Maybe Matt's Miracle(44)

“You’ll be back tomorrow, right?” Paul yells to her. He’s looking a little unsettled, even more than a minute ago.

She doesn’t say anything. She just slams the door hard enough that my feet shake under me. Shit. That was awkward.

Paul sinks heavily into a chair and drops his head into his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. He looks up, and he looks so tired. I want to go to him and make him feel better, but I’m afraid I can’t.

“You should go after her,” Logan says.

Paul looks up. “That’s the last thing she needs,” he says quietly. He shakes his head. “Never mind.” He stands up. “Get back to work,” he says to all of us.

Pete opens his mouth to give him a hard time, but I cough into my fist, and he looks at me and throws up his hands. Pete’s gaze follows Friday, like he wants to go make sure she’s all right. I see him pull his phone from his pocket, and he texts really quickly. He’s probably asking Reagan to check on her. He looks up at me and nods. She’ll ensure Friday is all right.

There’s this crazy tension between Friday and Paul that no one understands, not even them. He can be such a man whore, particularly now that Kelly is seeing someone. He sleeps with just about everyone, but for the past couple of weeks or so, he hasn’t been quite as flirty with girls in the shop, and he hasn’t even been on many dates.

The bell over the door tinkles, and I look up. My heart stutters when the woman of my dreams walks through the door. Sky is outlined by the sun as she stands in front of the window, and I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight. She shifts from foot to foot and crosses her arms beneath her breasts.

“Hi,” she says quietly.

She’s wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and she looks so damn pretty that I can’t keep from grabbing her. I walk across the room and draw her against me. Her arms stay stiffly at her sides, so I lift them and put them around my neck. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I say, and I mean every word. Honestly, she just made my belly flip. I bend my head and kiss her quickly, but her lips follow mine when I start to pull back. Her mouth is soft and warm and wet, and the kiss shoots straight to my center.

My brothers start their catcalling, and I finally have to lift my head. I flip them the bird, and she steps back from me, her cheeks all rosy and pretty. She waves at my brothers. It’s a jerky, quick move, and then she buries her face in my shirt. She’s so f*cking beautiful that she steals my breath, and her blushing is absolutely adorable.

Sky grabs my shirt in her fists and jerks my gaze to hers. “Have you had lunch yet?” she asks.

I just ate, but I wouldn’t pass up a chance to sit beside her for an hour for anything. I shake my head. “Do you want to go out?”

She bites her lower lip between her teeth. “Want to go to my place?”

She avoids my gaze, and my heart does that fluttery thing again. “For lunch?”

She nods, but her cheeks go even rosier, and I have no idea what she’s thinking. I hope she’s thinking what I’m thinking, which revolves all around getting her naked and getting me inside her.

“What’s for lunch?” I ask as I shrug into my coat. I’m wondering what her plan is, or if we need to stop to pick up sandwiches or something.

She smiles. “Me,” she says quietly. Then her smile turns into a grin, and she starts for the front door. I follow like a puppy at her heels because I can’t do anything else.





Skylar



Matt trips over his own foot as we step out into the street, and I have to cover my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. He’s so damn adorable that anyone who didn’t fall in love with him would be an idiot. And I am not an idiot. At least not today. Today, I’m Matt’s girlfriend. I am not the daughter of a drug-and-alcohol-abusing mother and a cheating father. I’m done with that for today. I’m just Matt’s girl. And Matt just tripped over his own foot to get close to me.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” he asks. He draws me into his arms and nuzzles my neck. Then he pushes back and looks down at me. “Why aren’t you at work?” he asks as he threads his fingers through mine. The heat of his palm seeps into my skin and warms me unlike any other touch I have ever experienced. He looks into my eyes. “Everything okay?”

I roll my neck from side to side. I didn’t realize how much my shoulders hurt I was until I saw Matt. I wish I were one of those people who could crack their neck; it always seems like it would help so much. Matt’s hands come up to knead my shoulders from the front.

“You’re so tense,” he says, his eyebrows drawing together. “What’s up?” He has only known me for a couple of weeks, and he already can sense my moods. I’m not one hundred percent sure I like it.

“I went to see my mom today,” I admit.

His eyes narrow as he walks around my car and opens my door for me. I slide inside and he runs around the front of the car to get in the passenger seat. “How did it go?” he asks after he buckles up. He turns the radio down because I left the volume a little loud when I parked.

I sigh. “Better than I expected. But now I don’t know what to do with it all, you know?”

He nods. But the words that come out of his mouth are, “No, not really.” He waits a minute and then says, “I mean, my family has its share of problems. But there’s no one who abandoned me and then I had to reach out to in rehab, no.”