Had To Be You (24 page)

He watched her briefly with a quizzical grin, and then returned his eyes to his own as they continued to play out the hand. When it came back around to him, he pretended to fan himself.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a little flush.”

Rory frowned as he then threw down a suit of spades, spreading them out in a row.

“Well, that’s it.” She dropped her cards. “I’m out.”

“Aw…” He raised his hands in a mock helpless gesture. “Now I feel bad.”

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t want you to go losing any sleep over me.”

“Oh, believe me, if I found myself
over
you?” Matt collected the cards. “The last thing I’d be thinking about doing was sleeping, sweetheart.”

She threw him another look as she stood from her chair, and the flick of those gorgeous, mercurial eyes felt like the spark of a hidden match inside.

“Where are you going?” he asked, suddenly and inexplicably panicked to think she might be walking out on him again.

“Just getting some air.”

Matt peered over at the deck, watching her outside in the dark, the pale silvery moonlight shimmering in her long hair. Even knowing she was right here in town, he managed to stay away for days now. Perhaps he’d reached his limit. He passed the cards over to Kevin.

“You know what?” he said, moving to stand, his eyes still locked on Rory as she descended the steps towards the beach. “I’m out.”

“You really think that’s a good idea?” his brother muttered to him with a nervous, pained sigh.

Matt clasped a hand on his shoulder as he edged past his chair.

“Probably not. But do I ever question
your
lifestyle, Kevin?”

***

Rory paused on the bottom step to take a calming breath, gripping the weathered wood railing tight in her hand as she gazed out across the darkened beach.

The crests of sea foam and tidal pools glistened in the glow of the moon as she started forward, remembering a game she used to play as a girl. Walking to and from school each day, she used to tell herself things like,
“if I can hurdle over this puddle and clear it, today I’ll pass my test”
or
“if I can jump high enough to touch this tree branch, my dad will be home tonight.”
Of course, she realized the futility in making these kinds of wagers, because life does not play fair. Yet still she found herself betting as she stepped off, her feet sinking into the cool, shifting sand, feeling that achy fluttering inside her chest.

If he follows me out onto this beach, he won’t marry someone else.

“Rory?”

She heard the sliders open and close, then him jogging across the soft sand behind her.

“What are you doing?”

She smiled up at him in the moonlight. “The cigar smoke was starting to get to me in there.”

“Yeah, I don’t know whose bright idea that was,” Matt muttered in a low voice.

“So, was it a successful bachelor party?” she asked.

“Well, that remains to be seen. It’s not over yet.” He grinned, playfully bumping against her as they started to walk. “Seriously, I’m glad you showed up tonight.”

“You are?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “I mean, Murph wasn’t able to make it out for this, and even as much as I love those guys and my brothers and all…” He seemed to shift directions, his voice lowering comically. “Hey, at least you’re a lot easier on the eyes than Danny.”

“I may have to beg to differ,” Rory said. “After having seen him in various stages of undress these past couple of weeks? I have to say—”

“Okay, okay! You can end it right there,” he cut her off, wrapping one arm around her neck in a playful wrestling move. “The
last
thing I need is to imagine you lusting after my big brother, believe me.”

She laughed in protest and he released his hold, drifting just the tips of his fingers down her back. They walked in comfortable silence for a while, the ocean shimmering under a diamond sky.

“I guess I didn’t realize that Luke and Casey had a thing,” she said.

“Yeah, that’s fairly recent,” Matt agreed. “Though he actually had a thing for her a while ago, without much success.”

“So did you, if I recall.”

“I what?”

“You had a crush on Casey Conroy.”

“When was this?”

“In high school.”

He laughed. “I did not!”

“Sophomore year?” she reminded him. “It sure seemed like you did.”

“Eh, that was probably just to throw you off.”

“Throw me off what?”

“My tragically unrequited crush on you.”

