Maybe Matt's Miracle(17)



“She probably thought you wouldn’t be home yet,” I say. “I’m on the way to keep you company. You feel like a pizza?” Teenage boys always feel like pizza.



###



I stop to order a couple of pies at Rico’s really quickly and take them with me. When I get to the apartment, I see Sky unloading the girls from the car in front of the apartment. She’s found a spot and is ushering them along. She has bags and bags of stuff in her hands.

“Need some help?” I ask.

She looks up and blows her hair from her face with an upturned breath. “Matt,” she says, but a pleasant smile tips the corners of her lips, and it’s enough to take my breath away. She has a boyfriend, *. Don’t get any ideas. “What are you doing here?”

I grin because it’s how I’m feeling inside. “Seth called me freaking out when you weren’t home,” I admit.

Her face falls. “Oh,” she says. She frowns. “Why would he do that?”

I shrug. “He was worried.”

She slams the door of the car even though there are still more bags in there.

I look through her window. “Let me help with those.”

She shakes her head. “I’ll come and get them later,” she says. “After I calm Seth down, apparently.” She looks ruefully at me. She holds up the bags. “We went shopping.”

“I can tell,” I say. I motion toward Mellie and crouch down. She climbs onto my back and holds on tightly. I stand up and swing her around the way I would my niece, and she squeals and laughs. I still have pizzas in one hand, so I set them on top of the car.

“Do me,” Joey cries, clinging to my leg.

I scoop Joey up too and spin them both in circles.

Sky laughs. “I think they like you,” she says quietly. There’s a look of longing on her face.

I jostle them both. “Yeah, they like me.” They both squeal as I spin them around again. “I mean, really,” I tease. “What’s not to like?” I arch my brow at her, joking with her like I would a woman I might be interested in. But there hasn’t been one of those in a long time.

Her face colors, and she’s so damn pretty. But she doesn’t say anything. Her eyes travel, though, from the top of my head to the tips of my feet, staying in some places longer than others. Is that interest I see in her eyes? She licks her lips and looks away.

“Careful,” I warn quietly.

She shakes her head, like she wants me to shut up. So I do. For now.

I follow her into the building with the girls still clinging to me since I’m holding on to them and the pizzas, and they’re still squealing when I walk through the door of the apartment with them.

“Look what I found,” I say loudly as we step into the kitchen. Seth spins around, his face hard, and he starts to open his mouth. I can just imagine what’s about to come out, so I cut him off. “Your Aunt Sky was nice enough to take the girls shopping this afternoon,” I say. I meet his eyes and give him a subtle warning to keep his trap shut.

He glares at me and leans around me to say to Sky, “You could have called so I wouldn’t worry.”

“I didn’t think you’d be home yet.” She glances at her watch. “I didn’t mean to worry you, Seth,” she says. She’s sincere. And knows she worried him needlessly. “I’m sorry about that,” she says quietly.

I give Seth a look, and he heaves a sigh. He walks to her and wraps her up in a weird hug like ones I’ve seen him give his mom a hundred times. He picks her up off the ground a little. “I was worried about you, too,” he explains.

She smiles, and it’s beautiful. “Thanks,” she says. “My phone is dead, too. I’ll be sure to keep a charger in my car from now on. I’m not used to having to check in.” She starts to put bags down. “I took the girls shopping for some new clothes,” she says. She looks up at Seth. “I hope that’s okay.”

He looks a little chagrined. “That teacher of theirs has been harping about their clothes for a week.”

“Girls,” she calls. “Come and show Seth what you got while I go unload the rest.”

Seth looks up at me and then down at the many bags that are scattered all over the place. “There’s more?” he asks.

I grin and swipe a hand down my face. I saw all the shit that was in the back of her car. “Lots more,” I say. Sky walks toward the door so I jerk a thumb in her direction. “I’m going to help your aunt,” I say.

He grins at me. “Helping? Is that what they’re calling it now?”

Sky is already out the door, and I really want to go with her. “She has a boyfriend,” I say.

He shakes his head. “Not anymore. He dumped her yesterday. It wasn’t pretty.”

So she doesn’t have a boyfriend? My heart leaps. Hot damn. “Did she cry a lot?”

He shakes his head. “But there was a weird discussion about orgasms, his junk, and him being selfish in bed.” He shudders. “Way more than I wanted to hear.”

“Way more than you should be repeating, too,” I warn.

He grips my shoulder. “You need all the help you can get, man,” he says, giving me a squeeze. He grins.

I flip him the bird in a way that Joey and Mellie can’t see and follow Sky into the hallway. She’s still waiting at the elevator, so I jog up to her and stop, a little breathless. I’m not sure if my lack of air is because I’m so f*cking relieved she’s unattached or the quick jog, but my bet is it’s the former. And I’m okay with that.

Tammy Falkner's Books