Page 31 of Matched

We fell silent as we slowly pedalled the boat across the lake, both of us lost in our own thoughts.

“Shhh,” Charlie warned me. “I don’t wanna have to explain to my housemates why I’m bringing a boy home.”

My laughter was immediately stifled by his hand clapping over my mouth. We were both a bit tipsy, and it was possible that I was a little delirious from my lack of sleep at this point. Attempting to focus myself, I did my best to tiptoe quietly through Charlie’s student house, following him up the stairs to his bedroom.

After we’d had enough of hanging out in Hyde Park, we’d come back to the LSU campus and left our bikes in his backyard because it was closest. We’d grabbed some burgers from the cafeteria, and then one thing led to another, and we’d mutually decided that burgers should be followed by beers. And more beers.

I’d come back to Charlie’s house to get my bike, but he wanted me to sober up before I rode home, so he’d invited me inside so he could feed me water and snacks, apparently. It was kind of sweet that he was looking out for me. Normally, I was the one looking out for other people.

“Here it is. You’ve seen one student room, you’ve seen them all,” Charlie announced with a sweep of his hand after he’d flipped on a lamp and closed the door firmly behind us. I glanced around me. The small bedroom was on the top floor of the house, in the eaves, so part of the ceiling was sloped. Plain magnolia walls surrounded us, decorated with a coupleof football posters and a small noticeboard, and there was a double bed pushed up against one wall with a tiny bedside table to the left. A chipped pine laminate desk piled with textbooks stood below the window, which was cracked open, letting in the cooler evening breeze. The doors of the wardrobe next to the small bookcase on the far wall were hanging at an angle, and when Charlie caught me eyeing them, he sighed. “Yeah. I’ve been meaning to get those doors fixed.”

“Nah. It adds to the aesthetic,” I told him, crossing the room to take a seat on the edge of his bed.

“If you say so.” Toeing off his trainers, he placed the pint glass of water and bags of crisps he’d brought up with us on the bedside table. “Want to watch TV or something?”

“Yeah, okay.” I took off my own trainers and shifted back to lean against the wall with my legs stretched out across the bed. Charlie handed me the water, and I downed a third of it while he was getting his laptop set up. After placing the glass down, I patted the space next to me. “Sit here.”

He laughed. “You’re inviting me to sit on my own bed? Wow, thanks, Nate. That’s so kind of you to offer.”

“Shut it, Charlie B.” I flicked his thigh, and he shot me a wounded look before retaliating with a light punch to my ribs that I wasn’t expecting. I gasped, shoving his laptop across the bed so it was out of the danger zone before I tackled him, sending us both sprawling over the mattress with me on top of him.

He stilled beneath me, and I suddenly realised just how close we were. Close, as in half of my torso was plastered against his, and I could feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest underneath mine. He blinked up at me, his ridiculously long lashes fluttering and his light eyes darkening as his pupils expanded.

“I—” Cutting himself off, he bit down on his lip.

“What?”

His lip was still tugged between his teeth, and I watched my own hand lift from where it had been braced against the mattress, my finger brushing over his mouth where he was biting down. Fuck, his lips were so fucking soft.

“Don’t do that,” I said in a low voice, and he exhaled, parting his lips slightly, sending hot breath skittering across my fingertip. I fucking shivered.Shit.

“N-Nate?” he whispered, a clear question in his tone.

“Fuck,” I said, rolling off him. My dick was half-hard, and I knew he’d noticed. Pushing myself upright, back in my original position, I grabbed one of his pillows in a futile attempt to hide my hard-on. I pointedly kept my gaze averted from him, not ready to see if he was in the same predicament I was.

The mattress dipped. “Uh. TV,” he eventually croaked out. I nodded, and after thirty-seven seconds of awkward silence—not that I was counting—we were both seated with a respectable distance between us and the laptop on a pillow on Charlie’s lap, angled towards me.

“Have you seen that BBC documentary about Glevum FC? We could watch that,” I suggested.

Charlie instantly grinned, wide and bright. “Yeah! I didn’t know it was out already.”

And just like that, everything was back to normal between us.

Or it was…for forty minutes. Forty minutes during which I relaxed so much, I was on the cusp of falling asleep right where I was, my sleepless night finally catching up with me.

Then Charlie got a text from my sister.

He shielded his phone from me, but I’d already seen her name appear on the screen. “Charlie. You don’t have to hide the fact that you’re texting my sister.”

His gaze flew to mine, and he studied me for a long moment before dropping his eyes back to his phone. “Yeah. Sorry. I dunno, I just— Uh. She wants to meet up.”

Oh. “For a date or to study?”

He chewed on his lip. “Uh…for a date. We didn’t— I invited her to go to the club with us, but you were both away in Swindon, so I said at the time that we’d do something when she got back.”

My fingers curled tightly into the duvet, bunching up the fabric, and I reminded myself to breathe. “Oh, okay. Yeah.”

“Nate. Do you want?—”

---