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I swiped the flowers off the counter, followed Matthew upstairs, and knocked on his door.
“You decent?” I called.
“Yeah, come in.”
I walked in and found him stretching on the floor, face still red from exercise and dripping with sweat. His tuxedo was hanging from his closet door, pressed and ready. Shit, I’d forgotten. He had some big event he was attending with Nina tonight. He’d been talking about it since last week, but I’d been too self-absorbed to remember. Bad, bad sister. I wouldn’t blame him if he kicked me out after all.
Matthew took one look at the lilies in my hands and grinned. “Aw, that’s sweet, Fran, but I’m more of a red rose kind of guy, you know.”
“Oh, shut up,” I retorted. “I’m having a personal issue and I need your advice.”
Well, it was out now.
Matthew swiveled to stretch over his opposite leg. “If you don’t like him, send them back. And if you really don’t like him, send me.” He then balanced on his butt and started Russian twists. “So, who’s the new guy?”
I sighed. Maybe it was time to just tell him everything. “Not new. Old. More than four years old, if you know what I mean.”
Matthew paused, twisted toward me. “Xavier?”
Didn’t miss a beat, my brother.
But immediately, the light in his face darkened. After last week’s conversation, Matthew had asked a few times about my interactions with Xavier. I still couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. It would break his heart that I’d been keeping secrets and hadn’t asked for his help. And it would break Sofia’s heart to realize not everyone thought the world of her beloved Xavi.
Rock, meet hard place.
“Lea told me to call him,” I fibbed. “So I sent an email to his office.”
It was a stupid lie. One that could be checked immediately. But it was the first thing I thought of at the moment.
Matthew sat up completely, slinging his arms over his knees. “Whatever happened at the Christmas party?”
I shook my head, switching my flowers from one hand to the other, bracing myself for the cross-examination. Matthew was a lawyer, after all. Before he got canned, he was actually a prosecutor. “We, um, talked.”
“Not about Sofia, I take it?”
“More the, um, ‘alone’ kind of talking. And then I left. I’ll spare you the details.”
Well, at least that was the truth. For the most part.
Matthew made a face like he’d just bitten into a lemon. “I appreciate that. And you haven’t talked to him since?”
I shrugged. “He doesn’t have my number. He sent a few emails to my work address, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say. Until now, apparently.”
Lies, lies, lies.
Why was it so damn hard to tell him the truth?
I knew why. This was my brother.
“Are you thinking you’re going to tell him about Sof?”
His dark eyes, intense and green like mine, bore into me like a drill. I could feel him waiting for me to make a mistake. Say the wrong thing. Need his rescue.
It was what he had always done for me.
The thing was…I wasn’t sure I wanted him to anymore.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I barely know him, Mattie. We had a fling almost five years ago now, and he was with someone else at the time, and then…” All of it was true. So I plunged ahead with a little white lie to round it out. After all, I wasn’t here for confession. I was here for advice. “Anyway, I just said it was nice to see him again. That was it. That was this morning. These arrived while you were out. Plus, this.”
