The Making of Matt (27 page)

I’m gonna make a fucking awesome uncle.

The atmosphere was light, hopeful, filled with a positive energy that you could literally feel as we all took it in turns to congratulate them. If love was something you could see, you’d see it whenever you looked at Elle and Kip. It glistened in their eyes, seeped from their pores, and for the first time in my life, I actually understood what I was seeing.

Looking at my friends around the room, our lives, our journeys, our stories, couldn’t be anymore different from our days in the band. We’d changed, developed, grown up. The only thing that would never alter is that these guys were my family.

“I propose a toast,” I began.

“We don’t have any glasses,” Ryder interrupted.

“Pretend. You’re ruining my moment.” I raised my invisible glass in the air. “I propose a toast, to Kip and Elle. To
all
of us. I love you guys.”

“To family!” Sawyer cheered.
Always stealing my fucking thunder, jackass.

Falling into a circle, we linked arms, raising each other’s hands.

“To family!”

~Matt~

Six months later…

“
You
look utterly fuckable.” Adjusting Alex’s silver tie, I devoured his body, wrapped in a crisp suit, with my eyes. “I can’t wait to be taking this off you later.”

Biting his lip, he swept the hair off my cheek, tucking it behind my ear. I’d gotten used to keeping it off my face with a hair-tie, but I recently cut it in preparation for our performance at the GMA’s last month.

We were approached to do it just weeks before the event and despite Sawyer’s initial reservations, the rest of us convinced him to go ahead. It was only one night, and then he could go back to the
normal
life he craved for so long. I felt crushed when the band split.
Lost.
It’d been part of my life for so long I didn’t know what to do with myself when it was taken from me. I always saw those as the best days of my life, but that was before I knew better. Performing at the awards, the sweat bleeding from my pores as I pounded the drums, people chanting my name and screaming for more…it just wasn’t the same anymore. I appreciated the memory, but it didn’t give me that buzz I used to crave so much.

These days, I only felt that buzz when Alex walked into a room.

“We need to get going,” Alex said, snapping me back into the present.

Today was Sawyer and Jake’s wedding, but first, we needed to pick up Mindy.

I’ll never forget the rage that pulsed in my veins the night she sought me out at the club. She was fierce and confident as she threatened to ruin my life with lies. I didn’t learn until later that she’d rehearsed that act for a whole week in front of the mirror, and underneath the audacity cowered a lost and broken young girl, tossed to the side by a jackhole just like me. The
old
me.

Initially, nobody understood my need to help this girl. But I
had
to, and I had a feeling deep in my gut that my mom would want me to, as well. All my friends saw was a blackmailing whore trying to screw me over. Until they met her…

She did what she had to out of desperation, fear, and the instinct to protect her baby. The baby’s father abandoned her, her parents kicked her out onto the streets and she was a college dropout with no qualifications or experience. She’d heard about this club filled with men that had more money than sense who were always looking for an easy fuck. Again, men just like
me
. She spied an opportunity to make enough money to get out of the cesspit she lived in and took it. Was she wrong? Possibly. Misguided? Definitely. Evil? Absolutely not.

After meeting her again, her situation haunted me. I might not have been responsible for Mindy’s problems, but wondering how many girls I could’ve quite easily forced into her situation over the years plagued me. I couldn’t help
them
, given the fact I never really knew or cared who they were, but I
could
help her.

My only regret about the whole thing was keeping it from Alex. I could’ve ruined us because I didn’t have the courage to be honest. I didn’t trust him to understand. I underestimated him. My expectations of how he would react were, in fact, based on how
I
would’ve handled it. When Alex’s ex turned up at the club I wanted to floor the bastard for no other reason than I was a jealous asshole. But Alex was a better man than me. He proved it day after day simply by loving me.

When I first introduced Alex to Mindy the blood drained from her face. She sank down onto the box she used as a couch, put her head in her hands and broke into a thousand pieces. She thought I was taking a stand, cutting her off and going back on the deal she’d coerced me into. When Alex dropped to his knees and put his arms around her she didn’t understand. Guilt strangled her words as she tried to speak. She couldn’t grasp why we offered to continue helping her, constantly asking what we expected in return. When she asked if we wanted to use her in some kind of threesome, it tore a chunk from my heart. A piece of me she still owned to this day.

We pulled up at the building housing the apartment I bought for her. I wasn’t prepared to give her a free ride. Instead, I employed her at the club. She paid me rent, albeit at a seriously deflated rate, and she provided for herself and her unborn baby with her paycheck. Afraid of judgment, the fear in her eyes was palpable during her first shift, until she actually met my friends and learned for herself that they were the most genuine, kind-hearted people on the planet.

She dreaded Sawyer the most. Like the rest of the world, she only knew him by what she’d read in the newspapers – that he was an arrogant ass who never smiled. True, of course, but only if you knew him did you see that Sawyer Knight was so much
more
, as Mindy discovered the first time she met him. He greeted her with a hug, saying simply, “Welcome to the family.”

Mindy was waiting for us on the small wall outside her apartment building. She walked, or waddled, to the car, slipped into the back seat and huffed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, eyeing her up in the rearview mirror. “Is the baby okay?”

“The baby’s fine. I just feel like a whale and I’m going to a party filled with hot famous people.”

“You look beautiful,” I said, admiring the pink dress that flowed over her swollen belly. “Besides, I’ll be the hottest person there and you’re comfortable with me.”

“Your modesty is so refreshing,” Alex said, shaking his head before shifting his ass to face Mindy. “You’re not alone either. Elle’s pregnant too so you can swap back pain and fat ankle stories with her.”

“Oh my God you think I’ve got cankles?” she cried, struggling to stare at her feet over her bump.

“Nice work, jackass,” I muttered, trying not to laugh.

