wanting to be alone right now, I get up and head to my room.
I decide to take a shower and try to wash away the awful feeling I have. When
I’m getting out of the shower I hear voices coming from the living room and
realize it’s Trey talking to Matt.

My body immediately tenses up thinking he’s going to come
straight to my room, but I hear the hallway bathroom door shut, and the shower
start up. Feeling relieved, I quickly get dressed. A couple of minutes later
I’m lying on my bed changing the ringtones on my phone, and I hear the knock on
the door that I’ve been dreading.

“Abigail, can I come in?” I hear Matt ask through the door.

“Sure,” I answer automatically.

Matt walks in and he
does
look like shit. He comes
into the room and shuts the door behind him, walks over to the edge of the bed,
and sits down. I know he’s trying to keep his distance from me, because usually
he would have come and sat next to me on the bed. But this time he’s purposely
putting distance between us.

He must have come straight to my room after the shower,
because he only has on a pair of running shorts, his chest is bare. Normally I
would have already been fighting my body not to react at seeing him like this,
but after yesterday, I think my body won’t have that problem anymore. I’d only
have to remind myself of the image of seeing him with another girl, one that
will forever be engraved into my memory.

As he’s sitting there, my eyes automatically start roaming
up and down his body. I’ve made my way up to his upper body and that’s when I
notice he has what looks like a bruise on his left shoulder. I narrow my eyes
to try to get a better look at it. “What the hell is that thing?” I demand,
scrunching my nose. Then it dawns on me, that it’s a huge hickey on his
shoulder.

Astonished at it, I cross my arms on my chest. “What the
fuck Matt, does she like to play rough while you’re fucking her?” I say,
pointing my chin at his chest.

Matt looks down at what I’m looking at, then he looks back
at me with a smile, and his brown eyes are boring right back into mine.

“Actually Abigail, that was a lovely souvenir from you,” he
says, cocking his head to the side, looking at me through his half-closed
lashes.

Growing confused by his answer, I quickly scan my memory of
what happened yesterday. Then I remember that my lips were on his shoulder, but
I didn’t know I was so out of control as to the point of giving him a hickey.

“What is it you want?” I ask, practically scowling at him.

He morosely says, “I wanted to talk to you about last night.”

“Look Matt, there’s nothing to talk about, it’s your house,
you have a right to fuck whoever you want, when you want,” I say to him.

He just winces, as if he wasn’t expecting me to say that.

“She came over looking for Trey and since he wasn’t here she
practically threw herself at me, and it just… happened,” he says, his voice
full of regret.

My eyes go wide because the last line I wanted to hear is
that one. I would have preferred any other excuse but that one, and it angers
me.

Sitting straight up on the bed, my eyes going wide before I
attack him with, “Don’t you fucking say that it just happened. Nothing just
fucking happens. So don’t give me that fucking line. It’s the same line he gave
me and it’s the same shit I walked into. So unless you want to start comparing
notes with him… Don’t! Fucking! Apologize!” I yell at him.

This time it’s his turn to throw his eyes wide open and he’s
opening and closing his mouth in disbelief as if he wants to say something
else. Instead, he gets up off the bed and walks out of the room leaving me
staring at the door that he just slammed. I sit there, forcing myself not to
cry. I don’t want to let him win this time.

Knowing that I don’t want to risk facing Matt today, I keep
myself in my room for the rest of the day, sleeping my depression off. I only
leave the room once to make myself a sandwich and take it back to my room to
eat.

I purposely avoid looking at the table, because the last
thing I need right now is a flashback of last night. Knowing how hard I fought
for us to actually eat on that table and then for him to use it to fuck someone
on it only hurt more. Like Kelly pointed out, hours after he left me sexually
frustrated. It makes me want to go in there and rip that damn table to pieces.
I really need to get myself under control or I might just go crazy.

IT’S THE NEXT day and I’m lying down
on the couch and turn on the TV. Of course it’s on the damn sports channel as
usual, I really doubt at this point that they watch anything else. The guys are
at practice, leaving the house quiet and I hate it. It only makes me think of
things. Things I don’t want to think about.

I leave it on the channel since it reminds me of them and
start watching a re-run basketball game that is playing. It must have started
to bore me because I close my eyes and drift off into a dream.

