“Water,” I tell him and move to the kitchen.
Mathias follows, and I have to physically push his head down like a child’s bopping toy so he doesn’t smack it on the beam above the dining room doorway. He has a full Britta jug on the worktop, so I pour a glass for him.
“There’s a game on Saturday,” he says after downing the tumbler in one long swig. I fill it for him again, but he doesn’t drink it this time. He just holds it. “We get the match roster tomorrow morning, but Eksteen’s already told me he’s not playing me.”
“Oh?” I take the glass from him and we head through the living room and up the stairs. I don’t touch him during this pass, but I remain extra vigilant against surprise door frame attacks.
“Coach said I need more time to gel with the team before he plays me. Which is fair enough. I don’t even want to.”
Based on the book next to the bed and the fancy alarm clock, which looks to be one of those “wake you up gradually by mimicking the sun rising” types of contraption, I figure Mathias sleeps on the right side, so I place his glass on the cabinet there. There’s even a coaster waiting for it. I never owned a coaster in my life—beer mats, sure, but never coasters—which means he brought this from his previous home.
“Why don’t you want to play?”
We might be different in many, many ways, but deep down our core is the same. Rugby is life. Playing is life. Not playing is hell. Not getting rostered? Mega hell. Even getting rostered in numbers sixteen plus when you’re used to starting is rough.
Mathias shrugs, bites the inside corner of his lip. He’s going to tell me. I feel as though he’s on the cusp of spilling his heart, but I realise I don’t want it to happen under these circumstances. Sure, I’ve almost exclusively daydreamed about cracking Mathias Jones open like an egg and figuring him out, but he’s drunk right now, and if he ever wants to confide in me, I need it to be on his terms.
“Go pee. And brush your teeth. You probably have to be up early tomorrow,” I say.
He nods and disappears into the bathroom, and I’m alone in Mathias’s bedroom, which used to be my bedroom. It’s weird, and at the same time, not at all.
Like the study downstairs, everything is the same, except the trinkets and knickknacks . . . and the enormous telly and bedsheets are different, and it smells of Mathias. It smells like the cologne he’s wearing and his laundry powder and the very expensive-looking reed diffuser on top of the dresser.
It’s strange, like being home but not quite. Like returning to a holiday cottage you’ve rented before, or perhaps falling into a parallel universe. I want to reach out and stroke the duvet just to see how luxurious it is, to know what level of softness Mathias deems as Mathias worthy. I want to open the wardrobe doors and the drawers and see what sort of clothes he’s tucked away. Instead, I peer out of the window to The Little Thatch with all its lights still on.
I really, really want him to stay here.
“Do you need me to get anything ready for you? Do you have PJs?” I yell after another few moments of feeling absolute awkwardness.
“No.” The word is muffled, toothpaste or toothbrush in mouth. He spits. “You could grab me a T-shirt from the middle drawer—not the bottom drawer!”
Oh, damn, now I need to look in his bottom drawer. I resist the urge and grab the first piece of cloth my fingers graze from the middle drawer. It has a faded print of a toucan with the wordsPura Vidaon the front. It’s fucking adorable, and I ignore the pressing necessity to inhale the freshly washed scent of it.
Mathias returns from the bathroom with his shirt unbuttoned but still on and his trousers abandoned on the landing. His socks and shoes are nowhere to be found.
I forbid myself from looking—at any part of him—even though I’ve already seen his thighs countless times and his bare chest in that photo. But there’s something about the way his shirt hangs open . . . It’s like I’m peeking. It feels naughty. He doesn’t hide himself, and it’s almost as though he wants me to notice. Still, I exercise restraint.
“Did you look?” he asks.
Shit, he’s ontome. “Huh?”
“In the bottom drawer.”
Oh. “No, I didn’t. Scout’s honour, I swear.” I hold up three fingers. “Why, what’s in there?”
Mathias smiles and raises a disbelieving eyebrow. “Just . . . a few gadgets,” he says, and without any warning, whips his shirt off.
I tear my gaze away from him and thrust the tee out blindly. It’s wild. I’m used to being around guys much more naked than this, and I have no problem not checking them out, but with Mathias . . .
My cheeks are on fire, and we’re both painfully quiet. When I look at him again, he has his T-shirt on.
“Thanks for helping me out tonight. You saved the day. You’ll have to come over next week and do it again,” I say.
“Nuh-uh. No thanks. Once was enough.” He’s shaking his head, but smiling still, and I can’t quite work out if he means it or not. “It was really fun, though. The music round was a hit. We make a great team. Are you staying over? You can sleep in Daisy’s room.”
A million thoughts and feelings pop into my brain all at once, but of course the one I choose is to activate Dad mode. “Do you need me to stay over? Are you gonna hurl? Shall I get you Lan’s bucket?”
“I’ll be fine.” He sits heavily on the side of the mattress. “I’m a big lad. I can handle my booze. Anyway, you never told me your karaoke song. Earlier, everyone else was saying theirs, but I still don’t know yours.”
