Sloppy Seconds Bonus Chapter 2

“Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away. This year, to save me from tears I’ll give it to someone special.”🎄🎄🎄

Dare.

Kiss.

Matt.

I dare you to kiss Matt.

No, no, no!

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

My palms started sweating and my throat went dry and the ball in the pit of my stomach was on fire, burning and searing and scorching me.

Run.

I needed to run.

But then, Matt stood up and he gave me a lopsided, goofy grin. He finished off his second cup of beer and stumbled towards me as all the curious gazes and shocked eyes disappeared into the background, fuzzy and dark.

I could only see him.

This, this was going to be our moment.

We’d kiss.

We’d declare our love for one another.

We’d finish high school.

We’d go to college together.

We’d…be together.

When he stopped in front of me, I felt it. The frigid breeze drifting in through the open back door, but I wasn’t cold. I was warm. The same way Matt’s hand was warm in the car. Not overly hot or sweaty or clammy. Comfortable, soothing, solid.

My chest felt swollen and prickly. Like after you get off a roller coaster. The high of your stomach dropping and the speed and the twists and turns and you just feel good. And you want to do it all over again.

Adrenaline. It was the adrenaline coursing through my veins.

I just…I couldn’t wait for his lips to finally touch mine.

He leaned forward before I could prepare myself and mashed his lips against the corner of my mouth.

A peck.

Barely a kiss at all.

Just a sloppy, wet, slobbering nowhere near the center of my lips.

I heard a few cheers, a whoop whoop, the sound of someone making kissy faces, a smooching noise.

I could feel my cheeks heat as Matt turned toward the small crowd gathered in the Noyes’ living room. He lifted his arms high in the air, the buzz from the alcohol clearly giving him liquid courage.

“Hell yeah!” he half-yelled, half-slurred as my head fell into my hands.

My first, sort-of real, kiss.

It was…terrible, horrible, not worth remembering. Why did it have to suck so bad?

There was nothing remotely romantic or wonderful about it. Just the gross, beer-flavored drool Matt wiped all over my face.

Nope, not my first kiss.

This will never be remembered as my first kiss.

Because it wasn’t a kiss at all.

—

I was shivering in the cold, fresh tears on my cheeks as I wrapped my jacket tighter around me. I had been sitting on the Noyes’ front porch for the last hour, humiliation and disappointment hanging overhead like menacing storm clouds. I had a good laugh, then a good cry about the whole ordeal.

Maybe I was being too hard on Matt and myself. The perfect first kiss might have been a little out of reach.

Is anyone’s first kiss mind-blowing?

I have yet to hear anyone say it is.

I wiped my eyes as I heard the front door open. Matt tripped out. “Woah,” he said a little too loud before giggling. “Jen, where you been, man?”

“Out here,” I waved a hand through the air as if I really would have been anywhere else.

“Why?” he scrunched his face. “It’s cold.”

When he finally looked at me, saw that I was devastated, he let out a ragged breath. “I’m sorry, Jen.”

I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. Matt sat down beside me and slid his arm over my shoulders. “That was a pretty terrible first kiss, wasn’t it?”

I gave him a small smile. “I had been thinking about it for so long.” So, so long, Matt. Dreaming, imagining, hoping. That it would be the kiss that would ruin me.

But it didn’t.

“Me too.”

I wanted to ask him if he had been thinking about his first kiss, or the first kiss he would share with me. But I didn’t. Because I was too afraid to hear the answer.

“Maybe we can try again someday,” Matt mused as he looked up at the dark sky.

“I’d like that.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Matt burped before he ran a hand over his stomach. “I think I’m drunk, Jen. Am I drunk right now?”

I chuckled beside him and stood. When I turned to offer him my hand, Kyle was standing in the open doorway. I couldn’t read the stony expression on his face, but I wondered how much of our conversation he had overheard.

“Oh shit,” Matt said as he raced towards the dead bushes in the Noyes’ front yard and puked. He always did have a weak stomach.

Kyle sauntered towards me and stopped when he reached my side. “You done partying for the night?”

I turned to face him and saw that he was already looking at me. His chocolatey brown eyes stormy, murky, electrifying. “Yeah.”

Kyle walked over to his brother and patted him on the back. “You good?”

“No,” Matt whined dramatically, “I am not good.”

Kyle smirked. “Let’s get you home then.”

Matt wrapped his arm around his brother and I watched as they walked to the car together, Matt complaining and Kyle laughing.

At the time I didn’t know it, but it was the last time they acted like real brothers. Who cared about each other. Who laughed and joked. Who fought and protected each other.

Because what happened the next day, at our annual Christmas Eve brunch at Cedar Ridge Lodge, changed everything.