The wedding was taking place at Sawyer and Jake’s condo. Driving slowly along the winding path that led from their gates to the house, I saw a white marquee pitched on the vast, manicured lawn, festooned with silver and gold ribbon. The theme spilled into the house when we walked inside, with more ribbon, balloons and candles.

“It’s like the fairy gaymother threw up all over your house,” I said to Sawyer when I found him out by the pool. He was dressed in a white suit, such a pristine and brilliant white, I almost put on my shades in case he damaged my eyes.

He threw an arm over my shoulder and brought me into a hug. “I have one word,” he said. “Ryder.”

Laughing, I nodded, understanding completely. Ryder was an all or nothing kinda guy. Give him a mission and a credit card and don’t expect him to return until it’s maxed out. I got my sweet revenge for the time he butchered my balls. I walked around for two weeks carrying a tube of hair removal cream in my pocket, waiting patiently for the perfect opportunity. He made a huge mistake taking a nap on the office couch at the club. Pure satisfaction pulsed in my veins as I squirted the cream on his head, creating a spiral pattern so he couldn’t disguise the damage with a clever hairstyle. When he woke and ran his fingers through his hair, bringing clumps of it away in his hands, he wasn’t just pissed, he was distraught. I tried to feel bad, seeing the despair on his face, but I couldn’t muster that particular emotion. It was difficult to feel bad when I couldn’t stop laughing. It’d only
just
grown back out into a style he felt happy with.

“Nervous?” I asked.

Sawyer sighed, a dreamy expression raining over his face. “Not even a little. It feels like I’ve waited my whole life to call him my husband.”

I put two fingers in my mouth, feigning a retch. “I know you’re gay and all, dude, but don’t forget you’ve still got a dick.”

Sawyer followed me into the house and chatted to Alex and Mindy for a while. I stopped in the kitchen, by a five tier cake that had two grooms, which looked eerily
just
like Saw and Jake perched on top, and pulled out my cell, bringing up the pup-cam to check on Bruce. He snored away happily, his paws twitching, in his crate. He couldn’t be trusted to roam free in our absence yet. Just last week he chewed a pair of two thousand dollar shoes beyond recognition.

“I’ll pick him up after the service,” Alex said over my shoulder.

After the party tonight, Sawyer and Jake were leaving for the airport en route to their honeymoon in Italy. Presuming I’d be too wasted to get home, Alex and I were staying here, along with Bruce.

Jake stayed at his parents’ hotel last night and, after checking his watch for the bazillionth time, Sawyer got a call from Mrs. Jake’s Mom to say they were on their way.
I really need to remember her name before I have to talk to her.

Gold chairs trimmed a white satin runway, leading to a wooden arch decorated with flowers and even
more
ribbon.

“You got some kinda ribbon fetish?” I asked Ryder, taking up the seat next to him.

“It’s called
style
,” he retorted. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

The first two rows consisted of my whole family. Next to Alex and an overwhelmed Mindy, sat Ryder, Mason, Kip, Elle, Elle’s sister, and then Darren and Gavin and their wives. Looking further back I spotted our old manager Claire sitting with Ivan -Back Door Studio’s director – and the rest of the gang who worked for Sawyer and Jake. The only person missing, apart from Ashley who I hadn’t heard from again, and wasn’t sure I particularly wanted to, was my mom. I smiled through the pang of sadness. She would’ve loved this day.

I miss you, Mom.

“He’s here,” Sawyer’s bodyguard and long-time friend, Neil, announced taking his best man position next to Sawyer. I still hadn’t forgiven the fucker for not choosing me.

Some old lady with more wrinkles than my ball sac started playing what I considered to be a dismal tune on the piano to the right of the arch, signaling Jake’s arrival. I turned, along with everyone else, and saw Jake’s mom scurrying to her seat at the front. I’d never been to a gay wedding before so wasn’t sure if the same ‘rules’ applied. My question was answered when Jake emerged from the house, looking pretty much the same as always bar the fact he’d swapped out his usual black necktie for a silver bow, linking his father’s arm. His younger sister trailed behind, carrying a bouquet of white roses.

I knew you weren’t supposed to do it, but if I’d been forced to choose the ‘woman’ in their relationship, I would’ve picked Sawyer. Jake was naturally the more masculine, more commanding, of the pair and so, probably judgmentally, I expected him to be the one up front, waiting for Sawyer to make his entrance. Though, I guess that option was quashed by the fact Sawyer’s mother was a nasty piece of shit and his stepfather was rotting away in jail.

I admired Sawyer’s face when he laid eyes on his soon-to-be husband. His lips melted into the proudest smile. He looked like he couldn’t see a single other person than the man walking toward him.

“
Fuck
,” I muttered under my breath when I felt the sting of a tear balancing precariously on the rim of my eye.
I seriously need to stop going to weddings. They’re bad for my reputation.

I was mesmerized by the happy couple as they exchanged vows, platinum rings, and glances that penetrated my soul. Although emotion pricked at my heart during Elle and Kip’s wedding, I didn’t truly understand the look in their eyes when they exchanged their first kiss as a married couple.

I did now.

It was a look of
love
. Hope. Contentment. All the things I felt when I reached for Alex’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

At the end of the ceremony, Jake took Sawyer’s face in his hands and merged their lips, and their lives, together. A furor of clapping and whistles ensued as people rose to their feet, staring at the sky to watch the balloons Neil just released disperse into the air.

I turned to Alex, grabbing his waist and yanking him toward me. I kissed his mouth the second our chests collided and blinked the tear from my eye. “I love you, Alex,” I whispered into his ear, holding him close to my body. “So fucking much.”

“And
I
love you,” he murmured, my favorite smile illuminating his face. “Buddy.”

The motherfucking End