I’m at a basketball game. It’s for a school, high school
to be specific. Teenage boys are scrambling around on the court and I’m
concentrating closely on number 11. He currently has the basketball and is
dribbling it. He can’t seem to find a player on his team to pass it to and it’s
frustrating him because he only has 12 seconds to do something.

As I look at the scoreboard, the home team, which is the
team he plays on, is down by two points. The time is running out on the clock
for the fourth quarter. The guy blocking him is shoving him, with his arms out
to the sides, obviously keeping him from seeing where he wants to pass it.

The teenager takes this chance, faking that he’s going to
move to the left, then moves to the right as the player behind him goes to the
left. Allowing him the opportunity to move forward. He dribbles the ball across
the court just outside the three-point line and stops. As the clock dies down
to two seconds left he shoots. I hold my breath, I’m so nervous. My heart feels
like it has stopped, as I watch the ball fly through the air, praying that he
makes the shot. The ball is in mid-air when the buzzer goes off, then I watch
it sink right into the circled rim, through the net, making the winning basket.

The crowd goes crazy and his team all run to congratulate
him. As I’m cheering with the crowd, he turns around to face me, he points to
me, and I point right back at him with tears running down my eyes from the
happiness. As he turns around to continue to celebrate the win with his teammates
I see the back of his jersey that says, Garcia.

I wake up, shocked as I’m gasping for air. I have tears
running down my cheeks from what I’ve just seen. As much as I love seeing
Matt’s past, I’m really starting to hate these memories a little. They allow me
to see a side of Matt that I want to ignore when I’m upset at him. It’s as if
they appear to help me understand him better, even though I want to be mad.

Remembering what I’ve promised Matt’s sister, I realize that
no matter what happens in my life I have to keep my promise to her. Even if it
means never having a relationship with him because I could risk jeopardizing
that promise, as much as it pains me, I know I can’t break it. He means too
much to me.

A COUPLE OF days go by with Matt and
I dancing around each other, and it’s killing me. Although we don’t ignore each
other completely, we only make enough small talk to not make it seem awkward
around other people.

As I’m getting ready to go out shopping with Kelly this
afternoon I need to call Julio to notify him of my plans. I can’t find my
phone, which is strange for me since I take that thing with me everywhere. The
last time I had it I was in the living room. So I head in that direction on a
mission to find it. As I walk into the living room I notice Matt and Trey are
watching the sports channel as usual.

As I bend over and start digging my hands into the recliner,
thinking it must have fallen into the cracks of the cushion, I ask, “Have you
guys seen my phone? I can’t find it.”

They don’t answer, so I turn my tilted head and see them
both staring intensely at my ass. I feel something at the bottom of the cushion
and get excited. Only to wrap my hand around the remote for the sound systems
we’ve been searching for. So I dig it out, turn around, and chuck it at Matt
with all my might since he’s the one I’m angriest at right now. He instantly
reacts by ducking his head, causing the remote to whiz by him knocking into
Trey’s head instead.

Matt throws his head back laughing while Trey rubs the spot
on his head where the remote connected.

Pleased with myself that I was at least able to catch one of
them, I say, “That will teach you to stare. Will one of you call my phone? I
need to call Julio, or else I’m recruiting half the football team to take me
shopping. As you guys requested.”

Matt only groans. He digs out his phone from his pocket, and
after tapping on the screen a couple of times, I begin to hear my phone start
to sing. It’s vibrating and
I knew You Were Trouble
is blasting for all
of us to hear.

I hear the music come from close to Matt’s feet and he looks
down at the ground. My phone is on the floor under the couch at his feet. He
picks it up and the words resister to him and his mouth goes into a deep frown.

“You changed my ringtone?” he says with his eyebrows drawn.

Trey says, chuckling, “That one is better, it suits you
dude.”

I grab the phone from his hand, practically yanking it from
him, ignoring his scowl. I walk away shooting Julio a text with my plans,
asking him to meet me at my house as soon as he can.

As I’m walking into my room, I’m about to shut the door,
when I feel a hard body behind me pushing me further into the room. I turn
around and see Matt shutting the door behind us.

“Look, I’m not going to apologize about what happened because
you told me not to, but I can’t keep living like this anymore,” he says.

My breath catches, as my body freezes up, my body
automatically growing panicked.

“Do you want me to move out?” I ask in a whisper.