They were brothers one day and mortal enemies the next.

—

“Jenny Marie Kearns!” Mom yelled at the top of her lungs.

“Coming!” I returned as I raced down the stairs in a pair of jeans and the ugly Christmas sweater Mom had picked up at the outlet mall for me. It was red with a furry kitten on it. It definitely wasn’t as ugly as Dad’s. We both looked at each other and laughed as he hit the Press Me button his sweater and Rudolph’s behind started dancing to ‘Rocking Around the Christmas Tree’.

Mom rolled her eyes as she walked past us with her purse in hand. “We’re going to be late, you two.”

As I stared at her ugly Christmas sweater, I couldn’t help the snort that came out. It was white with a red print of a deer on it. “That’s not ugly.”

“This is as ugly as I’m getting,” she informed me. “I never agreed to this ridiculous tradition. It was all Randy and Dad’s idea. A horrible one, if you ask me.”

“But–” I started to argue.

“No,” Mom pointed her finger at me. “Let’s go.”

Dad’s hand rested on my shoulder as we watched Mom slip into her boots and grab her jacket. Everything she did was elegant and graceful. We should have known she’d never agree to look anything less than her best while leaving the house.

It’s a trait I equally loved and abhorred about her.

Cedar Ridge Lodge was always booked every Christmas Eve morning. It was the place to brunch on the mountain and, thankfully, Randy and Diane always made reservations months in advance so we always had the best spot. A large mahogany table right by the window, the snowy view of the valley below breathtaking.

I sat across from Matt, who was clearly nursing a hangover. Or what looked to be a hangover. He had his hands in his head and I heard a groan as I slammed my purse down on the table, watching as he flinched.

“Jesus, Jen,” he muttered. “Why are you so loud?”

“I’m not!” I shouted at him, enjoying the way his face cringed at the sound.

I felt a soft breeze and heard a chuckle as the seat beside me scraped along the tiled floor. Kyle popped down beside me and eyed his brother, amused. “I’m sorry, Jenny,” Kyle winked at me, “I didn’t hear what you said.”

I turned in my seat to face him and sucked in a deep breath before bellowing, “I’m not being loud!”

We both looked over at Matt who was pretending to bang his head on the table.

“Jenny Marie Kearns,” Mom huffed as she sat at the other end of the table. “Stop shouting. The whole dining area can hear you.”

“What was that, Lainey?” Kyle hollered.

I threw my head back and laughed. Dad appeared moments later, handed me a mug of hot chocolate and kissed the top of my head. “Let the boy eat his breakfast in peace.”

“But Dad,” I whined, “where’s the fun in that?”

Breakfast went smoothly after that. While Matt chewed on toast, I picked at the sausage, veggie and cheese egg scrambler Mom insisted I have. Really, I just wanted a Pop Tart.

After a coffee and hot chocolate refill, we sat around talking about all sorts of things. Randy’s job and Mom’s jewelry store and Kyle’s college perspectives and my average grades and Matt landing a position on the Varsity basketball team.

“Do you remember that away game last year,” Randy piped up and asked Matt.

Matt tired to sit up straighter, tried to hide the tiredness in his face and the pounding in his head. “Yeah.”

“That was an awesome game,” Randy mused. “I just wish Diane had been there to see it.”

It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. Kyle visibly stiffened beside me, Matt lowered his head and Diane began fidgeting with her empty glass.

“Yeah, Mom,” Kyle smirked, “too bad you had to miss such an important game. Why was that again?”

Diane took a deep breath. “I had a case. You know this Kyle. It’s not worth going back over again.”

“Coach said I should have a pretty good first year on the Varsity team,” Matt tried changing the subject.

“But will you ever have a game as good as the one Mom made us miss?”

I looked from Kyle to Matt and watched as an unspoken challenge flared up between them. I had no idea what was going on, but I saw it. The crack, the tiny fracture in their otherwise solid relationship.

“Just shut the fuck up, Kyle,” Matt gritted through his teeth.

Randy cleared his throat. “That’s enough. Both of you.”

Kyle shoved his chair back and took off across the dining area, disappearing from the table. Matt scratched the top of his head before doing the same and chasing after his older brother.

“So,” Diane began, looking from Mom to Dad, “what did you guys get the grandkids for Christmas this year?”

I sat there for a few minutes, hoping Matt would come back. That whatever he and Kyle were arguing over wasn’t a big deal and they’d be fine.

But I knew I was missing something. No one had ever brought up that game before. No one had ever mentioned that Diane had missed it. And maybe Kyle, too?

Why? Why did they miss the game? What case took precedent over Matt’s basketball game?

