Best Friend's Brother

Chapter Twenty-Three

 I woke up when somebody jumped onto the bed. I cracked my eye open and saw Maria lying on the other side of the bed staring at the ceiling. She looked like she was waiting patiently for me to wake up. 

 It was obvious she didn't realize she'd already woken me up.

When she saw I was awake she smiled and sat up. "Good, you're awake. There's something I really want to talk to you about. And it has to be before Matt comes in here so it's perfect that you're awake because he's still asleep."

I laughed and sat up. "What do you want to know?"

"You're an author, right? Like, you don't only deal with other peoples' books but you also write your own."

"Yeah, I guess. I've written a couple of books but I mostly deal with other peoples' work. Why do you ask?"

"Well, Whitney told me about this book you wrote while you were still in high school but I wasn't able to find it no matter how hard I went looking for it."

"It's not like I wrote too many of them. Which one were you looking for?"

"See, that's the thing. Whit told me what it was about but she never told me the name of it. Really the only thing I know about it is that it's about Matt."

I swore under my breath. I knew exactly which book Maria was talking about and I wished she knew nothing about it. She was talking about one of the first books I'd ever completed and I'd published it under an assumed name so that it couldn't be tied back to me. After being bombarded with the idea of getting together with Matt since we first met, their family had corrupted my subconscious enough that I had unconsciously written a story about it. It wasn't until Whitney had pointed out who the main characters reminded her of – unfortunately Matt and myself – that I actually realized what I had written about. By that point the story was mostly completed and I didn't want to scrap the idea since it was a good story even if it was a touchy subject for me. So, instead of getting rid of the story or hiding it from the world, I had it published under a different name. It seemed like the safest road at the time since not many people that know me knew about it.

In fact, the only people I had told were Whitney and Bree. Bree hadn't told anyone about the story as far as I was aware and I thought I knew who Whitney had told about it. While I was still writing the story she had told Tess and her mom which I probably should have suspected/ She did tell them everything after all. Other than those few people I didn't think that anyone knew that I'd written the story. I was going to need to talk to Whitney about this.

"So?" Maria asked with a sparkle in her eyes. "What's it called? More importantly, what happens between you and Matt?"

"It's really not that important, Maria. It was a long time ago and it doesn't really matter anymore."

"Come on! Matt's my brother and don't you think I deserve to know the real story about what happened? I swear I won't tell anybody."

"Tell anybody what?" came a voice from the doorway.

My eyes went wide and Maria stuck her tongue out at the doorway. "Go away, Matt."

He chuckled and strode into the room. "That doesn't work, Maria. What were you two talking about?"

"Nothing," I said getting out of bed. "Nothing at all."

"Exactly," Maria said slipping off the bed on the other side. "Nothing you'd be interested in at least."

"Let me be the judge of that," Matt said slipping his hand into mine.

"It was nothing," I said giving his hand a squeeze before slipping my hand out of his and heading for the closet. "On a happier note, what do you guys want for breakfast?"