Everywhere, Everything. ★ STURNIOLO TRIPLETS

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I'd thought about what it would be like to kiss Matt more often than a sane person should, but no amount of daydreaming compared to the real thing.

Our lips moved in tandem, finding a rhythm immediately. Every other kiss I had in my life was feverish and haphazard, like we were blindly groping each other's faces or bodies trying to feel something that wasn't there. But this - this was kissing.

Matt's tongue dragged slowly against my bottom lip and I pushed my mouth harder into his to smother the whimper threatening to escape me. I felt him restrain himself by cupping the back of my neck and pulling me closer until there was no telling where his body started and mine ended.

I don't know who pulled away first, but by the time our lips parted my head was fuzzy and warm and all I could register was the spread of his fingers higher up on my waist and the heat of his labored breath on my cheek.

"Oh," I breathed, pressing my forehead to his.

"Yeah," he tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, "that was -"

"Shh..." I covered his mouth again, the last bit of dreaminess leaving my brain, remembering we weren't alone.

I pulled back the sheet revealing Nick and Chris sleeping soundly across from us. Thank God.

Matt was looking up at me with an expression so complicated I felt heat rush to my ears. For once, I didn't want to try and decipher the look, I just wanted to revel in the fact that I'd done something I told myself I wouldn't and it felt good. Better than good. It felt right.

Nerves fluttered low in my belly when he began tracing shapes along my spine.

"I love the way I feel when I'm with you," Matt whispered, his fingers went still halfway through drawing the swirl on my back.

My eyes fully adjusted to the dark and I could vaguely make out a thin line trailing between his brows. I touched the crease and his face relaxed. Of all of the things anyone has ever said to me, never has it been so kind. The words replayed in my head making my chest constrict.

I chewed on my bottom lip.

Matt started to apologize but I shook my head and cut him off by pressing my lips to his for a second time. The kiss was short and delicate but said everything I couldn't put into words. He tilted my chin down with his thumb till our eyes were level.

"I'll take that as you feel the same," he muttered.

I nodded.

The rest of the night went by in soft touches beneath sheets, featherlight kisses - and some not so PG thoughts that I kept to myself. I fought with sleep for a bit after Matt had started snoring softly, not ready for the night to end. Eventually, the steady rise of his chest beneath my head was all I focused on as my eyes drifted closed.

⎯

Waking up like this was something I could get used to. Dribbles of morning light lit the white windowsill and cascaded over the edge onto the protruding air conditioner which hummed lethargically. Mine and Matt's bodies had come apart in the night, but our legs remained tangled in the sheets and his face was only inches from my pillow.

The memory of his lips planting airy kisses on the corners of my mouth before taking my face in his hands and pulling my bottom lip between his teeth sent a sensation from my toes up to my belly. I nuzzled in closer to him. Last night had been everything I dreamed of and more. There was only a pinprick of guilt gnawing at my insides as I peered across the room at Chris.

He lied with his face half in his pillow, his lips parted, breathing quietly. I hadn't considered how last night's occurrences would affect him, partially because I didn't think they'd ever actually happen, but mostly because I suppose a part of me wasn't sure who I'd choose if it came down to it. I felt like two different people with both Matt and Chris and simultaneously wholeheartedly like myself. It was like two sides of the same coin, you could not exist without the other.

With Chris it was as if I was holding a mirror up to myself and seeing all of the angles I was ashamed of, that resembled too much of my mother, and knowing he saw them too with zero judgement. I imagined he'd feel the same if he knew Nick had told me about Carter. That I, too, understood the allure of numbness - the seduction of suffocating out the grief with anything that vaguely resembled happiness.

I tamped down the emotion rising in my stomach by inching closer to Matt until our foreheads were nearly touching. Where Chris shined a light on the darkest crevices of myself, Matt highlighted all the good I didn't know I possessed. Since being with him, I started seeing the world from a different perspective. I was capable of being soft, of operating in a state that didn't involve survival. I could be. And that was it.

My heart turned over heavily as I kissed Matt's forehead and slipped silently out of bed and into the bathroom. My phone said it was 6:34. I took a minute to center myself before getting ready. Last night the boys and I agreed to get to Mark's before eight o'clock.

"What if he's not there?" Nick asked.

I swallowed dryly, focusing on the bumps in the ceiling's plaster. "We'll cross that bridge if we get to it."

I hoped Mark wouldn't be one of those "in the office before sunrise" kind of guys, but honestly, I didn't have the slightest clue. He very well could be the kind of person who meandered at his home office in the morning until he felt it was necessary to pop down to the firm for a couple of meetings or to read some cases because after all, he was his own boss.

I splashed cold water on my face though I knew it wouldn't help much with the purple rings that had been forming under my eyes over the last week. What were you supposed to wear when showing up on your estranged father's doorstep at 8am on a Monday morning? I'd worn my nicest pair of black jeans yesterday and all I had for tops were two graphic tees that both had holes in the neckline, a floral blouse - which I only wore for job interviews - and a loose black sweater. While contemplating how much makeup was too much, I flipped back and forth in my head about what to wear. I decided on the sweater and black jeans.

At least if things went south I'd be dressed for the occasion.

It was 7:02 when I came out of the bathroom and one of the boys' alarms was blaring. I walked over to Chris's phone on the nightstand and clicked it off. I shook his shoulder and he groaned.

"Time to wake up, sleepyhead," I said, then reached over to Matt on the other bed and did the same.

Nick sat up, leaning his back against the headboard with his eyes still closed. The back of his head was flat and a handful of strands stuck straight up like Alfalfa.

I perched on the edge of Chris and Nick's bed, grinning. "Someone slept well."

Nick opened one eye slightly before grunting. Beside him, Chris pulled the comforter over his head and mumbled, "Are you sure it's seven?"

His foot was next to me and I pinched it from outside the covers. He jumped, pulling the blanket back to glare at me. This early in the morning he was about as intimidating as a kitten.

I giggled and stood. The impending dread I'd been feeling up until last night was washed out by a wave of optimism. Maybe there was a chance that things worked out exactly as I wanted them to after all.

Or maybe I was being blinded by the fact that one risk I took paid off.

There was only one way to find out.

"Come on," I said. "Let's do this."