Deciding it had been long enough, I excused myself quietly from the table and hurried through the dining room, far away from the long table in the corner and through the happily smiling families and friends and neighbors gathered around the smaller tables, the smell of Christmas wafting through the air–pine and evergreen and cinnamon.

It was cold. So cold outside. The snow had fallen all night, collecting a foot and a half of white flakes all over the trees and roads and buildings. The brilliant blue sky had appeared the moment dawn arose and it was a beautiful contrast. Blinding white and stunning cobalt.

But it was the two of them. Kyle in black and Matt in white, neither in ugly Christmas sweaters like me, that really stood out. Matt had his hands out in front of him, the side of his fingers on one hand slamming into the palm of his other hand while he shouted at Kyle.

“One fucking holiday,” he seethed. “You had to bring it up? Why?”

Kyle shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark wash jeans. “You know why.”

“Can’t you just be happy? Why do you have to ruin everything?” Matt ran his hands through his hair. “You’re almost out of here. You’ll be away at college soon. Can’t you just be happy for once?”

“Like you?” Kyle retorted. “Like how happy you are because you pretend everything’s fine and nothing’s ever wrong? Who the fuck wants to live like that?”

“I was fucking there!” Matt fumed. “I had to take care of her! You don’t think that messed with my head?”

Kyle took a step back. “How do you think I feel? What about the guilt that I have?”

“Suck it the fuck up,” Matt punched his arm.

That was the moment I interrupted. “Hey!” I yelled.

Both brothers, one’s eyes the color of hot chocolate and the other hazelnut, looked in my direction.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I walked up and stood between them. I turned my back to Kyle and looked up at Matt.

“Nothing you’d understand, Jen,” he closed his eye briefly before they flickered to Kyle. “Grow the fuck up or I’m done with you.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “I have better places to be today. You can tell Mom that I don’t want to spend another fucking holiday pretending to be happy for her.”

He brushed past us and bolted to his car. I watched Matt watch his brother leave. His breath was coming out in huffs so I reached out a hand and laid on his chest.

“Matt.”

The moment his eyes slid to mine, I could see the flash of hurt melting into anger. Anger. He was angry at his brother.

“I’m fucking done with him, Jen,” he almost cried. “He’s so selfish.”

My hand found his arm next as I stepped closer. “Why is he selfish?”

Matt opened his mouth, then closed it. “I can’t tell you why. It’s just…he can’t let things go. Doesn’t know how to move on. Can’t even pretend things are fine–normal–for one holiday.”

I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but I knew whatever was going on, it had something to do with that unstable foundation in the Thompsons’ home.

“Is your head still hurting?” I asked as I brushed a fallen piece of golden brown hair from his forehead.

He looked down at me, a bolt of something soft and velvety coiled its way around my heart. I wanted to ask him if we could try it again. If we could kiss–really kiss again.

But the words he said next made me wonder if he even remembered the night before. “You’re a good friend, Jen. I don’t know what I would do without your friendship.”

My shoulders fell, just a little, a tiny millimeter. Friendship. It always came down to friendship with him, didn’t it?

I wasn’t willing to risk our friendship. Not now that he and Kyle were at odds.

“You and Kyle will be fine,” I hitched a shoulder and tilted my head. “You always are.”

“Not this time, Jen,” he said sadly. “I don’t think we’ll ever be close again. I wish I could explain, but it’s not really my story to tell.”

“It’s fine,” I shrugged off. “Let’s go back inside and have some hot chocolate.”

The corner of his lips tugged up as he reached into his back pocket. He produced a tiny green wrapped paper with a small red bow on top. “Merry Christmas, Jen.”

I tore the little package open. Inside was a necklace. A small orange basketball with a charm attached, the number 23 engraved into it.

“It’s MJ’s and I’s jersey number,” he explained as I fingered the tiny gold charm delicately.

“I love it,” I whispered before handing it to him and pulling my long, blond hair to the side as I turned my back to him.

His arms moved over my head before the necklace found its way around my throat and his fingers tickled the back of my neck as he clasped it together, his touch both comfortable and completely foreign as it lingered a few seconds too long.

No words were spoken as we made our way back to the lodge.

Friendship.

I don’t want to ruin our friendship.

And I don’t think he wants to either.

We sat across from each other the rest of that morning, drinking hot chocolate and talking about how cool it was that Matt got to pick his jersey number.

As we parted ways, Matt wrapped me in a warm embrace before kissing the side of my head. I watched him go, the feel of his lips lingering on my face as he climbed into his mother’s SUV.

“Merry Christmas, Matt,” I breathed out lowly.

I didn’t get him a Christmas that year, but I knew I had given him the only real present I could offer.

My heart.