Page 13 of Matched

“I didn’t mean fit as in hot. I meant like, physically fit. You know.” My hand had somehow landed back on his arm, but this time, he didn’t comment. Instead, he raised his test tube shot to mine and then tipped it to his lips. My gaze got caught on the way his throat worked as he swallowed, and my breath stuttered. I blinked several times. Fucking hell, I was drunk. Speaking of drinks… I downed my own shot and then collapsed back into the booth.

“You’re fit, too. See.”

“Huh?” I realised that Nate was squeezing my bicep, and I flexed it. “Oh, yeah. Well. I go to the gym, and I play football whenever I get a chance to scrounge up enough players. It’s hard when most of your friends are either already on the uni team or not interested in playing.” Sliding my hand down his arm, I traced my finger over the raised veins on the back of his hand. He shivered, and I cleared my throat, quickly pulling my hand away and curling my fingers around my pint glass instead. “I heard girls like those.”

“Like what?”

“Veins.”

He stared at me blearily. “Veins?”

I shrugged. “Don’t ask me. Just what I heard.”

Huffing out a soft laugh, he picked up his pint, and I found myself fixated on his throat once again. I’d never paid any attention to anyone’s throat before. Even if I was kissing a girl’s throat, it was just skin. Nate’s was…weirdly mesmerising right now.

My drunk brain was fucking strange.

“After tonight, I’m done,” I told him, forcing my brain down a safer path. “No moreMatched LSUapp.”

“I don’t blame you. If Jonas wasn’t my housemate, I’d uninstall the app and be done. But I know he’s gonna talk me into one last go.”

I lifted my drink, downing the contents to drown the sudden restless, twisting feeling. “Good luck with that.”

“Third time lucky. Or so they say.”

“Yeah. So they say.”

The rest of the night was a vague blur, but the god of test tube shots must have been smiling down on me because somehow, I ended up safely in my own bed in my student house. It felt like I’d been asleep for just a few minutes when I was rudely awoken by my phone buzzing madly across my desk.

“What,” I rasped after tapping to accept the call without checking who was on the other end, throwing my arm across my face. My head was pounding.

“Oooh, someone’s hungover.”

“Fuckoff,” I groaned as my younger brother’s gleeful voice sounded through the speaker.

“Rocky! Stop taking the piss.” My sister’s words were followed by a soft smacking sound and then a cry of outrage. Despite my hangover, I smiled, easily picturing Gem smacking the back of Rocky’s hand in warning, both of them locked in a stubborn glare-off.

Gingerly moving into a seated position, trying not to jostle my body too much, I licked my dry lips. “Um…why did you phone me so early?”

“You look like shit— Stop it, Gem! Charlie, tell her!” Rocky whined. Blinking my eyes open, I squinted down at my phone screen.

“What the fuck! A video call!” Throwing my phone down, I buried my face in my hands, drawing my knees up.

“Charlie. It’s not early. It’s almost half twelve,” Gem said.

I groaned loudly, admitting defeat as I fumbled for my phone, raising my head as I lifted it so it was level with my face. “Okay. Give me five—no, ten minutes, okay? I’ll phone you back.”

Ending the call, I dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom, bypassing the mirror as I headed straight for the shower.

Twenty minutes later, after showering and downing a pint of water with two paracetamols, I was feeling more human. Curled up on my bed, I opened the group chat with my siblings and hit the Video Call button.

“How was your date last night?” Gem said as soon as the call connected. I looked at her eager face, her brown eyes sparkling, and shook my head.

“Believe it or not, the app messed up again.”

Rocky burst out laughing, and I glared at him through the screen. He ignored my glare, leaning into his camera so I had a close-up view of his nose. “Not another bloke?”

“No, actually,” I bit out. Gritting my teeth, I steeled myself for their reaction. “It was the same one.”

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