Finally, they slowed to a stop at the edge of the tide. Rory glanced over at him uncertainly. She was barely able to see his face, but knew it by heart.

“Was it so unrequited though?”

“In the beginning, for a while there,” he said. “At least I like to think so. Perhaps you just learned to mask your disgust, I don’t know.”

“Yeah, that was probably it,” she agreed.

His voice softened in the dark. “I haven’t forgotten, by the way.”

The air stilled in her chest, her heart waiting.

“The other day? When we were talking on the deck? It seemed like something was bothering you?” he continued. “Something you thought you messed up?”

She released the breath she was holding in, letting go of some other things as well.

“I remember.”

“Well, I want you to know, Rory—whatever it is or was, you can still talk to me. That’s never going to change.”

She glanced down briefly. “Even if it was about you and me?”

He gave her a quick, quizzical grin.

“Why? Are we messed up?”

“Our friendship isn’t,” she said carefully, more hesitant to meet his eyes this time. “At least I like to hope it isn’t, since it’s pretty amazing that we even managed to remain friends. You know, after everything.”

“Yeah, things got a little shaky from time to time.” He nodded with a fainter smile. “But we made it through. Back to where we started, right?”

The effort of managing a smile in return made her eyes water. A brief silence settled over them.

“The thing is, Matt, I feel I was to blame for much of it,” she said, starting slowly. “I was young, scared, stupid…the list goes on. I still think about my dad, how he must have woken up one morning and just—well, you know, decided he didn’t want us anymore
.
Knowing how quickly things can change, where love just up and leaves, I think it affected me more than I wanted to admit when it came to my own relationships. Looking back, it was really hard for me to believe in anyone after that. Even you. And when we got close, the fear only grew worse. But I never meant to hurt you, Matt.
Ever
. And I’m so sorry if I did.”

It seemed so late in the game to start offering these excuses, but Rory was running out of time.

“It’s okay. I know that, Rory,” he said in his quiet, everything kind of way. “And I can’t fault you for how you felt—no one should do that. I really only ever wanted you to be happy.” He turned to meet her eyes in the moonlight. “I never said it had to be with me.”

Something clutched desperately at her heart before it dropped to the pit of her stomach. Matt only kicked at the sand once before he turned to head back towards the beach house.

This might be the last chance she ever got.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she moved to call after him, needing to strain her voice to be heard above the breaking surf and the desperate keen of her breaking heart.

“But it is you.”

She did it. She said it.

He stopped short, shoulders hunched slightly before he slowly turned to face her again.

“What?”

Rory tried to steady the nervous tremors, ignoring the tight constriction of terror in her chest. “Being with you is what makes me happy. You’re still that same person to me, Matt—the one I want to come home to.”

His expression remained unreadable in the dark.

“That day we talked? I was talking about
you
, Matt. You and me, the way we used to be, and not just the friendship. And the night we were talking at your bar, after closing?” She reached up to brush the hair from her eyes, the wind picking up a little off the water. “Do you remember what I said about being afraid of the things I really want?”

“Yeah,” he replied in a low, careful voice.

“I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say, because I was talking about you then, too.”

Tentatively, she moved towards him. Her feet dragged heavy in the sand, ten steps feeling like ten miles, until she was finally gazing up into his eyes.

“I was always afraid, Matt…to want you too much, to love you too much, to trust you too much. So I tried to convince myself I wanted other things; that I needed to be other places, with other, safer people. Maybe I was afraid you could just walk away from me someday, like my dad, so instead I made sure to walk away first. I don’t really know why, to tell you the truth—and believe me, I’m not trying to turn this into some psychobabble excuse. All I know is that I really,
really
messed up and I really,
really
regret it.” Her voice trembled precariously, but she held it together. “ I need you to know that nothing has changed for me, in all these years. I still feel the same about you.”

He only stared down at her, as if he couldn’t begin to understand or comprehend the words.

“It’s you,” she said softly. “It’s always been you that I loved, Matt…and I’m still in love with you.”