His face turns to disgusted shock. “No. That’s not what I
meant. What I’m trying to say is that we need to talk about this, Abigail.
Ignoring it is only making the situation worse. “

I notice he’s called me Abigail again. He’s been calling me
that since the night I walked in on him. He hasn’t once tried calling me
beautiful like he usually does.

Knowing this is going to go nowhere, I respond, “I already
told you there’s nothing to talk about. You’d already told me about your life,
I should have expected to walk in on you having sex with someone eventually. I
just didn’t expect it to bring up things I didn’t want to remember.”

His shoulders drop, sagging even more than they were before
and he has a disappointed look on his face.

“I know you don’t want to hear it, but my only excuse for
doing it was that I was frustrated from what didn’t happen that morning. She
threw herself at me and I took advantage. I wasn’t thinking about the
consequences, all I could think about was how pissed I was that I didn’t get to
finish what I had started that morning with you,” he declares.

I stand there silently because I can’t say anything. I don’t
want his excuses. He shouldn’t have had a reason to be giving them to me. “Matt,
you think you were the only one left frustrated? It’s not like I asked for you
to stop, you jumped off that bed as fast as you possibly could,” I point out.

He sighs, walks over to me and takes me in his arms and I
instantly wrap my arms around his waist, embracing him back. “I had to leave or
the coach was going to chew my ass out. If not, I would have stayed in that
room all day with you.”

“I’m sorry Abigail. As much as I want something to happen
between us, I’m scared I’m going to fuck things up. I like how things are going
right now and I’m scared to even try to push it further.”

His declaration only leaves me disappointed. It proves that
he’s never going to change. He will never want to try for anything more.

We hear a knock at my door, interrupting us. We both turn
and see Trey walking in the door. We haven’t even bothered to pull away from each
other. When he sees us he raises his eyebrows curiously and has Matt’s phone
held against his chest.

“Dude, there’s some guy on the phone asking for Abigail’s
assistant,” he says in a questioning tone.

I’m confused why someone would be declaring Matt my
assistant, but he pulls away from me, taking the phone from Trey. “This is Matt
Garcia, Abigail Adams’ assistant.”

Trey and I stand there watching Matt bob his head up and
down, with a couple of “Hmm, mmm” every now and then while he listens to the
other person on the phone.

“How about in half an hour? Yeah, that’s the address, okay
see you then,” he says into the phone and after nodding his head one more time
he hangs up.

Trey and I are both looking at him waiting for him to say
something, but instead he walks past Trey and into his room, leaving us to
follow him. He’s rummaging through his clothes and when he finally finds jeans
and a shirt he likes he starts changing into them.

Still confused, Trey and I just stand there staring at him,
and then I finally speak up.

“Matthew Garcia, if you don’t tell me what that phone call
was about, I’m going to come over there and drop kick you to the ground, and if
I can’t do it myself, I’ll recruit Trey to help me,” I say, tilting my head in
Trey’s direction.

As he’s pulling his shirt over his head, he starts laughing.
“That was a rep for the Marathon in San Francisco; they want to talk to you
about running it.”

“What do you mean they want to talk to me about running it?
Why me?” I ask, just as confused.

As he’s removing the track pants he’s wearing he answers, “He
only said he wanted talk to you about it. He didn’t give me any other details.
Only that we’d discuss it when he got here.”

Why the hell would some guy want to talk to me about a race?
Did I do something wrong?

Half an hour later, the doorbell is ringing. Matt goes to
answer the door and when he returns he’s being followed by an older gentleman
in his forties, and Julio, closely behind. Crap, with the confusion of the
situation I had forgotten to text Julio to cancel.

This reminds me to text Kelly about the change of plans
promising a rain check. Julio, being in bodyguard mode, stays near the entrance
of the house with his hands crossed at his stomach waiting, while he eyes the
other guy.

Matt leads the older gentleman to the living room towards
us. As he approaches Trey and I. Julio starts to move closer to us. He stops to
stand near us by the fireplace as if he’s ready to attack the guy in case he
gets out of line, still looking firmly at him.

The other guy notices Julio’s reaction and grows nervous. “I’m
sorry, I forget you’re someone famous,” he says, chuckling in Julio’s
direction.

“I like him like that,” I say, smiling at Julio, which earns
me a smile back.

He holds out his hand for me to shake. “My name is Paul
Henderson.”

