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I look up to find Matty watching me with a fond, crooked smile that makes me feel things. Things like the way I felt the night we slow danced in the dark and I prayed our first kiss would never end…
“Why wouldn’t he like you?” Matty murmurs. “You’re very likeable. Irresistible, some might say.”
Before I can work up the guts to ask him why he has such an easy time resisting me, then, he’s turned his back and is mopping up cat vomit. When he’s done, he closes the trunk and tosses the ruined blanket on the grass beneath a nearby tree.
“You’re not going to leave that there, are you?” I ask, following him as he circles around to the driver’s side and pulls a bottle of hand sanitizer from a storage area in the door.
“I am.” He squeezes the liquid onto his hands and rubs it in, winching slightly as it makes contact with his raw knuckles. “I can’t drive with a puke blanket in the car.”
“But that’s littering,” I say, cuddling the cat closer when he mews in agreement. “See, even Clyde knows that’s wrong.”
“Then Clyde should have kept his breakfast inside his tiny belching body and not all over his kennel,” Matty shoots back, nodding toward the backseat of the SUV. “You can sit back there with him. Maybe he won’t get sick again if you’re holding him. The windows are tinted, so if we run into someone we know on the way out of town, they won’t be able to see that you’re with me.”
I snort and shake my head. “I can’t leave town with you. I have to get home to Gram tonight.” I curse beneath my breath as I remember what else I had on my agenda that I’ve completely forgotten about in all the hubbub. “I also have a date. Like…right now. Sam is probably already at the trailhead, wondering where the heck I am.”
“And Sam is going to keep wondering,” Matty says, his tone decidedly grumpier than it was before. He opens the back door and nods inside. “Strap in. We’ve got a drive ahead of us, and I’d like to get there in time to hike to the bunker for supplies.”
My brows shoot up. “The bunker?”
“Yes, the bunker. I’m not sure how much of the food in the treehouse has expired.”
“Treehouse?” I emit a strangled yip of a laugh. “I’m sorry, but I don’t do bunkers.”
“The bunker is only for storage. I don’t sleep there.”
“I don’t do treehouses, either,” I hurry to add. “I’m more of a climate-controlled room with a soft bed, big windows, and a pretty view type of girl. I won’t even go glamping. I tried one time, but there were no windows, so when something wild and furry started rubbing up against me through the tent in the middle of the night, I couldn’t see what it was. My friend, Sissy, said it was probably a raccoon or a possum or something harmless. But are animals that carry rabiesreallyharmless? Especially if their teeth are sharp enough to pierce canvas tent material? And what if it had been a bear? We probably barely escaped with our lives, and I absolutely sustained heart damage of some kind. It literally almost beat through my chest. So, I can’t do a treehouse. Raccoons, possums, and bears can all climb trees.”
I gulp in a breath, but Matty remains unmoved by my speech. He’s still standing there, holding the door, clearly waiting for me to get my butt inside.
But maybe he doesn’t understand that, “It’s also cold, Matty. It’s late November. We could freeze to death in a treehouse.”
“We won’t freeze to death. It has walls, electricity, and a fireplace. It even has a view. You’ll be perfectly safe,” he says, pushing on before I can speak, “Much safer than if Wimpy finds you and decides to take out his frustrations with me on someone he thinks I care about.”
“Oh,” I say, studying the top of Clyde’s head as I stroke the fur behind his ears, not wanting Matty to see how much that hurt.
Someone hethinksMatty cares about…
But Matty doesn’t actually care. He cares enough not to let me die or get beaten to a bloody pulp by a crazed mobster, but not enough to date me or even call me a friend.
That hurts.
It hurts so much, I can’t look up when Matty adds, “It won’t matter that you aren’t really my girlfriend. Wimpy thinks you are and once he gets something stuck in his thick head, it stays there. Which means, until I can get back on his good side, you need to stay off his radar.”
“I have to call Gram,” I whisper. “She’ll be worried. And if you think this is going to take more than a night or two, I should call Aaron, too. See if he can take a couple days off to be with her until I get back. She’s fine on her own in the house, but she can’t drive, and I’m pretty sure we need groceries.”
“You should call Aaron,” Matty says without hesitation. “In case Wimpy figures out where you live, I’d feel better knowing your Gram has someone with her. I don’t think he’d hurt her,” he hurries to add when I look up with a no-doubt terrified expression, “but he could scare her if she spotted him walking around outside or looking through the windows. If he sees your brother in there, he’ll stay away. That’s how Wimpy got his nickname. He’s massive, but he’s a coward. He only picks on people smaller and weaker than he is.”
“I think I hate him,” I say, the words making me sad. “And I don’t hate anyone.”
“Well, if you’ve decided to start, he’s a good candidate,” Matty says, before adding in a softer voice, “and I’m not ransoming Clyde. I’m keeping the Sweetwaters from ransoming Clyde and will return him to his owner as soon as possible. I don’t believe in kidnapping. Or catnapping.”
Chest tightening, I nod. “I knew it. And I’m glad.”
“Yeah, well…” He glances up as thicker clouds roll in from the west. “We should get going. Not as much light in the evening this time of year. You can call Gram and Aaron on the way, but don’t tell them who you’re with or what’s really happening. Tell them you have to go help a sick friend out of town or something.”
“I’ll tell them it’s a work emergency, and I have to go track down a shipment of sweaters in Chicago,” I say, climbing into the SUV with the now sleeping Clyde still cradled against me. I carefully shift him to my other side as I buckle in. “It’s happened before, but I keep using the same company. They’re disorganized, but they hire actual adult workers instead of little kids to work in their factory so…”
Matty stands in the door, watching me for a beat after I’m ready to roll. “You’re a good person.”