Her eyes waited on him for an answer. There was only the slightest flicker in his expression, a hint of something sparked inside his stunned silence.

“Please say something,” she pleaded gently, the moment excruciatingly long.

Slowly, his hand came up to touch her cheek in a tender caress, his eyes drifting over her face as he released a soft, quiet breath. Under a canopy of starlight, moonlit waves crashed softly against the shore, the only other sounds the beating of her heart and the unspoken whisper wish of hope. In that moment, it felt as if they could be the only two people on earth.

But they weren’t.

A sudden sweep of headlights flashed across the sand, the harsh, thumping beat of stereo speakers and the crunch of broken seashells and pebbles interrupting the moment as an unfamiliar car pulled into the driveway of the house. They both glanced over, squinting against the unrelenting glare of high beams. Then someone was calling out over the darkened beach.

“Matt? Is that you?”

“Ah, yeah,” he responded, still distracted and confused. “It’s me.”

A lone figure was making his way over, the squeak and sifting sound of sneakers on sand. He stopped in front of them, his eyes darting back and forth from Matt to Rory.

“I just pulled into town tonight. Amanda told me they were having your bachelor party, so I tracked you guys down.”

“This is my, ah—um, Rory.” Matt motioned towards her, and paused on an audible gulp of air. “This is Peter, Amanda’s brother.”

Instantly sick, her whole body started to tremble, hit with the full realization of what she’d just admitted to him one week before his wedding to someone else.

The brother only regarded her with a sour, suspicious frown.

Matt cleared his throat again to explain. “Rory was just—”

“Leaving,” she cut in with a weak smile, sparing him. “I’m staying at a house a little farther down on the beach. I was just out for a late walk.” She glanced at Matt. “And now I should really let you get back to your party.”

His dark gaze met hers for only the briefest second, and Rory couldn’t even begin to comprehend what she saw in those ocean blue depths.

“Nice to meet you,” she mumbled to Peter, and immediately turned to walk away. The distant light from Danny and Kevin’s house was just a blur through her well of tears.

If he doesn’t let me go, he still loves me, too.

When she finally let herself glance back, the beach was dark.

And Matt was gone.

SIXTEEN

From her room, draped diagonally across her bed quilt, Rory heard the soft slam of the screen door. Lowering her book, she rolled onto her stomach; then quickly scrambled to stand as she recognized his footsteps in the hall.

“Hey,” he greeted her, strolling into her room to drop right into the spot she just vacated on the bed. “What’s up?”

She carefully placed her book down on her dresser and tucked her long hair back behind her ear. “Um, not much. Just working my way through our summer reading list. Have you started yours?”

“My what?”

She arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Summer reading?”

“Is that like one of those oxymorons?”

Her smile lifted on a quick roll of her eyes. “Too easy.”

Matt only grinned, chuckling a little to himself.

She snuck in a longer look at him in the mirror reflection. He was a beautiful shade of light brown from their days spent at the lifeguard station at the beach; his dark hair recently cropped short to reveal a tan line at the back of his neck that she found inexplicably irresistible. She liked the way the lean muscle definition in his arms and chest was so evident underneath the nice fit of his faded t-shirt. Even his feet were suddenly handsome, tanned equally as brown and smooth in his athletic slides.

Rory’s heart was softly pounding and it made her oddly short of breath. While there couldn’t be a more familiar scene than a lazy afternoon with him hanging out in her room, this felt so strange. Matt O’Shea suddenly made her nervous.

“Where’s your mom?” he asked around a mouthful of cookie, obviously having snatched one off the cooling rack on his way past the kitchen.

“She should be home any minute. And those are for the fireworks fundraiser bake sale, so you better not let her catch you.”

He appeared mildly troubled as he swallowed the last bite. “No muffins this year?”

“Sorry.” Rory shook her head. “She’s trying something new.” Taking a deep breath, she turned to face him.