Page 51 of Spark
“You look like shit,” he said, his tone sympathetic. “What happened? You guys have a fight or something?”
Chris held a quick, fierce internal debate.Should I tell Matt about what happened yesterday?
It wasn’t difficult to decide. Since the age of ten, Matt had been his best friend, along with Sophie. Since he’d messed things up royally with her, Matt might be his one remaining friend.
Maybe he can tell me how to make this right.
“Or something,” he echoed. “I fucked up, Matt.”
Matt gave him a level look. “Want to talk about it over a beer?”
“Sure,” Chris replied. “I’ll tell you all about it,ifyou promise not to kick my ass.”
Matt’s lips quirked in a half-smile. “Well, we’ve always had each other's backs, right? Besides, there’s something I wanted to tell you about Sophie, too. I just need to put this away in the shed, and then I’ll meet you back at home.”
A half-hour later, they were both sitting at the kitchen island, with open bottles of beer in front of them.
“Okay, spill,” ordered Matt, after they’d each had a few sips in silence.
Chris put his bottle down on the counter. “I messed up, and I’m not proud of it,” he began, bracing himself for Matt’s reaction when he heard about what Chris had done.
Matt listened, his expression darkening steadily as Chris gave him a censored version about what had happened between him and Sophie yesterday, and how she had freaked out after he opened his stupid mouth and joked about competing with Matt.
“…if you want to go ahead and punch me, feel free,” Chris finished. Weirdly, he felt a little better for having spilled his guts. “I deserve it.”
“Yeah, you do.” Matt said, clearly pissed off. “You went ahead and fooled around with her, then hurt her feelings because you were trying to one-up me? What thefuck, Chris? You know how I feel about her!”
“I wasn’t trying to one-up you!” Chris protested.
And then, because Matt had hit a nerve with his comment about “fooling around” with Sophie, as if she didn’t mean anything to Chris, he added, “And you’ve never actuallydoneanything about your crush on her.”
“So, she didn’t mention our date? And all the kissing we did?” Matt goaded him.
“For the record, we went alotfurther yesterday than just kissing,” Chris snapped, and was instantly sorry.
He hadn’t done it with the intention of one-upping Matt, but he’d always had issues with his temper.
And wasn’t this exactly how he’d gotten in trouble with Sophie yesterday?
And here I thought that I wasn’t a slow learner, he thought angrily.
“Matt, I’m sorry,” he apologized, before Matt could respond. “I’m an idiot, and I keep being an idiot. But I didn’t mean to hurt her, I really didn’t. I just…got carried away, I guess.”
“You can’t play games with her like that,” Matt growled. “It’s not fair to her…or to me.”
“I know,” Chris said. “And I’m sorry. I just want to make it right with her, but she won’t even answer my texts. I’m afraid I’ve really fucked up our friendship. Got any advice for me?”
Matt sighed, and took a long pull from his beer before replying. “Other than groveling and sincerely apologizing to her?”
“Did that already,” Chris reported glumly. “She hasn’t replied to any of my texts, and she wouldn’t talk to me when I dropped by her place just now.”
“Well, then you’re just going to have to back off and wait,” Matt said, with cruel honesty. “It’s up to her now to either forgive you or dump your sorry ass.”
* * *
Grizzly Creek Ranch
Thursday, June 13