Once I’m done shaking his hand, I go to take a seat on the
larger couch, inviting Paul to take a seat on the smaller couch. Matt comes
over and sits next to me with Trey taking the recliner.

Paul starts up again, “I’m part of the promotional group for
the annual Women’s Marathon in San Francisco. It’s a race that is held by
invitation only, and we choose our participants by what we call a raffle
drawing.” He looks between Matt and I, then continues, “We first noticed you
when you ran your first half-marathon back in July, then again when you ran the
Portland Marathon recently. Your times were amazing.”

I don’t know about amazing. I practically dragged my ass to
cross that finish line both times. The only reason I ran the darn things was
sitting in the room. Another reason to remember why I should be pissed at him.

I shrug my shoulders saying, “I really didn’t want to have
to cook again; the first time was a disaster.”

Being that he doesn’t know about the bet, he simply looks at
me confused. But this earns me a full laugh from both Matt and Trey, making me
smile.

He looks back at me, his face turning serious again. “Anyway,
we would like to invite you to run it this year.”

Another darn race to run, but why? Knowing that everything
in
my
life comes with a price, I give him a skeptical look. “What do you
want from me in return?”

This throws him off guard and he states, “Actually nothing,
we only want you to run it.” But by the way he’s beginning to fidget, I know
he’s not telling the whole truth.

“Are you sure?” I ask again.

“Of course. Like I said, it’s by invitation only and we’d be
honored if you’d run it this year.” He gives me a forced smile.

I know he’s keeping something from me, so I decide to test
him. “In that case I appreciate the offer, but I’m going to have to pass. I
told myself I wasn’t running any more races and I don’t plan on doing so. Thank
you for coming out today Paul,” I say, standing up.

“Wait,” he says, standing up just as quickly.

“The word is out how fast you are running. You missed a Q
time for Boston by only eighteen minutes in Portland. If you manage to qualify
for Boston at our race it would be great publicity for us,” he says, looking
desperate.

Matt is just as curious. “Your race is one of the most
popular ones in the country, why do you want Abigail? I really doubt you need
her for publicity reasons,” he states.

I sit back down on the couch, now interested in what he has
to say.

Paul sits back down as well and answers Matt’s question. “Think
about it. She’s only run two big races, and in both races she starts off slow
because of the crowds. But as she clocks in at the second and third time marker
before the finish line, she advances her speed by minutes. This only proves
that if we can put her in a higher start corral, avoiding most of the crowd
she’ll definitely qualify. We’d be able to claim that she used our race to
achieve her goal of Boston.”

I don’t like the sound of this and look at Matt with
apprehension my face.

“That’s it; you only want her to run the race, nothing more?”
Trey speaks up and asks him.

Paul’s lips go flat. “We’d also like her to do a little
promotional appearance at the expo,” he says.

“No,” Both Matt and I say at the same time.

Paul frowns. “I’ll do it only on the condition that everyone
thinks I’m running it like a normal runner who has signed up to run. I have no
intention of gaining publicity for myself,” I sternly state.

He shakes his head. “That’s impossible, the race is next
month and like I said, the raffle spots have all been taken. The only entrants
allowed now are for charity and there’s not much of those left.”

“Fine, I’ll do it that way. I don’t want anyone thinking I
got a free ticket into this thing, and I definitely don’t want any money in
return.”

“Are you sure you can’t do the expo?” he says, hopeful that
I’ll change my mind.

I shake my head again. “I have my reasons for not doing any
work right now. I just want to run; it’s something I found that I really love
doing and if I have a chance to quality this time for Boston then I want in.”

He instantly cheers up. “Okay, but let us at least put you
up in one of the promotional rooms that will be reserved at the hotel holding
the expo.”

I look at Matt and he shrugs his shoulders. “Okay, but it
has to be big enough to hold at least six people. I don’t go anywhere without
Matt or Julio, my bodyguard,” I say, pointing my chin at Julio. “And they both
need full access to me inside the race, anywhere I go, they go, if not the deal
is off.” I almost hope my demands will make him change his mind.

Matt takes this moment to put his request in as well. “We
also need a private plane to get us there. She doesn’t like having to travel
commercial.”

I turn to him with a questioning look. He’s making me sound
like some rigid stuck up model that doesn’t like people. I thought we’re
supposed to be salvaging my reputation, not taking advantage of it.